House purchase, Brexit, help pleaseeee, should we pull out?

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I am hoping to get some perspective / MN wisdom rubbing off me..

We had an offer accepted and post survey agreed a price and over the last month had repeatedly tried to request for a visit to walk boundaries and to check a few niggles before agreeing on an exchange date..however, sellers were adamant they will not allow access until exchange happens..
It went on like that for a month and purely with the intention of breaking the impasse, we took the step to say : ok, we will forego the request for access and talk of an exchange date .. Nothing has progressed as such..Nothing signed, no monies exchanged

And now comes the Brexit shocker !!
The fact is that the area we are buying in has seen a bubble and the very road has seen 20% rise over the last 2 years and an identical house next door in identical condition (with a slightly bigger garden) sold for 25% less than the price we are paying, 2.5 years ago.

We went at the asking price. At that point (Apr 16), hadn't considered Brexit. we are planning to do works worth of 15% of the price.
It is not our forever house. We will be selling in 4-5 yrs.

From all the data, it looks like we will be buying at what would be a peak.
I am getting very nervous now about a crash and after spending a significant amount on the property, if we will be in negative equity, in 4-5 years time..!!!

Should we pull out?

Please help me to get some perspective here..

i'd communicate very clearly through the solicitor that either they allow access to check the boundaries or you pull out. If they say no, pull out immediately.

If they let you back in, then you can check the boundaries and use the visit to help you think again about whether you want to buy it. It may be that there is a problem with the boundaries that you will want to run walk away from.

Brexit or no brexit, pull out. They are not to be trusted.

They sound very strange. Do you really want to do business with them? I'd be wondering where they're hiding.

Thanks everyone, for taking the time to respond.
I have emailed the EA a few mins ago, saying that though we are ready with deposit and solicitor stuff, we will not proceed unless we are given access.

Phew..it took me a long while to do that..and even longer to convince DH to agree to it.

The Q still remains of if we should be spending 15% on this property: which btw we offered the asking price, in pre-Brexit market conditions, given that we will be selling in 5 yrs time..

To me, it seems unlikely that we will be able to recover the 15% spend, even though the house will become much nicer (not bigger though). DH feels that it is a home (albeit not a forever one) and we have to look at it that way and "hope" that we won't incur a loss. His other point is that we won't get good deals on mortgages if we were to look a few months from now.

My interpretation of DH's words is more as: "I am tired of this process. we have been searching for an year, we have come so ahead with this one, lets complete it whatever it takes and hope it will all turn out ok."

Interest rates will only go up if Sterling goes down so far that the government has to put up int rates to protect the pound.
The reality of the situation will only become clear in the next few months.

You lot seem really clued up. I'm in a similar position but it's a leasehold flat I'm buying. No chain either side and no mortgage.

Seller slow - their solicitor is particularly slow on the issue of potential major works - I'm wondering whether I should pull out. Seller and agent badgering me to complete.

This is a property I want to keep for about 10 years and it's a BTL (no I'm not at all wealthy, but I need to invest my divorce settlement) and the rent would allow me to recoup the income I lost having to go part time (long, not very nice divorce story) and look after my ds now I'm a lone parent.

Any ideas - half of me says it's always rentable as we still have a housing shortage and I'm in it for the long term. The other half says brexit will mean i'll lose everything and I'd better off keeping the cash under the bed.

I could use the fact that they've been reluctant to give me information on the major works (which would at least allow me to renogiate the price) . I would lose about £1.5k in pulling out -but better lose that than everything?

Thanks everyone for taking the time to respond.
Eventually, we were allowed access once before exchange, but with the condition that we will not bring anyone else other than the two of us (DH and me). And we agreed to that.

Strangely, during the visit we couldn't see much about the wall situation with the neighbouring property, which was our main concern (The neighbouring property has had a garage constructed in 1998 and our house had a wraparound extension built in 1972 and our concern was if the two walls were touching each other). There is no direct window on the first floor nor was there any way we could have climbed somewhere to assess it.

Subsequently, we exchanged last week and are due to complete next week. And then we were finally allowed to bring an architect/builder (the pre-cond was we should exchange) and over the weekend when we went with the architect, the fence had fallen off and we finally got to see the wall situation with the neighbouring property. And my heart sank, TBH !! You can't see a ray of light even through the two walls. So, most likely they are touching. More worryingly, the architect pointed out cracks in the wraparound extension in our property with the possible explanation of if the neighbour's wall is indeed touching and if they hadn't had adequate foundation for that, it is likely that our extension could be structurally compromised.

Oh, poochiepants, your words sound prophetic to me,
plans v reality of the walls situation? Plans can be ignored.....

I had seen the plans of the neighbour's garage extension and what is standing there is quite different to what I saw in the plan.
We have an absolutely useless solicitor; I had raised this with her so many many times and she didn't help us with any advice/direction.

Hoping to talk to the building regs officer tomorrow to understand if those (neighbour's) plans were signed off; Fingers crossed.

I suppose there is very little we can do about it now
Though we are ok with it, we are worried that it will be regarded as a link detached house by a future buyer when we go to sell it.

You need to speak to a competent solicitor - the 'don't bring a professional' before exchange was something to hide.

I think you should go and get advice on this , see if you can speak to a more senior solicitor and explain what has happened , as the vendor seems to have breached laws here see what could be done about being able to have your exchange nullified , it may not be too late

You need to speak to a competent solicitor - the 'don't bring a professional' before exchange was something to hide.

Agreed. Hindsight is 20/20 eh?

This sounds like a bad situation :-( hope it works out.