Desperate for advice re: house sale!!

[emmabrown123]

I'll try and briefly explain our situation. Be great to know if anyone has experienced similar, or has any advice...

We are selling our house (new build, 5 years old). It was on the market for one week. We accepted the first offer which was 5k under the asking price, there were other parties interested but this chap was a cash buyer and wanted to get things through asap. We found somewhere else with no upward chain, had an offered accepted. We're hoping for a smooth transaction (ha ha ha)

Fast forward to today (8 weeks later). We have been ready to complete for a couple of weeks. Our buyer has been very difficult to get hold of and is constantly changing his story regarding what's happening. All the searches are back, no problems highlighted.

This morning I had a message from a surveyors that have apparently been instructed to do a valuation on our property. This puzzles me for many reasons

1/ he's a cash buyer and doesn't need a mortgage
2/ if he wanted this doing why has he waited 8 weeks into the process and the week before we were meant to complete to do this?

We now can't get the surveyor he has instructed to do a valuation until 20th June (pencilled in moving date was 24th June)

My gut feeling is that he is either trying to delay things, or get more money off our property.

It's got to the stage that we would lose so much money (plus the property we are buying) that it would be pretty much impossible for us to afford to put it back on the market again and pay another lot of solicitors fees. We have spent all our savings we had and I am 31 weeks pregnant and going on Mat leave in 4 weeks.

Has he got us over a barrel? I suspect he knows what we'll lose if we pull out (he's an estate agent and experienced investment buyer).

I'm so stressed about this whole situation. Any advice or experience would be great.

It sounds to me that he has decided he doesn't want to pay cash, or now hasn't got the cash, so needs a mortgage as well.

what does your EA say about him - has he shown them evidence that he is a cash buyer & what about your solicitor?

Sounds a bit like what's happening to me, I'm in rented and thought I was buying a house with no chain. Turns out my sellers are selling 2 houses at the same time! I was ready to exchange 2 weeks ago now I'm waiting for the buyer of the other house to get a valuation next week.
I keep emailing solicitors and the owner to see what's happening but I just get fobbed off - I'm stuck and the solicitors has all my money in the client account ready to exchange.
So frustrating ...

I thought that too.
Would he have to have mentioned that to the estate agent by now?

Even cash buyers would normally get a survey done to protect their money - with it being a new build though, I assume that there is at least 5 years of the guarantee left?

You're not in the NW are you? I had a similar scenario with two family members, one an estate agent and the other a solicitor. They pulled out very late in proceedings, I'm sorry to say, after stringing us along for months. Have you exchanged contracts yet?

If you are using an estate agent to sell your property, can they do the chasing for you?

Have you exchanged contracts?

Estate agents have had previous dealings with him - putting in low offers. But this is the first house our estate agent has actually sold to him.

He has shown evidence of being able to pay for our house (2 or 3 times over) in cash.

Haven't exchanged contracts yet.

Our EA is chasing as much as possible. He will only communicate via email though. She seems very frustrated by the situation when we speak to her, but i do wonder what she is saying to him and whether she is just pandering to him!!

We're in the Midlands X

And yes we have 5 years left on our NHBC warranty.

It's not even that he wants the survey, it's that they literally waited until the last minute to ask for it!!

The EA may very well be frustrated as it's not pleasant when a member of your own profession is a prat!

Ask your solicitor to clarify with his solicitor what his position is and when he expects to be ready to exchange after the valuation survey has been carried out. Ask them to find out if he has instructed searches yet.

The solicitors are the ones who know what is actually going on and where things are up to. I suspect he didn't want to incur costs until you were well along with your purchase.

We've had all the local searches back on our property. And they were all fine. He doesn't want anymore searches just a valuation now.

Just as an aside. If this all does go tits up, and we did put it back on the market would we have a reapply for searches etc again for a new buyer? Or could we use the existing ones we have just had done?

Have you paid for searches on your own house for the buyer? That's very unusual.

Oh no, course we haven't! Sorry I'm being stupid!!

We will have paid for the searches on our new house won't we?!! How long will they remain relevant for?

I think it's three months max. You really need to contact your solicitor and find out where things are up to and whether your buyer has instructed searches. I'd say that was doubtful if he's only just arranging a survey.

When did you get your mortgage offer?

Like I stated earlier - if he is a cash buyer he probably doesn't want any outlay before he knows your purchase is at a certain point.

He has instructed searches. They all came back 2 weeks ago. Mortgage offer has been in place for 6 weeks now. We are literally at the point of exchanging contracts and planned to do that this week.

I totally understand if he wants to protect his money but to just think of doing it at this late stage seems crazy.

We had arranged a provisional moving date with him and the person we are buying off. It just seems to have come of nowhere!

Sounds like bullshit. He doesn't need a valuation if he is a cash buyer.

Are you prepared to play hardball and pull our and go back on the market?

Get the EA to call him and ask him what the hold up is. Stress you are ready to exchange and ar considering going back to market if his position has changed. Then say he has 1 week to exchange or it goes back on the market.

Sorry this has happened to you. Seasoned house sellers and buyers will all have experienced this type of behaviour at some time.
Unfortunately you have two choices ; to stick with it and hope the buyer doesn't disappear, or want further reductions, or call his bluff and demand exchange.
When we have bought with cash we have always had a survey, but private surveyors usually do the job within a couple of days. They don't have the constraints of building societies. It sounds like he needs to get a mortgage.

We wasted 8 weeks with a similar situation before Christmas. We didn't spot the devious time waster early enough. When we did we pulled out of the sale.

When I put my property on the market I accepted an offer from a cash buyer over a slightly higer one. He then proceeded to muck about, didn't provide the proof of funding, talked about now getting a mortgage, and then got abusive to the estate agent so I fucked him off and the house went back on the market. Went for an offer from a chain free FTB with a decision in principle instead.

Totally reinforced my notion that cash buyers are inherently dodge!

Okay - so it's just the valuation to go. Does your EA know the surveyor's reputation?

I did the same mistake as you did.I chose cash buyer when i try to sold my flat the reason for this is same as yours (easy completion) then he started making all sorts of things.I lost that buyer and went through another buyer with mortgage.Cash buyers may not work out for everyone.

No - EA says he's using them because he's used them before. We have come back to say a two week wait for a valuation is unacceptable. We managed to get ours done in 5 days. We've asked him to find another surveyor.

It'll probably take him 3 days to respond and another week to do that though