Seller pulled out, feel broken

[loveka]

Today I was meant to be waking up to a new life. We were meant to be moving 250 miles away to our dream house yesterday. It had a business attached, so it was going to be a new start for us.

Last Thursday afternoon the sellers pulled out at the moment the solicitors in our chain of 3 were actually releasing funds.

We have lost lots of money, time, effort and emotional stuff. The house was packed, removals booked and due to arrive on Monday as the move would take 2 days. My partner has given up his job. I am freelance and had turned down work worth £4k. We sold our endowment (had an endowment mortgage so had to do this to have funds on completion). We cancelled a holiday because our buyer wanted to move on a certain date, which was yesterday.

Their house was in the market for 18 months. They told us all along they would rent if they hadn't found anywhere. But they just changed their minds.

Unbelievably this happened to us just before Christmas when our buyer pulled out the day before exchange. The sellers waited for us to find a new buyer and now they have pulled out themselves.

This just wasn't just a house, it was a life change. I'm just lying in bed feeling so awful. I can't bring myself to start unpacking even. I'm just having a moan really.

God that is awful - with the benefit of hindsight you should have pushed for a month between exchange and completion to allow your other half to hand his notice when it was pretty much a done deal. Do your vendors know how this has affected you? Shitty of them.

You have my utmost sympathy.

I think you can ignore those who say 'it's for the best'. It's rather trite and most of the time utter nonsense.

It's a crap thing to happen, no wonder you are gutted.
Best of look for the future though. Chin up!

There needs to be a radical overhaul of the house selling process. It is a joke and the arseholes always win. I have sold and bought a number of times. Now I wouldn't sell and buy together. I would sell and then buy at a later date. I'm lucky I can afford to do this, but I shouldn't have to.

Thanks all. It's really nice of you all to reply.

I think it has to be overhauled. It's so unfair, and the only winners are the solicitors and surveyors.

We haven't unpacked anything yet, but we really need to start as I'm sure it's making us feel even worse.

did you end up moving to your dream home then?

This also just happened to me OP. My offer was accepted in July 2021, legal work takes place, vendor pulls out February 2022, the day of proposed exchange, a week before the planned completion date. Till today there's been no explanation given.

It's so difficult when you've metaphorically moved on in your head, not to mention the thousands you would have spent in anticipation of the finalisation.

However, you have to find a way to move in. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off and get house hunting again! You will find another amazing house, but this time you'll be so much more resilient, plus you now know the early warning signs of things going wrong.

@Starseeking the OP was in 2017! Hope all works out for you though!

Haha, I didn't realise @Perpop, I hope they got to move.

Unfortunately I'm still looking, the market is crazy at the moment, due to the desperate shortage of standard 3 bed semis coming to market where I am.

@Starseeking I feel for you. We had our offer accepted sept 2021, with exchange taking place in late feb 2022 and completion a week later, unfortunately the sellers wife passed and he decided to stay put. Understandable, but I had already mentally moved out and it’s so flipping hard finding another property on the market. We’re definitely in the same boat and it sucks

Thanks @Dolan348, I hope you find somewhere soon too; it really is rubbish. If you've already sold take comfort in the fact that you're in a strong position to make offers!

Thanks and you! Keep us updated via the thread why don’t you! All the best