Buyers pulled out when we were expecting an exchange

[Happybunny1234]

We got an offer on our property a day after it’s gone on the market at full market price. We were excited and couldn’t quite believe it. The buyers were going to complete on their own property within a month, they are expecting a baby and they just missed out on a property in our road so all looked very positive. 2 weeks later we found the house we wanted and placed an offer which was accepted.

Everything has been going great for almost 2 months, our buyers came to our property one more time a month ago and then their mortgage was approved 10 days ago. We booked a survey on the new house for tomorrow and Bam! the bomb came today that our buyers have pulled out! To everyone’s shock. To say that we are desperately sad and devastated it’s an understatement. We have been clearing our house and packet half of our stuff as we were told we should expect a date for exchanging contracts soon.

Anyone has been in this situation? We are a bit lost. Our sellers have kindly accepted not to put their property back on the market for another 4 weeks (no chain on their side) and we are going ahead with the survey tomorrow which is going to cost us just under £700. If we cancel it we will lose 50% of the money. We are cash buyers so no mortgage is involved but we are just devastated.

Not ‘stalkers’ but sellers

@Happybunny1234 thank you for your good wishes and I hope your move actually gets going again soon. I'm glad you are feeling a bit better about it all today. At least we are still in the right season for selling, as Spring / early Summer seems to be the best time. It's so stressful even so! Have you got a load of boxes to unpack now?

I really feel for you. Unfortunately, that's the English house sale environment. I think this happened on most of the houses we've sold. We really need to change the system.

Fingers crossed a fab new cash buyer comes along and offers you the asking price.

Yup happened to me too except my seller pulled out the day before exchange. My DS and I were moving cities so the seller pulling out (after I had paid for the survey and solicitors fees plus the extortionate local searches) stopped all our plans in their tracks. Still gutted weeks later.

Thanks everyone x

@Trippedupagain we haven’t yet packed away the essentials (we were just discussing it with my DH right before the call came ) and we decided to hire a garage located about 5 mins walk from our property where we are going to store all our boxes until we move. It’s obviously an extra cost but at least we won’t be tripping over our stuff anymore.

@JonestheRemail makes me physically sick hearing that things like that can happen.

Just don’t understand why there is no protection for buyers/sellers in a country like UK. It baffles me. There is so much time and money wasted in the process for so many parties involved in the chain, can’t believe there isn’t a better way of dealing with it.

Happybunny, a garage for storage sounds a very good idea to me - whatever is going to help keep you sane through this! I agree that the system needs some changes. It especially annoys me when some buyers pull out at the last minute and fully know what they are doing, just being indecisive or whatever they are (why do people do it? I really don't understand!) totally using the weaknesses of the system to their advantage with no care for anyone else and not being held to account in any way.

Our buyers buyer pulled out on day of exchange

Massively stressful, I had to pull out of buying the house I had just had a survey done on, I was fuming but could do nothing about it obviously

Luckily we found a cash buyer very quickly afterwards, and I ended up buying a nicer house across the road from the one I lost! So all good in the end

Mr Jolly, that's a nice ending to all that stress - nice to hear it worked out well in the end. Got to stay optimistic.

@MrJollyLivesNextDoor nice to hear that, congrats! It all works out in the end I guess

Sending positive vibes to you happybunny I’m still reeling that this system of selling and buying is so unjust!

We’ve had 2 viewings since our flat went on RM Tuesday, no offers and the sellers of the house we wanted to buy contacted me today to say they would wait 4 weeks before they re market thier property, they also said they would reduce the price 15k.

I hope you (and me) find a buyer soon and sorry to hear of your miscarriage.

Similar happened to my sister, but it was the person 2 steps down who pulled out (so their buyers buyer) they had offered on a vacant property that had been on the market a while and they agreed to wait a while. Thankfully it all came together in the end but worrying time.

The English system is so fraught.

Wishing you all the best

@moonrises glad to hear it all had a happy ending, our flat is vacant too. 😫

My friend was in the process of buying a house from a man on his own. He pulled out just before exchange so they had spent quite a bit of money. It worked out well for them in the end as they quickly found a better house just round the corner. When they told the vendor they had originally looked at the first house she said ‘oh, surely he’s not done it again?’ Apparently it was an annual event which he had done for the past five years. He must have wasted thousands of pounds of other people’s money. So wrong. There really should be some legal come-back.

@Ellieboolou27 thank you very much and same to you. Let’s hope it works out well for us both .

Glad you have 4 weeks from your sellers and you had some viewings, you never know. Great about the price reduction too!

We had no viewings since it went back on the market on Tue. Strange, as we had quite a few people coming in the first 2 days last time round. We had our survey done yesterday and our sellers have also agreed not to put the property back on the market for about 4 weeks. Fingers crossed we get something positive in the meantime.