Advice please: cost caused by seller's delay

[moniack]

Hi, I'm a first time buyer in London. BF and I had our offer accepted on a house at the beginning of Dec 2015. We were told there was no chain but the seller was very, very slow with providing legal documents (only got them by the end of Feb and still some outstanding questions). It turned out that there is not only a chain, but a very complicated one with selling two to buy one, family inheritance issues blablabla... The seller said twice that they were going to exchange but then later cancelled because their seller couldn't exchange with them that day. From what the agent told us, they missed the April 1st stamp duty deadline because of their seller's fault. They had to re-negotiate and their seller agreed to compensate for that. It seems that if we pull out now, it's going to leave them over a shit creek without a paddle. But both BF and I are really pissed off, they just assume that we are desperate and never going to change our mind so they would only exchange when it's completely safe for them, not to mention lying to us from the very beginning. We are now thinking of asking for a reduction, not a greedy one, just to cover the last two months rent, something 3k, less than 1% of the house price.

People who have sold houses before, could you be so kind to advise if it's a reasonable thing to do. We can afford to lose the house as we actually budged higher than this current house and the stamp duty thing may cool down the market a little bit now. But I don't want to create bitterness and worried they might accept and then do some damage to the house before they leave. (they seem to be quite selfish people judged from their behaviour).

Thanks again.

OP you do know that you are likely to need to pay a 10% deposit at exchange and that you will loose it if you pull out post exchange. So it's not just paying for a few things that you will lose.

To wowfudge,

Don't understand what you are trying to say here. Are you warning me the consequences of not completing? But the whole point here it they keep delaying exchanging, so we haven't exchanged.

To Bohemond,

Yes, but we haven't exchanged, that's why I'm quite annoyed of them. If we pull out after they have exchanged with their vendor and before we exchanged, they might lose 10% deposit? Never considered that, but surely we don't need to shoulder that, and if that's the case, then I'm more surprised that they want to keep us waiting.

Well then OP, don't post what you don't mean:

While you think exchanging with your vendor means 100% safety, that's based on the wrong assumption that buyers will never walk away.

I'm off - do what you want and feel comfortable with OP.

To wowfudge,

I mean buyer can walk away before exchange, so don't assume you can just let them wait to exchange until you have exchanged with your seller. We seem to be both lost here. Thank you for your time anyway.

I think you need to put on your financial head instead of your emotional head. You may feel you've been messed about / lied to / you have the moral high ground, but unless you can afford to lose the thousands that you've already incurred in survey / solicitor fees and can afford to start all over again with probably a more expensive house (with more stamp duty and more rent in the interim), you'd be mad to make demands threatening to pull out and trying to impose a unilateral "penalty" if they don't exchange before it. As this thread demonstrates, a delay is very rarely down to one individual and you risk cheesing off the vendor just because it's taking a bit longer than you want. Even if it all goes through, you risk losing any goodwill (like leaving manuals / paperwork / leaving it all clean & tidy).

To namechangedtoday15,

Yes we can afford all those. If they don't exchange we risk losing those things anyway, that's just sunk cost. Also, according to them they are going to exchange with their seller on Monday, do you think they are in the position of getting "cheesed off" with us now? (don't trust what they say, though, let down twice already) I can't see why we are mad to set a ddl, surely it can't just go forever. As for goodwill, that's my main concern otherwise I might well gezunder them for their lies and delays. And there will certainly be no good will from them if they refuse to compensate future cost after ddl, in that case we assume they have no faith in their vendor or no intention to sell, and we pull out.

There are lots of reasons for delays in this process I really think you need to relax a bit either you want this property in which case wait til they are ready to exchange or you don't in which case pull out. If you want to set a clear end date ie exchange by 15th April or we withdraw our offer you can and that's what I would do. Gazundering will probably result in them telling you to shove off as you have no grounds but you can try it. Fwiw I have bought and sold several properties people are rarely deliberately lying or delaying shit just happens. Especially in a chain with multiple agents, solicitors, buyers, sellers and mortgage companies your attitude is quite strange you can't really punish anyone you have no power other than to pull out.

OP to go back to your original post - Are you being unreasonable to ask for a reduction in purchase price because the seller lied about whether or not there was a chain and they took a long time to return paperwork:

1. No solicitor would advise exchanging on a sale without simultaneously exchanging on a purchase. If a client wishes to do this then they can, of course, but is entirely their choice to break the chain. They would be under no obligation to do this. Additional costs of moving twice and rental fees may discourage someone from doing this.

1. By all means ask for a reduction in purchase price, but bear in mind that the two opposing solicitors will have to change the contract price and issue new contracts. Also you may need to renew your mortgage offer. This will delay the transaction by a further few weeks.

1. 17 weeks is not a long time in conveyancing. The legal stuff needs to be sorted out before exchange and remember your solicitor is acting for you and your vendor's solicitor is acting for the vendor. Both solicitors have a duty to their client to procure a sale or purchase with good legal title and no outstanding issues.

1. Your solicitor couldn't start work on your purchase until he was in possession of draft contracts and legal forms completed by the vendor, together with title deeds from Land Registry. The date of the legal conveyance work starts then.

1. 17 weeks really isn't a long time. There may have been problems in getting responses to enquiries or perhaps the title deeds showed someone's name on that was not on the contract. All this needs to be satisfied with evidence, i.e. grant of probate and death certificate or marriage certificate provided. Your solicitor has to wait until these documents are provided, i.e. it comes from the vendor to their solicitor and then to your solicitor/you. All this takes time.

1. Did you have to pay for searches as required by your mortgage lender? The Local Authority search can take several weeks and your solicitor won't order them until paid for in full.

1. Your solicitor cannot report to you with all the paperwork, contract and transfer for signature until all searches and enquiries are satisfactory. If you keep asking the solicitor to raise further enquiries/queries with the vendor, this will result in further delays.

1. Being a FTB puts you in a good position as you are not selling, however please be aware that at 17 weeks in, you are likely to complete on this purchase much sooner than pulling out and purchasing a different property as you would then be starting at the beginning again. Which means more months of rental payments and the possibility that your next purchase price will be higher than the price agreed in December on this property.

So, in conclusion, yes YABU.

To Lighteningirll,

My attitude is not strange if you consider we were told no chain then got involved in all this. Gazundering will probably make them tell us to shove off? Very much doubt it if they were due to exchange with their seller very soon. If shit happens you should pay, just like their vendor would pay them. Anyway we will see what happens tomorrow. No stomach for another two weeks delay to 15th, if no exchange next week we expect to receive penalty or pull out. After all, it's not a dream house and best negotiation always happens when you are fully prepared to walk away.

To Spickle,

1. "Additional costs of moving twice and rental fees may discourage someone from doing this."

Then don't lie about the chain.

1. It takes time but at lease show they are committed to sell, rather than just dangle us.

3-7: Yes our solicitor needs documents, but it's not his fault that they arrived so slowly. Even very simple questions took them 1-2 weeks to answer, and it made me think they did that on purpose. We never added on a single question other than what the solicitor suggested.

1. Again, those are the risks they are happy to expose us to if their purchase falls through. Or we will face anyway if they just change their mind. Really don't see any commitment from them so far.

So, in conclusion, I'm not reasonable, while those who lied have done nothing wrong?

Op: in a chain, everyone exchanges at the same time, on the same day, and with an agreement for completion on the same day. That's what makes it a chain.

I do think it is reasonable to give a deadline, but go through your solicitor, not direct to the vendor. The solicitors should know, and can ask Exactky what is going on throughout the chain. They cannot be found to have lied, although they can do a line in non response.

If there is simply some paperwork hold up going on but everyone's intention is to go ahead and sell / buy (and why wouldn't it be? After all this expense and trouble?) and your solicitor does not know of any major problem anywhere in the chain then I would say hang in in there because starting again could well send you right back to the beginning, still in a buyers market.

Otherwise, if it looks problematic , pull out and buy a new build, or somewhere empty or with evidence that the vendors are not reliant on the sale for another purchase.

Bear in mind that if you do pull out as a result of a failed attempt to 'gazunder' you may well find that in this sellers market that the EA will not be keen to put you at the top of their 'favorite buyers ' list.

Actually you don't know who lied to who, or whether it was done to mislead you. Agents often get facts wrong because they phone up and down the chain to both sellers/purchasers and solicitors and try to hurry the chain along. They will tell you what you want to hear precisely so you don't pull out. They don't understand the legal work and solicitors don't have time to explain to exactly what they are waiting for. Suffice it to say, if each solicitor involved in the transaction is not ready to exchange, then exchange won't happen. It is not a case of setting deadlines, although you can express a preference for a certain date, but it is up to the solicitors to decide when they are ready, not their clients. Exchange doesn't get "cancelled". Someone was not ready.

If you really feel that they have lied, then pull out and find something else (but not leasehold if you want a quick transaction).

My last house sale/purchase took six months, just three in chain, because of boundary differences in what should have been a quick easy process. But you can't know if it will be a quick transaction until midway through the transaction.

OP - you don't seem to understand the process. You can't enforce a legally binding obligation to pay a penalty on someone when you have no contract just because you think they should pay. You're barking up the wrong tree. You can walk away if they don't exchange by a certain date but talking of a penalty is ridiculous (sorry!). You need your solicitor to properly advise you.

To namechangedtoday15,

Why it's ridiculous if they asked their not-legally-binding vendor to compensate the stamp duty loss? If we are going to walk away after the ddl and they don't want that to happen, they will have to reduce the price. What's so ridiculous about that? I' never said we can enforce that, of course, it's just negotiation.

To Spickle,

Like you said, if solicitors are ready depends on if their clients have given them the documents or not. So I can't blame the solicitors for delaying (as our solicitor has been ready long ago and is actually quite annoyed of them, too). Thank you very much about the leasehold information. We will try to avoid it when we are looking somewhere else.

To Blu,

I don't think it's gezundering if we give them a clear clause and deadline. But anyway many thanks for your advices. Will check more carefully about the chain situation if we start looking again and hopefully the market has cooled down a bit.

Because you haven't suffered a tangible loss - the argument re rent / investment opportunity is not quantifiable - there are too many unknowns. It is manifestly different to the stamp duty issue. Of course you can ask, I agree it's down to negotiation but you're the easiest part of the chain to replace, the market is much better generally now it's Spring than it was it December and as I said before, the vendor could probably put it back on the market at a higher price than he agreed with you 4 months ago without a backwards glance.

to namechangedtoday15,

The market is much better now just after the btl rush? Very much doubt it. This spring is quite different.

They can put it back on the market, assume their vendor is happy to wait for another some two months, which again I doubt because they can easily put it back on the market as well, even not at a higher price, but at least they don't have to pay the stamp duty penalty (while our seller would never find someone who would pay their stamp duty loss). So why do you think we are so easy to replace?

The logic is such: if they are desperate to get their house asap, then they have to accept what we ask. If they don't accept a set date to exchange and penalty after that, it means they have no intention to sell or no faith in their seller, therefore we won't keep waiting. I don't know what we can get from doing what some of you are implying which is basically doing nothing.

Be honest you are just being greedy the stamp duty hit has been shared between two people further up the chain and you want some. If you were in my chain I'd bump you for that you have no idea how house buying works. You came on here asking for advice you've received the same advice from everyone: chill. You won't accept it because you aren't being honest about what you want. If you intend to gazunder on spurious grounds good luck as I say I'd bump you and estate agents will avoid you like the plague oh and your solicitor will still charge you if you lose the property.

You can set a backdrop date to exchange but it needs to acknowledge what is left to be done in the chain from a legal point of view.

There's no point in demanding you exchange by Friday if searches/mortgage documents are not due to be received until next week.

Given it would appear exchange is likely today this may all be academic. However I'd suggest picking your toys up and popping them back in your cot. You may want them again.

OP - sadly you'll get no good advice or even sympathy on this thread.

The people on this thread are all mid-chainers petrified their FTBs will walk away from their chains.

Asking them to agree with you having any say in the buying process is like asking turkeys to vote for Christmas.

Which idiot said FTBs are the easiest part of the chain to replace

And interest doesn't reduce a total overall debt. There is no total overall debt owed. It is a charge for borrowing money. In the same way that rent is a charge for 'borrowing' a house. The debt owed is the capital owed.

I can only say - thank heavens you're not my accountant - it must be great, living in a hypothetical world.

Your the one living in a hypothetical world. Of total mortgage debt. There is no such quantifiable thing.

OP you think that by forcing the seller to accept a date to exchange, along with a penalty clause for the delays and lies, that they will get their house and if they don't accept, then they have no intention to sell and therefore you will pull out? Have you actually asked your solicitor to put this request forward to their solicitor? The seller's solicitor would strongly advise your sellers not to accept this. It is very doubtful that the lies and delays were totally down to them anyway, so why should they compensate you? There are various third parties involved and any number of delays with third parties can (and do) happen. That would not be the fault of your sellers.

Why don't you ask your solicitor to email you a timeline of events (if there isn't an online tracker system) so that you can see exactly what happened and when. Also, ask your solicitor or agent to find out what is still outstanding and preventing exchange.

If you had been the FTB in my chain, I would not entertain compensating you for delays. You are buying only, not selling, therefore you have to wait probably more than the others as they are co-ordinating both a sale and purchase and each party has to be ready on the same day in order for exchange to happen, whereas you have done all you can and are now sitting back waiting for the others to be ready.

Op you are bring unreasonable expecting the seller to exchange with you without the rest of the chain being ready.

If you chip the price you'll need a new mortgage offer which will delay things a,lot.

Set a,deadline of say 5pm Friday or Wednesday. That will.focus attention believe me and if it's not done you can then walk away.

Asking for a price reduction is gazundering and makes you seem petty.

Absolutely agree that you need to find out from the sellers solicitor (via your own) exactly what the outstanding issues are. Then you can take steps to resolve them eg if it's a gas or electrical certificate confirming that the seller is getting his boiler serviced/electrics checked.

They might not be lying to you, don't forget there are so many parties to communicate with each other it's really easy for information to get lost.

I think that lots of this comes down to feeling that the situation is out of control but there really is nothing you can do until all parties are ready.

Re the property being advertised as no chain, have you taken this up with your estate agent?

At the moment FTB's may not be the easiest links in the chain to replace, but they will be the quickest.

It is all very well wanting to be in the vanguard of making a stand against the tortuous system but pragmatically the OP needs to weigh up pros and cons.

This is about a difficult pragmatic situation not some ideology. How do you think it benefits 'mid chainers ' to have unnecessary delays? It doesn't!