Pulling out of purchase - how

[Catastrophie]

Have another thread running re house we’re buying and lack of regs. The more we’ve unravelled in the last few days, the more doubts we’ve had. DPs parents are putting a significant sum of money in to the house to help us (early inheritance) and they have said no way. So we want to pull out today but how do we do it? Inform the solicitor or the agent? Do we email or call?

We will be the 5th set of buyers to pull out and I feel awful but they haven’t been upfront about the lack of paperwork and there is extensive renovations; double storey garage conversion, loft conversion, movement of boiler which don’t have regs.

I assume the extensions were all done within the timeframe building regs were required?
You just inform your solicitor and the agent, and your mortgage broker. Did the agent disclose why the other buyers pulled out?

Yes they are fairly recent extensions, in the past 10 years or less. The agent just said the other buyers had changed their minds.

That’s a lot of extensions / remodelling with no regs. As they’re so new your solicitor will have needed to inform the lender, who would then probably not loan as resale will be difficult. You have to ask yourself why someone wouldn’t get regs on modern building work. Most likely cut corners on the build. Don’t make this problem yours. I would walk away.

Phone both the solicitor and the agent and email them both. Tell the agent you are pulling out because of the vendors’ inability to provide appropriate builders regs for the work they have had done. This is the vendors’ fault and they need to fix it before the property goes back on the market.

It's an amazing coincidence 5 other sets have all changed there mind. The sellers needs to get the correct documentation.

@notapizzaeater

It's an amazing coincidence 5 other sets have all changed there mind. The sellers needs to get the correct documentation.

Isn’t it just. I suspect the agent knows all about it.

Yes the lender has already rescinded our offer subject to further survey so this already raised alarm bells.

5 previous buyers pulling out would ring massive alarm bells for me. Sounds like you are making the right decision.

So we want to pull out today but how do we do it?
The same way as you made the offer: inform the Estate Agent.
Then tell your solicitor, to stop them spending further time (i.e. your money!) on the deal.

Don't feel bad about pulling out. In your place I'd be tempted to sue the vendor and agents for any costs you've incurred - they have a duty to disclose this sort of thing.

We emailed the estate agent and then forwarded the email to the solicitor so they knew not to do any more work. Similar circumstances. It is such a relief when you've done it! The agent will probably phone you to try to get you to change your mind... I'd bet a lot of money the other 4 times for exactly the same reason.

The house we offered on has had a second offer fall through too. I suspect the found out the same. Don't know why they cant be up front and price accordingly. After 4 other sales falling through it's very unlikely the agent didn't know about this.

When we did this, we also wrote a letter to the estate agent outlining that we believed their behaviour to us to have very likely been illegal, and that they should disclose why we pulled out in full (in our case, structural defect and no insurance) to future prospective purchasers. Didn't take it any further but wanted to make sure the letter existed so that if anyone else wanted to take them to court they'd get this in a disclosure request. It really gets me that they get away with this - we wasted £5k on a purchase that had already fallen through with someone else due to "chain issues"....
(www.kfh.co.uk/resources/sellers/information-that-needs-to-be-disclosed-as-part-of-a-sale www.estateagenttoday.co.uk/news_features/Ombudsman-When-and-what-agents-should-disclose)

I agree the agent should be disclosing this. Report to the ombudsman for an opinion

I would ring and email the estate agent. I would explain in detail why you are pulling out and you will not be using their services for anything again.

Then forward it to your solicitor.

Why would you do this without the regulations or insurance. How annoying for you. I hope you find something else quickly