Buyer demanding completion date already

[ineedabiggandt]

Buyer wants to take advantage of stamp duty discount for september so has turned around and said offer is now conditional on end of september completion.

Only accepted offer about a month ago and chain isn't complete. She knows we were buying somewhere and had offer accepted last week. We already had surveyor round.

Can't move in with friends or family. Want to avoid rental as where we are moving there are 3 properties for rent on Rightmove. Not 3 to consider in our parameters, 3 in total which are already too small!! Plus all the hassle and finances it's not for us anyway.

Aghghgh what do we do ?? think our house would sell again fairly quickly but obviously don't want to lose place we are buying even though they haven't found a property yet.

Tell me it will be okay???

I reckon even if you agreed to it solicitors wouldn't get it through. They are so over worked with people whose chain is already established

I think you have nothing to worry about as they're in cloud cuckoo land!

Gee I should think you should be able yo comlkryr by end of September! That's three and a half months away. You need to get solicitor on board, get all documents you need and make it clear to the rest of the chain. However it is silly of your buyer - the saving is £2,500 max, not a deal breaker for most purchases I would have thought.

I wouldn’t worry too much, I had an offer accepted about 3 weeks ago, my solicitor made it clear that they couldn’t promise any dates, she told me pre and post stamp duty costs, only £2500 difference.
I do hope to complete before end of September but it won’t change anything if we don’t.
Your buyer will soon realise nobody’s will guarantee dates.

We recently completed on a house move. Took six bloody months. Nobody can guarantee a chain length and completion time. I know a woman buying an empty house and because of issues unknown to anyone at the time of offer, that is likely to take almost a year.

Ring your local council etc who carry out the searches. In our area they are on a 4 month back log!!!!!

I would agree to 'work towards X date' but confirm that nothing can be guaranteed as it depends on conveyancing.

Assure them you’ll work towards that date ( knowing so much is out of your hands ). What are they going to realistically going to do? If they pull out of the sale at any point between now and September they won’t get a new house through the process either. Just reassure that you’ll do your best.

@Livingintheclouds

Gee I should think you should be able yo comlkryr by end of September! That's three and a half months away. You need to get solicitor on board, get all documents you need and make it clear to the rest of the chain. However it is silly of your buyer - the saving is £2,500 max, not a deal breaker for most purchases I would have thought.

You can't plan for what might happen in the rest of the chain- and the chain isn't even complete yet.

Lender demands an extra survey, someone then starts haggling, searches take forever, someone elsewhere doesn't answer an enquiry, a buyer pulls out....

Three and a half months when the chain isn't yet complete and it is hard to find properties top buy - unless the OP's vendors go into rented I suspect it will be very hard indeed. And stressful.

OP - talk to the EA about how to handle this. They are generally good at keeping communication throughout the chain going, and it is in their interests to see the sale though.

Maybe agree to split the difference of the SDLT cost - which as a PP said is likely to be not that great on an average sale.

Good luck!

Thanks yeah the chain isn't complete so can't really make any guarantees and just wish buyer had said at the start so we could have said no at the start.

Obviously would be nice if we can make the saving but we were never planning for it as it does seem quite late now. We want to move but we are realistic.

3.5 months should be enough time. We moved last week and it took 9 weeks in a chain of 3. However, for the sake of peace, you could offer to split the difference if you are unable to meet the September deadline. It would only be £1250.