In a pickle over a tricky decision

[ALbigbump]

At a point where we can exchange on our purchase, seller would break the chain but is instead listening to her solicitor who’s advising against it. Her seller’s solicitor is uncontactable, so god knows how long they’ll take. Apparently everyone in chain is desperate to move but this shit solicitor is holding everything up. Our seller’s son wants her to put it back on mkt as he knows she’ll get much more than the offer she’s accepted from us. There’s another house 3 doors away which is not as big, has a tiny garden but we could move in imminently as a rental if we committed to buying it, it’s 47k less and it’s a compromise. DH is having the mother of all tantrums as I want to wait for original house. He can’t see beyond having a home before Xmas. The one we’re waiting for is still a possibility but he wants us to pull out now and go for lesser one. We stand to lose c£6k in sunk costs if we do too but we’re homeless at the moment. Please help me decide. Our solicitor even got the contracts ready on her day off to help things along!

Take a short vacation. Might help.

[quote Twiglets1]@Duchess379 if you feel she doesn’t do much work for your case that’s not necessarily because she works part time. I feel the same about my solicitor and he works full time but always seems to be in meetings or out of the office.
Maybe they just get allocated too many cases to deal with efficiently, I don’t know but many solicitor are frustrating (not all).[/quote]
Unfortunately conveyancing is just so mad busy at the moment. They really are doing the best they can. There's so much behind the scenes that you don't see. It's as frustrating for us as it is for you. Estate Agents are famous for tittle tattling, getting hold of the wrong end of the stick and stirring up trouble.

Ever time an estate agent 'updates' you ask them to put it in writing. That's how you find out what's actually true, even estate agents know not to pass tittle tattle off as true in writing.

Supposed to complete tomorrow. Haven't exchanged.

She has promised we would complete by Wednesday at latest. Annual leave organised.... packed....movers arranged

Solicitor not responding to any contact now. I hate her. How can they just leave you hanging like this. I share your pain.

1. tell DH to stop behaving like a twat, you can’t be bullied into a decision like this and given how far you’ve got it would be really silly to jump into a hasty decision on the back of a glorified roast dinner,
2. worst case scenario your original seller pulls out and remarkets for more, plus you lose the less good house because someone else has brought it- how much of a disaster would that be? Are either the house of your dreams or will you find something else?
3. personally I couldn’t live next door to a “better” house long term, I’d rather live somewhere else completely, plus I love a decent sized garden (and it will add value long term too);
4. I think in your position I would do everything I possibly could to resolve house 1, even threatening to pull out but also (gasp) offering a small incentive to the seller (if you can) to get the deal done by a set date- especially if you think it’s actually worth more then in the long term this might be worth it, however much it sticks in the craw now. Also could you find somewhere nice to live for a couple of months- Airbnb / park home etc- just to take the urgency out of the situation and assuage the Christmas hysteria?