How many of us have had sales or purchases fall through?

[Onandoff]

This seems to be cropping up all too regularly on here so I thought it would be good to share experiences and any learning.

My sales have all been straightforward to date. Some of this is luck, the other I think is being upfront and honest about any ongoing or historic problems with the house, making sure you have any works signed off and certificates to hand, being realistic with pricing and maintaining the house if you want to ask top dollar. Filling in and returning paperwork promptly and making sure your solicitor and estate agent are prompt and communicative with the purchaser. Pick the best placed buyer, your estate agent will guide you.

I’ve had 2 purchases fall through on this occasion, which has been a whole new experience. The first had no building regs on huge new remodelling - rendering house unmortgageable, the second had ongoing legal issues over boundaries, with police involvement. This all came to light very late into the process which wasted months and lots of money. My learning experience is asking to see property information forms early and checking them very carefully, checking planning register for any extensions and dates of and then asking early on for evidence of building regs if works are modern enough. I found alarm bells ringing when first seller withheld PIF and didn’t respond to enquiries over building regs, finally disclosing when almost ready to exchange. The other was an out and out lier...buyer beware indeed. Also, trust your instincts. I had a bad feeling about both sellers. We had this on a previous purchase too and the house took a lot of work to put right (we knew it was bad but lots of bodge jobs unearthed). It’s put me off buying properties from men of a certain age, which is probably irrational but they seem to be a generation that cut corners.

Thanks for starting this thread. We are currently trying to buy and any tips would be great.

Our purchase fell through. Waited 6 months for the vendor to find somewhere to buy, they didn't and then pulled out. In the meantime we sold our house and moved into rented. We'd completed the survey and legals on the house we were purchasing so just had to suck up the cost. Lesson learned for the next time, we're not committing a penny until the chain above us is complete and all surveyors, solicitors etc have been instructed. In the meantime we're lucky to be in a gorgeous and fairly cheap rental courtesy of a family friend so it's not all bad just a bit of an expensive lesson for us as inexperienced buyers (the first house we bought was chain free).

Had an offer accepted last year and seller pulled out of the sale days before we expected to exchange. As with your experience OP, it was due to the conveyancer unearthing things very late in the process. They partially reimbursed the cost of the survey at least. Have seen a number of properties from our watch list that were previously listed as sold STC return to rightmove recently as well (albeit briefly).

Fortunately we are renting with no pressure to leave, can't imagine going through that when you have sold your house and are renting!

Having a feeling I might be joining the “sale fall through” soon. Buyer is meant to return sign contract today.

When we sold our last house, the first two sales fell through. The first was because our buyers (FTB) were absolutely mad as a box of frogs - when their survey came back, they demanded an insane amount of money off the purchase to rebuild a garden wall that, as the builder they found themselves to get a quote from said, "wouldn't be going anywhere any time soon". We tried to meet them at a reasonable point but they were convinced they needed a brand new high wall and it needed to be us that paid for it. Very Trumpesque sale number 2 fell through because of Lockdown 1 last March - they were investment buyers and were spooked by all the uncertainty of the market at that time. We eventually got third time lucky in the summer, found a very reasonable buyer (we didn't take that for granted for sure!) and moved earlier this year, thank goodness!

@Nickki78 we're in the same position!
Feeling very stressed as top of the chain has said they will pull out if it's not exchanged this week.
My EA says this is just a ploy to speed things up but I have a feeling it's all going to go wrong.
Never ever ever going to consider moving house again!

@FlumpetCrumpet

Our purchase fell through. Waited 6 months for the vendor to find somewhere to buy, they didn't and then pulled out. In the meantime we sold our house and moved into rented. We'd completed the survey and legals on the house we were purchasing so just had to suck up the cost. Lesson learned for the next time, we're not committing a penny until the chain above us is complete and all surveyors, solicitors etc have been instructed. In the meantime we're lucky to be in a gorgeous and fairly cheap rental courtesy of a family friend so it's not all bad just a bit of an expensive lesson for us as inexperienced buyers (the first house we bought was chain free).

Stringing you along for 6 months is pretty reprehensible

Our purchase fell through about 5-6 weeks into the process. Our survey unearthed structural problems and rather than negotiate on price our vendors withdrew from the sale. I think though, looking back, that they were woefully unprepared for selling, and this was the final straw. They did not return property information forms or any of the initial paperwork bundle to our solicitors and from conversations we had with them I got the impression that they had no certification for any of the extensive plumbing and electrical work they had done over the years. House was a listed building but none of the changes they had made to the property had been granted listed buildings consent beforehand, or been regularised afterwards. I also got the distinct impression that they were not really happy with their onward purchase (which they have subsequently withdrawn from), or one of them wasn’t, anyway. At least they reimbursed us for our survey and it was only 5-6 weeks of wasted time, not 5-6 months. Perhaps we dodged a bullet. I’ll definitely be more cautious and next time, if we can ever find anything to buy!

I've bought and sold over 20+ properties and only three have not not gone through. Back in the 80s I was gazumped - sellers came back to me when it fell through but I was committed elsewhere by then. Second time, also 80s, I offered on a flat to then be told it was already under offer but the buyers were very slow, so if I could exchange in a week I could have it. Back then you could get a mortgage evaluation, survey and searches done in under a week. So morning of exchange my solicitor rings seller's to say ready to go only to be told they had exchanged with the other party the day before!! No wonder EAs have such bad reputations.
My final time the sellers pulled out last minute, as the wife was not emotionally prepared to sell.
None of them offered to pay any money towards my expenses.

We pulled out of a buy due to structural issues with £30-35k needing spent on the exterior the vendors wouldn’t negotiate on price, and I was nervous due to flood risk. Decided the combination was best left on the shelf. We moved to rented and now buying a completely different style in a different village. Fingers crossed this time.

We also lost our first buyers as they were FTB and got furloughed.

Think the government need to make it a smoother ride. Maybe if everyone had to have all the paperwork filled before going to market and searches already done? We’ve had to wait 6 weeks for the deeds to be found for the purchase we are buying.

I withdrew from a purchase because of building reg issues that came to light very late in the process. Subsequent survey showed issues. Nothing has come up again that I'd offer on. Just waiting for it to calm down now.

We've had two failures in the last 6 months 🙈. The first time the owners of the property we were about to buy pulled out a week or so before exchange leaving us several thousands of pounds poorer after surveys and solicitors fees. No explanation given, they had just changed their mind about selling 😳

The second time we had a full structural survey on a different house which showed significantly more immediate remedial works necessary, no building regs for septic tank and numerous other issues including needing a new roof. The vendor would compromise a bit on price but not enough to compensate for the cost and disruption so we pulled out. We still have our buyers hanging in there and are doing our best to find another house to move to. We think we might have found somewhere so fingers crossed, third time lucky!!!

Our sellers pulled out just before exchange last week. There was no chain, they just changed their minds out of the blue. It was devastating.

Our sellers pulled out the other week. They had been searching for a house for 2-3 weeks and we're outbid each time so pulled out. Think they were panicking about not being able to meet the stamp duty deadline. We're FTB too so we were pretty gutted, possibly got overexcited too early on. Luckily our solicitors were delayed in sending off for searches despite us paying for them so no money lost.

Think it's about to happen to us.

We're selling a house after a relative died - private sale to someone vaguely known to the relative. Accepted an offer last August but since then it's been one excuse after another for dragging his heels.

We took our eye off the ball because two other close relatives died in the meantime and the impact of their loss has been immense. Just emerging from it all now and buyer told us he was ready to exchange this week - such a relief. Then the solicitor contacts us to say there's another delay as they need to get an undertaking from him in connection to paying 'some legal fees.'

Finally lost all patience and emailed him at the weekend to say if we don't exchange this week I'm contacting an estate agent and it's going on the market.

Have heard precisely nothing back.

Our sellers pulled out for various reasons... chain was complete in September and in Feb their buyers still had no mortgage... and ours were having second thoughts about moving across country in their 80’s ... they were always flaky to be honest!! Pulled out in February which after all that time was awful.
Got a new buyer after a week of being back on market. Our sellers held on for us!!

Really thiking we may exchange soon now. 99% sure all enquiries have been answered 🤞🏼🤞🏼🤞🏼

We are almost at 8 months since offers first accepted!! So our chain are very ready

@arthurdaly hope you exchange contract.
No word from my seller. Email my solicitor to let find the position

I'm on attempted purchase 4, all in the past year.

1. Flat, turned out to have leasehold issues/works needed to whole building - didn't work out, but just one of those things

2. House - probate property - vendor pulled out two days before exchange, turned out he'd been trying to raise finance to buy his family out all along and didn't bother telling us. Didn't offer to pay any costs at all. (this was the worst one by far)

3. Old house - ex rental - surveyor said it was the dampest house he'd ever seen - neither landlord nor tenant had done any maintenance in at least 5 years, not even cleaning gutters, and the stonework was soaked behind a hard cement render which all would have had to come off. And it needed a new roof which wasn't visible on viewing. We knew it was a project but when the survey came through and the full extent became clear it was just too much work.

Goodness knows what's going to happen with number 4!

The first time I sold, the first buyers just disappeared for no reason. The second time I sold, the first buyer was divorcing and finances were not sorted so he dropped out and the house I was buying was also a divorce situation where the couple could not agree on anything so we had to pull out. My recent move, my first buyers dropped out as she decided she did not want to move while pregnant. I had two purchases fall through - one the vendor decided to sell to family instead and one another divorce where they could not agree. None were due to issues with the house - in future I will avoid any divorce situations!

We’ve just joined this club. Had an offer accepted on a lovely house which seemed perfect and ready to move in with no issues.

It turned out the (significant) extension was totally botched, potentially unsafe, cheapest materials possible, doesn’t have building regs, doesn’t match up with the planning application etc etc. The vendors offered to pay for a structural engineer to look at it and reduce the price but we walked away as we don’t have the time or headspace to deal with a property which needs structural work.

We are going to have to pull out of our house as the survey was awful.

Never lost a purchaser, but we're the couple that pulled out of purchase week of exchange - sadly couple splitting up and had two ongoing purchases. We'd had problems getting a mortgage on property, paid for additional survey, then something revealed three days before exchange we weren't comfortable with. We live near the property now, DH still wishes we had been able to proceed, but we know that underlying worry was not for us

We lost a house because of issues with unregistered land surrounding the property. We could have fought to make it work but the vendors weren't proactive. The wife wanted to sell but the husband wasn't sure and we anticipated more issues down the road.
I never want to move again.

I put my first home up for sale & got my first & only offer 4 months later which happened to be the week I was due to give birth. It was an empty property at the time. Still not complete 7 months later as I was too preoccupied to chase it more & let it go on too long. Cancelled the purchase then & sold in a day to a company who buys & sells. Completed in 2 months, too desperate to get rid & wanted the equity for a new home that I took a 3K drop & they went on to sell property for 10K more. I'm still bitter even though I was desperate to sell. I was vulnerable & not thinking clearly at the negotiations

Now trying to buy third home. First House down valued by 40K. Completely shocked & devastated. Their second sale has fallen through too so must have dodged a bullet

Second home in process. Fingers crossed for a good outcome

Lost two last summer. Elderly man a bit confused whose daughter did the talking...pulled out after one weekend because worried about "too much work". Then self-employed couple who were "thrilled" to have offer accepted, took ages to nominate solicitor and then pulled out because their mortgage broker had said they could get a better deal when their yearly accounts were submitted...that was the story anyway. Sold to ftbs for really low offer because just wanted to get on with it. Not happy/grateful....turned out to be prize Ps ITA.