WWYD - Seller suddenly tells us he's in a chain

[PurplePansy05]

Hi All. I've posted for advice on a separate property related issue before and received some helpful suggestions so hoping for a bit of MN wisdom again 🙏

Our seller told us he's not in a chain, completed TA6 to confirm his onward purchase was not dependant on the sale of his current property (to us).

We are ready to proceed and so is the entire chain. The seller is elderly and his son has a POA (just for info). The seller was supposed to be moving in with his son for some time before moving to his new supported accommodation. Today the seller's son tells us via solicitors that they won't be discussing any dates until their onward purchase is sorted.

No timeframe for their purchase provided.
The whole chain is held back by this.
We might miss out on the land tax reduction if they don't get a move on.
I'm pregnant (due this summer) and the house we're buying needs to be fully modernised before the baby arrives. Our builder says 3 months of work, plus we will need new furnishings after etc. Lots of work.

In reality, we can't really wait longer with completion than early March. I am also concerned that the seller will keep stringing us along, we will have exchange the day before completion (for covid reasons and also because the seller is v elderly and a sole owner, we don't want to risk him passing in between). That's already been discussed and we're following our solicitor's advice. I am worried if this is one of those guys that will call us 5 mins beford exchange to say there have been unexpected delays or some other BS.

They've been delaying responses to simple enquiries for 2 months.
It seems they have lied re the chain or at least have not updated us about the change in their position.
Now they're being difficult about completing the deal.

WWYD? Pull out completely? Give them a deadline? Start looking for a different property?

Any advice will be much appreciated.

Hopeful bump!

Strongly worded note that says unless contracts are exchanged with a fixed date for completion by mid March, you will be looking for a new property.

See what happens...

Sorry - if you need early March tell them end Feb, so 4 weeks from now latest or the deal is off.

I think I would start putting pressure on them. Get your solicitors to write to their solicitors and state that you need to complete at the start of March. Don't say an exact date so you are a little bit flexible. If you get nowhere after a while then threaten to pull out of the sale and see i what happens. I doubt they would want to lose you as buyers, but they can't have everything their way either.

I’m not sure what legal come back you have, clarify this with your solicitor but we had a somewhat similar situation.

Basically I was about 30 weeks pregnant, was booked for induction at 37 and we had arranged a move in date around 35 weeks. This gave us a tight 2 weeks to do a couple of bits of essential safety work (electrics) and get the kitchen/living/main bedroom in decent condition. Workmen were all lined up. Chain all ready to go.

Suddenly our seller announced their onward purchase wasn’t working out apparently they’d been have all sorts of delays/difficulties and nit mentioned it. They’d now decided to move to a new build only it wouldn’t be ready for an extra couple of weeks so we’d have to delay moving date.

I got our solicitor to send a very clear email outlining our situation, of which they were already aware, and that we would not be moving in with a days old baby. Either they vacated the property and found alternative arrangements until their own ward purchase was sorted or we would pull the plug and collapse the chain.

We knew they had to move for work and therefore couldn’t afford us pulling the plug. They vacated and all worked out ok.

I wouldn’t go threatening him with an ultimatum just yet - I would ask your EA if he would mind talking directly, then give him a ring, cordially laying out your position (baby on the way etc) and your worries about missing the stamp holiday.

You would be surprised at how things change when buyer and seller talk to one another cutting out the middle men.

Probably to late for this, but we have had a clause written into our contracts whereby if we did not complete by x date, then £y amount would be deducted from the sale price. We also had it put in our purchases contract, that if they did not complete by x date, then a daily penalty of £y amount would be incurred.
This was 25 years ago though, and may not even be allowed these days.

Sorry to hear this happens and by the reading of this thread, quite a lot.

I would get your solicitor to email them stating that they already know/should know, that you are pregnant and are on an obvious time frame so this either needs to go ahead or you will pulling out and (say this whatever even if you do carry on looking) waiting until baby is 6 months old before looking to move again. As said above give yourself a little leeway with cut off, couple of weeks. Say that as they already planned to stay with family that you suggest they leave the property and break the chain there. I know people that have done this to ensure it happened. Stuff in storage for couple of weeks and stayed with family.

I’d get my solicitor to contact theirs to question why the situation regarding an onward purchase was not disclosed correctly on the form and has only been indicated as a factor in proceedings now. With the expectation that the exchange and completion will take place by x date.

It is worth pointing out that if you miss the SDLT holiday you will reduce your offer by that amount?

All very helpful suggestions, thank you!!!

I forgot to say in my OP, the son of the seller is being a dick and after the first gentle approach from the EA he bluntly told them that all conversations are due to take place via solicitors! The EA thinks he's being a dick (excuse my French) and had a sudden change of heart about having his own dad over for a few weeks or so. That's obviously just EA's suspicion.

But just like I thought, it looks like we'll have to play the hard ball now. I hate this sort of thing, but I really feel they're trying to take advantage of us and other people in a chain and it really isn't right in our position.

Thanks SO much all!!! You've been incredibly helpful

We had the same thing (literally we were ready to exchange and they asked for a week to decide on completion date and when then after 10 days admitted to buying a house) and to be honest not much you can do. You can threaten to pull out but have to be prepared it may end the process. Ours was slightly different (divorce where the wife had to sell the home and really didn't). We eventually got them to agree to exchange with a long (two months) completion but that was the best we could do.

She was nightmare on completion day too...refusing to complete until 16:59 and then not actually finishing moving her stuff til like 8pm.

Get the agent and the lawyers to put pressure on them and see whether you can reach a compromise

We had something similar, vendors not in a chain could go through quickly, then all of a sudden they were in a chain and the people they were buying from wanted to chain up too. We loved that house but needed to move and couldn’t push more than we did, so we started looking with other agents. Told the first house that if we hadn’t exchanged and completed to be able to move Easter weekend it would be too late for us. Found one we liked better, made an offer and it was accepted over the Easter weekend. The following Friday got a call saying house number one ready to exchange - sorry but it’s a no from us. They knew we’d needed to move and didn’t give a shit and just ignored our deadlines. We turned the key on this house five weeks after initial offer. I’d start looking elsewhere and see if there is anything else you might like more.

We had the same thing with our buyers. They said they were first time buyers and kept delaying on exchange. Eventually we found out that they had a sale that, while it wasnt related, they needed to go through first so that they didn't have to pay a massive stamp duty bill.

What is really important is to get them to commit to a date. Our estate agents chased up their solicitors every single day for an update. We eventually exchanged 4 weeks after we should have, 2 weeks after we found out, and 2 days after the deadline we set! It's worth having a plan in place and a timeline in your head, even if you don't give them an ultimatum. Good luck.

We went back with an ultimatum, a month from today or the whole deal is off. We shall see what they say although I still worry they'll pull something out of the bag just before the exchange. I don't think we can protect our position beforehand and unfortunately for reasons I mentioned earlier, it will have to be v close to completion 😔 I really didn't need this stress now.

It sounds like you've taken a sensible approach. Did they already know you were pregnant and needing to move within a certain time frame already? I hope you receive a positive response.

No, they haven't - I found out after our offer was accepted and the process has already been underway for about 2 months. We instructed our solicitor regarding when we needed to move right at the outset, put these dates on all forms, there's been no change to them as a result of pregnancy and everything was proceeding smoothly until today when they dropped a bombshell on us. So now our solicitor went back and also explained about the pregnancy and not being able to change the timeframe, hopefully they'll see sense. If not, we'll definitely pull out, I don't want to be dealing with a seller who'd ignore this kind of situation.

If you start looking at new properties you definitely won’t make the stamp duty deadline and might not be in before the baby, so you might as well proceed by playing hard ball with this one.

Do you know anything about the property he is trying to buy and how advanced the sale is?

You might want to gently suggest respite care in case the son doesn’t know that’s an option if he doesn’t want his dad living there.

Well done OP
I’d also start looking at other properties but on a casual basis ie without putting in an offer just so if this falls through you are not completely starting from square one. This assumes you definitely want to buy something within the next few months.

What about strategically requesting a viewing for another property the estate agent has on their books that meets your criteria? Even if you're not interested, you van make noises about other viewings with other EAs, maybe the thought of losing their commission will get them to push the vendor's son to get his head out of his ass?

More useful advice, thanks all 😊

Just to update you, we're still waiting for their response...and we are looking on Rightmove, who knows, maybe a property will come up that doesn't require much modernisation and we could therefore consider moving within a longer timeframe before the baby arrives. I know we'd miss out on the land tax reduction but I'm already seeing the prices are falling slightly in preparation for this. And I have a very friendly relationship with the EA, she knows what our position is and she's very sympathetic, she'll show us any properties we'd like to see, I've already spoken to her. It just so happens there's nothing else that we like that she currently has on her books.

The waiting game continues...our solicitor gave them 48 hrs to think it through and then she'll start chasing...

The above assuming our chain would be willing to wait ofc, if not then then obviously we won't be forcing anyone! They know we're ready and it's our seller's fault but I understand they simply may not want to wait.

We had this. Sale “wasn’t dependant on onward purchase” (we were chain free and wanted to move very quickly). Suddenly down the line the vendor was buying a house that was a repossession and more complicated than it needed to be. I reckon it cost us an extra £7k in additional rent just waiting for him to get his act together. I’m glad we stuck with it, as I love the new house. It’s a few years down the line now and I still don’t know why the vendor sold. We also viewed the house he bought...it was slightly more expensive than this one and not as nice.

We are in a similar situation, all ready to exchange and exchange and completion dates agreed just before Christmas with exchange set for before Xmas. Then it starts getting held up for dubious reasons until end of first week of January and start saying to our buyer hurry up due to lockdown and message comes back issue with their sale and there's a connected sale to it.

Takes about another week to find out the full details and still quite waffly so I demand it in writing and written proof of financing. A week later we find out they have to sell their flat to their company to get a mortgage and sorry they didn't realise it was a sale. They also put in writing they have financing but still no proof of this but statement did go via solicitors. What is your EA advising? Ours says to continue - I'm not happy but we are kind of over a barrel as if we put back on will miss stamp duty deadline.

If it were me I would continue but say if no completion by 31 March offer reduces by whatever stamp duty is.

We are continuing for now, yes, but only if we complete by end of Feb. As explained, I'm pregnant and can't wait any longer because the house would need to be renovated before the baby arrives.

In any event, we would not push the completion date till March because it will be an extremely hectic month for conveyancers and lenders for obvious reasons and too risky for the transaction to be delayed and slip outside of the reduced land tax deadline IMO.