Top of chain holding up exchange — is this normal?

[Mariposa123]

After months we have finally managed to agree a completion date and gave our solicitor permission to exchange yesterday. We thought this would mean we could exchange today.

But no, this morning our solicitor emails to say there has been a delay as the people at the top of the chain need time to find a rental property. Their argument is they couldn't do this before as they didn't have a firm moving date. But surely they've had time to at least look at options; it sounds like they've only just started looking!

Has this happened to anyone else? Is it likely to push back completion? We just want to exchange!!!

They didn't need to have a firm moving date if they were moving into a rental. they can move into the rental any time.
Yeah i'd be annoyed about that. Not much you can do though

I wouldnt start looking for rental places until i had some idea of exchange and completion dates as rental properties come and go quite quickly - and if money is tight people dont want to be paying a mortgage and rent at the same time if they can avoid it.

I think it's understandable that they need time, but you could insist on exchange today and give 3-4 weeks for completion, plenty of time for them to be sorted and you have reassurance.

Very much so. Rentals are hard to get at the moment, especially shorter tenancies

@HapHap that was what we thought would happen. The completion date is at the end of the month, and was set to help our buyer (who is moving out of rental) but it seems the aren't keen to exchange in case they end up with nothing.

We've said we can break chain and move in with family if we need to, to keep our buyer happy. But it all seems a faff!

The completion date was agreed 3 weeks in advance (we're now looking at 2 1/2 weeks time frame), which we were getting hounded for apparently by these people at the top. I don't know much about their circumstances, but they currently live very close to a big city so I fear they are being fussy, rather than out of options.

I don't want to appear cold and like I want to make them homeless, but at the same time this sale has really dragged and we want to move by christmas! We can move out to family if we need to keep our sale, but we want to know either way to be honest. I feel sorry for our seller, she seems to be stuck in the middle.

Your vendor moves into your buyers rental? Simples

We have just completed and are moving into a rental - currently in an Airbnb. It's not as simple as some PP's are making it sound! You have to move quickly and viewing anything before exchange is a waste of time as you can't really commit. Plus references etc when you do find somewhere are taking much longer to process. We asked for 3 weeks between exchange and completion and it's taken us four just to sign a deal. It'll be another week before we can actually move in. We are happy to cope with a lot of short term disruption as no kids /pets but I can see it would be a nightmare for families.

@Puppylucky ahh I’m sorry it was so stressful! I do appreciate it’s not as easy as just walking into somewhere and taking it that day.

If we’d exchanged earlier this week then it would have been 3 weeks. The annoying thing is that they’re not allowing us to exchange until they find somewhere. Did you do this? Or did you exchange and then find somewhere?

I’m wondering how much pressure we should start applying. It doesn’t seem right that the rest of the chain is inconvenienced by their situation.

It might depend where you are, but we were going to move into a short term rental in November last year as our buyer & seller couldn’t align on moving dates... our solicitor advised us not to exchange until we’d found somewhere to rent, and to start seriously viewing when the completion date has been set. They said we’d be liable for costs if something went wrong with finding somewhere to stay and completion didn’t happen; and the rental market here isn’t too strong during the winter. Most things come on and go fast, but people tend to try to start & end tenancies earlier in the year.

In the end it didn’t matter because our seller decided they didn’t want the house they were buying and took theirs off the market, but I’m not sure that what they’re doing is that unusual. Not that I’m an expert property buyer!

[quote Mariposa123]@Puppylucky ahh I’m sorry it was so stressful! I do appreciate it’s not as easy as just walking into somewhere and taking it that day.

If we’d exchanged earlier this week then it would have been 3 weeks. The annoying thing is that they’re not allowing us to exchange until they find somewhere. Did you do this? Or did you exchange and then find somewhere?

I’m wondering how much pressure we should start applying. It doesn’t seem right that the rest of the chain is inconvenienced by their situation.[/quote]
A lot. They've been total arseholes! If they find somewhere to rent at this short notice I'll be staggered.
I'd decide on what you're willing to do as you could be left at your family's place with the vendors staying put. Certainly I'd be suggesting that you can move in with family but only if they exchange first with a long term completion date of 6 weeks (or whatever you decide)

The problem is that it's a circular issue with no one right way to move forward We were advised not to proceed with renting, until we'd exchanged, as otherwise we'd lose the rental deposit etc if the sale fell through, but I can understand people also being advised the other way round, as for a week or so, until our rental was finalised, we faced the danger of potentially being stuck in the Airbnb for the foreseeable, once we completed. The rental market does seem really slow at the moment and now we are in lock down, in England at least, your sellers won't even have the option to bridge any gap, with a short term stay in a hotel or Airbnb, as these effectively closed down on November 4th. We just moved into ours in time, as any later and we would have had no temporary accommodation options until Dec 2nd at the earliest.

It is a real chicken and egg situation isn’t it! We’ve agreed and exchange with our buyers, so we don’t risk losing them. We’re hoping that will then put pressure on those higher up to find a solution.

We have been in a similar situation. I understood our sellers' position though, because they had 3 children and a dog, and were moving to a rural area, so finding a suitable rental was really hard. They couldn't view rentals until exchange was imminent, because you have to sign up there and then. And of course they couldn't exchange until they'd found somewhere, because then they risked leaving their kids homeless! Thankfully we weren't in a long chain so we just waited. My view was that if they'd been looking to buy, we would have had to wait for them to find a place earlier in the process. We knew it was the right place for us and waiting a couple of extra months was just the price we had to pay.

Very sensible Jane - and a great way of looking at it!

@Puppylucky it helps if you're pretty confident that they're committed to the sale, and the rental is the only issue. Obviously not so easy if you have other concerns.

Our vendors wouldn't commit to exchange and complete when the rest of the chain wanted to, even though their stuff was going into storage and they were having working done on their purchase rather than moving in. We found out later they had a leaving party the bank holiday weekend everyone else wanted to move. You can't make others bend to your will unfortunately, but hopefully they'll get their act together. Don't tell them you're prepared to break the chain though as they may muck you around more.

We're at the top of a chain and will be moving into rental when we sell our house. We don't currently have a date for exchange or completion and no time frame has been mentioned (as far as i'm aware anyway). We're keen to move asap. We accepted the offer on our house at the end of August. We have said right from the start that we would like 28 days between exchange and completion because we can't commit to a rental until we have exchanged. Otherwise we could be left paying both rent and our current mortgage if the sale falls through. I've asked the solicitor and EA to make this clear down the chain so hopefully everyone is aware and agreeable (we'll soon see I guess!).

We've been keeping an eye on rentals locally but there's no point going to see anything as everything is available now/ in a few weeks and we just can't commit at the moment. Rentals seem to go within a couple of days so effectively we will be starting from scratch once we have exchanged. We're pretty flexible and have the option to stay with family for a few weeks if it comes to that- we wouldn't lose our sale over it, but i don't think it's unreasonable for your sellers to only just be looking now. Hopefully they aren't fussy and there's plenty of rentals available.

Thank you everyone for the different viewpoints! We’ve spoken to our seller’s EA and said we had to exchange or we risked losing our buyer. We didn’t say we had family to go to so our the pressure on. He wasn’t very happy but hopefully it’s given everyone the push they need to just find anywhere.

Update (if anyone is interested): It appears they have found somewhere, as the whole chain is now ready to exchange so we can all complete at the end of the month! So relieved!

Great news and fingers crossed for you.