has anyone taken a pre-contract deposit?

[BumbleNova]

Long story short, our buyer backed out yesterday which was gutting.

but she rang up this morning saying she has made a terrible mistake and still really wants to buy the house.

she is offering to pay us a deposit to indicate how serious she is.

has anyone else accepted this type of arrangement? It looks potentially very useful but I'm wondering what level of deposit to ask for?

They are incredibly rare.

Mainly because the two solicitors acting for buyer and seller would need to come up with an agreed contract detailing a whole set of circumstances under which the deposit was retained by the vendor, or returned to the buyer.

This will obviously depend on your own circumstances, but surely the best way for your buyer to demonstrate they are serious would be for them to exchange? What stage of the sale have you reached?

A potential buyer offered us this but my solicitor said the same as previous poster that it means they have to agree to draw up a complicated document about the deposit, which costs everyone money.
I’d say go for a quick exchange if possible.

We are miles away from exchange. we are barely out the gates on the legal work tbh.

I'm not actually all that worried about the contract, I've got a very good lawyer acting for us and I'm a lawyer myself, so I am pretty confident we can draft something appropriate.

I think we can keep it pretty simple TBH.

I've never had a deposit that would be retained by the seller until exchange, but I've had to pay a 10% holding deposit before, held by the estate agent.

I'm not sure what the point of that one was if I'm honest, it would have been returned to me if I backed out.. just to show seriousness perhaps..

Interesting. I'm thinking around 5k. Its not a huge amount but enough to stop someone being flaky.

I'll give it some thought.

The view taken by most of the property solicitors I deal with is that it is quicker to reach the point of exchange than it is to agree the terms of a pre-contract deposit.

That's fair @mildura. Although since the suggestion came from the buyer, I'm wondering whether that will be the case here. I can't see any reason it needs to be lengthy or contentious. I am not intending to be unreasonable, it needs to be fair to all parties.