Anyone had a seller decide they don't actually want to sell?

[feelingdeflated]

Just needing a moan really, I know there's nothing anyone can say that's going to change the situation.

We had our offer accepted on a house a month ago. Been looking for about 6 months, put offers in on a few but this was the first offer we got accepted in that time. A month after accepting the offer, the seller has decided she doesn't actually want to move after all. Solicitors been working away on stuff, mortgage application in final stages of review. It feels like it's taken us so long to get here and now we're back to square one. Feel so deflated and can't face starting house hunting again now as second baby is due quite soon. Never mind the financial implications for us.

Do people not realise how much of an effect those sort of decisions have on others? Why accept our offer and send us down this road if you're not serious about it? We've lost a whole month of looking for other potential houses. So annoyed with it all.

Yep. In about January 2010, we viewed a house twice, agreed a price with the vendor. It had been on the market for a few months. all proceeded quickly as we already fad a buyer for our house with no chain. Before exchange, seller decided that actually she didn't want to exchange for a few more months at least as her son was sitting his GCSEs and she didn't want him to be unsettled. Yet she had put the house on the market, agreed a price and allowed us to proceed! Not that these exams were not within her contemplation or anything! We sold ours as we didn't want to lose our buyer and went into temporary accommodation for six weeks before we moved into our current place. The house sold a year later for £37K less than the price we had agreed to pay for it.

This happened to us too. We were in the solicitors office waiting to exchange contracts and the first sign we knew that something was wrong was when they didn't show up.
We had paid for surveys, mortgage fees etc and given notice on our rented flat. We had spent a lot of money and nearly ended up homeless! We were both couples without dcs then so reason they pulled out wasn't to do with schooling.
About a year later we moved into a nicer house in a better area so it did work out in the end. Very annoying at the time though.

Yes. At a fairly early stage so we didn't lose much money but they pulled out whilst I was in hospital having dd1 and at the time it felt like the end of the world. We ended up moving to the other end of the country instead so maybe it was a good thing in the end