Has anyone successfully pursued costs incurred for failure to complete?

[KatnissMellark]

Our buyers failed to complete on purchase of our property over a year ago (it completed the following week, and date had been agreed at exchange of contracts over a week prior) resulting in storage, redelivery and sundry costs. We've been trying to claim these since and now a date has been set for a hearing at small claims court. It's all been funded through legal cover via house insurance so far but I'm wondering how likely we are to be successful and if anyone has gone through similar before?

Honestly? Let it go - why are you bothering with this? I'm actually surprised that your house insurance are prepared to cover this. Life's too short, in my opinion.

@DaphneduM what an unhelpful response.

Why should the OP let it go when the sellers caused her much stress and significant costs!

Sorry OP no advice as thankfully never been in that position but good luck with your case.

When I saw the title I thought of a chain collapsing and trying to recover costs from this. This happened to us and we incurred costs of around £2500 which I know we’ll never get back. Even now we are in a new chain and don’t know if it will complete and have already sunk a lot of money into the process..
I know your situation is different but I agree with the previous poster, I would let it go..
Be glad that the transaction did go through in the end.

Yes we used a conveyancing solicitor who drew it all up properly, served notice to complete etc and have presented evidence of this to the court.

Costs were in the region of £2k which is why we haven't just 'let it go'. These were minimised as far as possible and are all evidenced by receipts/invoices.

Watch "Frozen", annoying as it is.

Should be very straight forward. You have a contract and they breached it. If you hadn't gone ahead they would have forfeited their deposit

I work for conveyancing solicitors and have never seen this being pursued never mind be successful. And a week is a short time for a delay. Most people buying or selling almost presume that there will be a delay of some kind. I am not saying that it is right but it definitely is quite a regular occurrence. If the delay goes on for longer they will be sent a completion notice and the other side usually get their finger out at that point.

Really @cstaff? We had exchanged and the date for completion was written into the contract. Our conveyancer said it was the first time anyone had failed to complete in her 15 year career and were adamant we should pursue the costs.

For the people saying let it go, why, if someone breaches their contract with you causing significant cost, would you not pursue it?

Why did you gave storage costs when presumably you gad a property for the week's delay?

Are you sure that your solicitor is not just looking for more fees on the litigation involved in pursuing this? I can't believe that they are encouraging you to pursue the costs.

It happened to us in Scotland so laws may be different as you sign missives etc. We didn’t pursue for costs but our seller did as we had to delay completing our that house. However we just passed it down to our buyer who had to pay.

Because we were contractually obliged to vacate the property

And because the buyers were promising funds up til 5pm that night and our delivery guys were unable to unload the lorries containing all of our belongings within a reasonable period to complete their working day

If we hadn't vacated the property and funds had arrived close to the end of the working day we'd have been in breach of contract ourselves.

no advice for you but good on you.
I hope you are successful.
buying/selling in england is stressful enough without cheeky fuckery.

why put something in the contract if it can't be enfoced?

@cstaff, no our conveyancer don't do litigation. The solicitor is one appointed by our legal cover company who have assessed that we've a good chance at success...

Hmm, delays like this are so common. I've never heard of anyone pursuing this. Good luck though.

@cstaff so you're saying an actual, legal exchange of contracts is absolutely meaningless in law in England? I know chains collapse prior to exchange but would not say a break in the chain between exchange and completion was normal at all.

I would have thouggt you stand a good chance OP and you've come this far. Aiui, the transaction was legally binding from exchange (as our solicitor repeatedly drummed into us).

I know you completed just a week later, by the way, but do think the cause of the salary is legally bound to pay up as they breached the terms of the contract.

Not quite the same but when we bought our house we were late sending the funds to the vendor so they didn’t get paid until the Monday although completion was the previous Friday. We had to pay interest costs to them - our solicitor sorted it all out. We were lucky they still allowed us to take the keys - they would have been within their rights to have held us to Monday when the funds moved in which case the costs would have been a lot higher I think. I don’t see why you won’t get your costs covered.

Another puzzled about the storage costs, if you were moving out you were moving into somewhere else and would have been moving/storing your stuff anyway? It’s not like you were left homeless as happened to us one time, other way round with vendors unable to close until 10 days after the agreed date leaving us with nowhere to go. We had to put our stuff in storage and live in a hotel with our cats for the ten days. We did get costs for that.

@QuatumEntanglement we couldn't complete our onward purchase so had nowhere to move to. I've explained further above why we had to vacate the property we were selling...

I think a lot of people are getting confused on the delta point. If contracts had been exchanged (as they had been) the completion date is set in stone, and failure to complete on that date is a clear breach of contract. Damages for that breach are written into the sale contract. It’s very simple. Even if completion did eventually take place a week later, the party that failed to complete is still in breach of contract. OP (or more accurately, their insurers now) should get their reasonably incurred expenses back. I am surprised it is being defended unless there’s a dispute about quantum.

delay, not delta

Good luck - if this happened to me I would pursue it. And delays like this don’t happen all the time once contracts have exchanged. Before exchange - it’s a moveable feast. But not after. Good luck.

Yes posters are getting confused. There is a big difference between delays before exchange and having to move out if your house but having nowhere to move to as your sellers don't get on on the agreed completion date.

And I would be very surprised if this "happens all the time". Delays in the process prior to exchange yes, but not the situation described by the OP.