We accepted an offer on our flat in late March. Our buyer knew we hadn’t been able to even look for ourselves until we were under offer so we made no commitment to meeting the stamp duty deadline. They asked would we sell chain free and we said no, not for the price we were paying.
Various delays affected both sides - they had two buyers pull out of the purchase of their place and we pulled out of one purchase (bad survey and inflexible vendor) but have now found another place.
We have said that we will break our chain so that they can meet the stamp duty deadline as our purchase is moving slowly. We have made arrangements for that possibility even though it adds some cost and disruption for us. We are basically getting all the hassle and stress of this deadline but none of the financial benefit.
So all in all I think we’ve been pretty decent but our buyer now seems to be extremely stressed out by the deadline, frustrated with delays with solicitors (not sure if it’s ours or theirs slowing things down tbh), calling our estate agent every day and just generally stressing us out. I’m not really sure what more they want us to do. We are at enquiries stage still, we’ve responded to everything we can and some questions are with our management company and freeholder.
I suppose I’m asking you were in our buyers shoes, offering in late March on a place with a chain, would you really have thought stamp duty exemption was a certainty? We are getting worried that they are going to mess us around or drop the price if the deadline is missed now and we simply can’t afford it if they try.