Exchange with delayed completion

[GreenBeeSW]

Does anyone have experience with this? Our vendor is moving to a new build so wants to exchange soon but the completion is then delayed (in this case expected 2/3 months). Apparently this is quite common when a new build is involved in the chain. Is there anything we should watch out for? If we didnt complete before the expected date could we negotiate the price down?

you could get trapped in a powerless contract where you do not have the ability to do anything to make the sale complete, and it might happen at an unexpected and inconvenient time.

maybe you could have a fixed completion date in, say, three months. Then it is the vendors problem, not yours, if the end date moves.

If they won't do that, what does it say about their confidence?

I wouldn't want a large delay past 3-4 weeks between exchange/completion.

What does your solicitor advise?

We did this, exchanged in the August, completed in October, it was great, really suited both parties.

We knew the completion date from before exchange.

Ok, thanks guys, so we'll make sure the nail down an actual date. Dont want it dragging on..

If its a new build then the builders are probably insisting on a quick exchange (I think ours was 6 weeks) or their buyer will forfeit the holding deposit and they’ll put it back on the market. We exchanged in October, but didn’t eventually complete until the end of March as bad weather (and rubbish builders) delayed completion several times. I’d want to know how close to being built the house was, how big a builder ie lots of men to move around etc. I think you can put a ‘long stop’ on things so completion is x date , but in any event no longer than y . As other posters say that way if things do get forever pushed back at least it becomes their problem.

It happens but don't feel pressured into it if you don't want it. We sold our house and reserved a new build, needed to exchange ASAP, originally our new house was going to be ready 3 months later, our buyer wanted to be in ASAP, so we went into rented. Our new build was brought forward so we'll only be in 4 weeks, but it wasn't for us to demand our buyer delay especially as he offered before we decided on the new build. We wouldn't have wanted to lose our buyer. So it depends if it works for you or not, I was relieved to be moving sooner rather than later with all the stuff going on atm tbh.

You won't be able to nail down an exact date, it'll be a completion window, and it's technically as long as 3 months. Baring in mind we are going into winter and Covid could delay building, I would be a bit apprehensive.

Find out if it is weather proofed yet, if it is it is less likely to get delayed (not sure about Covid impacts though).

Hi OP, having a longer time between exchange and completion is fine if that's what you both want but this is different. Your seller is going to have to back to back the two contracts which means that you are also stuck with a new build timescale. They may give your seller a window/target date etc but if there are delays (and this is pretty likely to be a year for delays.....) there's nothing you can do. You could ask for a long stop which suits you (ie you can walk away if completion doesn't happen by X date) but that won't work for the seller unless he/she would move into rented then. You're also not likely to get much notice of completion as the seller will only be able to give you slightly less notice than it gets from the developer.

It can all work fine of course but unless the development is moving ahead quickly, I'm not sure this is the time I'd want to be in that type of chain.

Thank you everyone all really helpful info. We are in rented so we are a bit flexible, which I think is partly the reason we got the house (bidding war) I just dont want it dragging out forever when we're trapped in a contract (and a crappy rented flat!). "Long" stop date sounds like a good idea, perhaps inline with length of mortage agreement. I'll discuss with soliciter and make sure we have something to protect ourselves before EA bullies us into a bad deal... Thanks all!

We did this. We sold our house very quickly to FTB in the February but didn’t want to move until the summer, we hadn’t even started looking. We exchanged with our buyers with a completion date “on or before 31st July”.

We're going to have this. Our buyers want to exchange contracts in next 2 weeks with a further 4 weeks to completion. They're in rented and want to give notice on their rental. Our new house won't be ready until end of October at least and they know this. We won't exchange on our new house until probably the week before we complete.