Last year, DH and I were in the process of buying a house (vendors had been there 40 years), only for them to get cold feet on the day of exchange and pull out. They’d dragged their feet finding an onward purchase up until then, but we’d put it down to their slow solicitor and the enormity of moving after so long.
Ultimately, it cost us a huge amount in mortgage redemption fees (we no longer had a property to port to), as well as the usual conveyancing, survey fees etc. We continued with the sale of our house and went into rented.
6 months later, they’re back on the market for 10% more. Annoyingly, prices have skyrocketed here in the last 12 months and there’s very little supply. Literally nothing similar has come on the market since.
DH thinks we should approach the estate agent and see if they would still sell to us. I’m reluctant because I don’t think the agent was totally honest last time and only told us they’d pulled out by forwarding the vendors email. There was no sense that they’d tried to salvage things. The vendors email said that they’d been thinking over their options for several weeks - and in hindsight, the agent’s tone in the weeks before suggests they knew this was coming.
I just can’t bear to be messed around by them again or to spend the whole time before exchange, waiting for them to pull out again.