Seller messing us about?

[HeadDeskk]

DH and I are trying to buy a house. We offered asking price, and the seller accepted over other offers.

We felt like we might be overpaying but were happy to do that as the seller had another property he could move into. No chain. We're chain-free too. So we thought, "Straightforward deal. Worth the money for the simple transaction."

Well.

• Three weeks later: Our survey and mortgage are sorted, our solicitor is ready to work on the contract. But the seller has not yet instructed his solicitor. Estate agents tell us the ex-spouse's name is on the title. The seller needs to use a different solicitor (the one he used with his ex to buy the house). They promise fresh details and paperwork next week.

• Four weeks. No paperwork. We say we prefer to exchange as soon as possible. They say okay but ask for a completion date in August (four months after the offer). We prefer earlier, but say we can do 1 August. They don't agree or disagree. We're told paperwork will arrive at solicitor by the end of the week.

• Five weeks. Still no paperwork. We're now told that the house title is "possessory." The new solicitor has filed for "title absolute." Estate agent says this should be granted "shortly." They say the seller is working on the property information form, which will be delivered over the weekend.

• Six weeks. No paperwork yet. Our solicitor is frustrated. After asking for an update, estate agents say the seller has decided he is "feeling vulnerable." He's decided to live in a different part of the city, as he can't afford to live in the area he wanted. He now wants to find a new home to live in before he leaves his current house. He also doesn't want to move into the flat he already owns - which is what he promised when we made the offer. We go from being a chain-free transaction to being in a chain, and the seller hasn't started looking in his new preferred area.

• Six and a half weeks. No paperwork. Our frustrated solicitor suggests we search the market for other properties, reduce our offer, or drop out completely. We hold off... for now.

• Seven weeks. We're told the seller will be looking at properties over the weekend and has a second viewing on a property on Monday.

• Eight weeks. Monday comes and goes, as does the rest of the week. No word on the property hunt. Still no paperwork. When we call estate agents for updates, they don't get back to us.

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So... this isn't normal right?

Do you think the house really is for sale? DH and I are freaking out a bit and wondering what we should do.

Start looking for somewhere else and tell the seller you're doing it

Withdraw your offer and look again.

The seller is not serious and is messing you about.

Tbh I’m surprised you’ve hung on for so long.

Start looking at other properties, tell the estate agent that you are doing so, and tell him that you will only proceed with this purchase if a strict timetable (that you set out) is adhered to.

FYI changing possessory title to absolute title can take months, and there’s no guarantee the seller can even get absolute title. You won’t be able to get a mortgage if it’s not absolute title. A serious seller would have sorted that out before putting the house on the market.

Give them a week, if you are feeling charitable, and walk away.

Super helpful thoughts - thank you, everyone.

We rang the agents again today. Turns out they had no idea that the seller hasn't submitted any paperwork. (Slamming my head into a wall here). We've been telling them exactly this for weeks... but it's like they thought we were just being melodramatic. Like they actually didn't believe the seller hadn't submitted anything - because apparently he kept saying he was working on it.

Yeah, I don't think this seller is serious. DH really likes the house, and he's having trouble emotionally moving on. But it seems like the house was never really for sale. It's just a giant pit of misfortune that's sucked up our time, money, and emotion.

House buying is stressful enough already when everyone is functioning more or less normally. But when things get weird? Nightmare.

I would walk away.
He’s had eight weeks and hasn’t even filled out the basic paperwork? He’s not serious about selling and along with the title issue this could take months longer.
You are in a strong position to make offers on other properties.

Walk away unless you really, really want this house.

Its also alarm bells that the ex is still on the deeds. This will delay things as well and if it was a shitty break up they will be petty and it will take the delays ot the next level.

An example is my colleagues wife cheated and left him. He is trying to sell the house after paying all the bills and mortgage for the last 2-3 years as she has shecked up with the new man and even though the house is above what it should be price wise and despite nicer houses selling for less in the same street, she wont take anything less as 1 of the 3 estate agents said it was worth that much. She takes days to respond to any offer that someone makes as she must be consulted as well. The house will never sell and I feel really sorry for him but getting anything done at any speed in a messy siutation may as well be forgotten about

Seriously CF Gold to let you do a survey on the house without having deed bloody absolute. I would be fuming and actually asking for compensation. I wonder if there is any grounds? He's not in the position to sell. The EA should have known this too.

I thought estate agents were supposed to confirm the house was actually the sellers to sell. We offered and had surveys done proceeded to the point of exchange and were then told that the sellers hadn't even applied for probate. My solicitor pointed out that meant they couldn't actually sell the house and said we would be billing them for all costs. It worked out well for us as they got emergency probate and exchanged three weeks later but I was left with the impression the estate agent was in deep shit for not establishing the entitlement to sell.

I do feel that if a house sale falls through without a valid reason, the party that is to blame should cover the costs the other has paid out!
It seems you need to move on, but why should you lose the money you have spent so far?
We moved at the end of last year and it was so unnecesserally stressful! We also were hardly in a chain. Had a first time buyer buying her house and the woman we were buying from said she was going to move in with a family member until she found somewhere.
Ended up that she bought a house (so we found out after her and her solicitor ignored us for two weeks!) and added five people in to the chain!!
We almost had to pull out, we had a deadline as we had to apply to schools in the new area, but we would have lost a lot of money and really wanted the house!
Thankfully we got in in time, but it was so stressful!
You definitely need to either reduce your offer or threaten to pull out. You do need to be prepared to walk away if you do this though.
It was only when we said if it wasn’t completed by X date we will be pulling out that things actually got moving.

It's not as simple as reduce your offer or walk away in this case the estate agents have marketed a house that was not legally his to sell. You have incurred costs through fraudulent advertising I'd be sending them a bill and a stiffly worded letter.

We have put in offers on two properties where probate was not complete- for example. At all times the EA was upfront about this. Soon, soon was of course said. But they didn't hide it. This EA hid things.

Just start looking for a new property and treat this episode as dead and buried. Don't even have to inform anybody - maybe just your solicitor but ask them to keep mum.

sheldon has a good point re costs!!

If your DH can't bear to give up on the house don't pull out right away- but do start viewing houses. Maybe he'll fall for another!

I had a buyer place an offer for my previous property. Strung us along for 8 weeks until it transpired that she wasn’t actually allowed to sell her house (to buy my house) as it also had her ex husbands name on the mortgage / deeds and he knew nothing about it being sold!
So she strung us along, plus whomever had placed on offer on her current house.
There’s some right time wasters out there

Update -

The seller never stopped messing about. In fact, he got even worse and dropped off the radar. Allegedly, he kept changing his mind about whether he wanted to move to central London or retire in a country house. Never seemed to bother to go looking at actual properties - though the estate agents tried very hard (but very unconvincingly) to make it sound like he was looking.

We went back to the property market, looked around for a while, and finally found another property we liked a lot. We pulled out of the bad-seller sale right after our offer was accepted on the new property.

This whole process wasted over £2000 on the survey, legal fees, and transportation fees to sort things out (ouch!) -- not to mention put us through 3+ months of emotional trauma and uncertainty.

But on the plus side, we actually love the new house more. It'll be a lovely home for our kids for many years to come... and we made sure the new seller was REALLY serious before we put in an offer.

I hope this means everything will turn out all right in the end, even though we're a bit traumatised by the whole house-buying process. The system here is cruel, unsettling, expensive, and really unnecessary.

Thank you to everyone for the stories and great advice!

Good luck with the new house!