Our 2 bed terraced house went on the market mid-September. We accepted an offer two weeks later from investors and had our asking price offer accepted on the property we hope to buy. There is no onward chain. After weeks of chasing our vendor to sign the contract docs, and being told various different stories by his estate agent, we were finally told right before Xmas that a court application for a force of sale order was submitted by the vendors sister (the co-owner) with the support of the vendors estranged wife (who is not a co-owner but lives at the property with their teen children) in mid-December. The vendor has not lived at the property for around 4 years - he and his wife are divorcing. The wife has told the estate agent that her husband is deliberately delaying to control her and stop her moving on so potential abuse at play if that is relevant info.
I haven't been able to discuss this with solicitors etc so far due to them closing over Xmas/new year. Vendors estate agent (who I think just tells me whatever he thinks will appease me) has told me that the sister told him if it wasn't for Xmas, they would have a date by now and this date is typically 7-10 days after the force of sale is granted. Does this sound like more BS?
Does anyone have experience of this? I am concerned that we will lose our buyers who will not want to miss the stamp duty deadline. As investors, they could easily find another BTL property although they have paid for survey etc. They are expecting to hit the ground running in January. They do not know about this yet.
I'm reluctant to pull out because this house ticks all our boxes. Since it was first marketed in April, prices have risen and we could not afford this type of house (4 bed detached) at current prices... Even if there was a choice, which there isn't! But is this likely to drag on for weeks, months even? We are not in a rush to move, but we cannot expect out buyers to stick along for the ride. Anyone with any pearls of wisdom? 