Help! Is my seller about to pull out?

[TrueBuys]

I'm buying a house with offer accepted end Oct, the seller is buying onward with no further chain.

It has been three months, with solicitors working through final points in the last few weeks. Today the seller said if we don't exchange by end next week she's pulling out. Obviously I'm quite alarmed by this, we are going as fast as we can but how can I commit to a date which is dependent on solicitors??

The agent has said he thinks she won't pull out, she wants to move. But she's also refusing his calls? We are so close, anyone experience this? Empty threats or do buyers/sellers literally walk away when only weeks from completion?

Oh no, that sounds very stressful :( People do pull out like this unfortunately, I do find it strange though, as surely it will take them even longer to relist it and sell it again!! Have you spoken to your solicitor to see how far off exchange they are and what's holding things up? had an exchange date been set yet? Hopefully she calms down soon :(

Hopefully she's just stamping her feet to gee the chain moving quicker. House buying is horrendous. I hope you are OK

What's the hold up? Three months is a long time to get to exchange now unless there was some issue.
I completed in five weeks this past summer, though I did not get a mortgage I still had a full survey and all the searches.
I'd get on to your solicitor and find out why you aren't in a position to exchange.

Tbf yes we got to this point, our onward purchase was threatening to go back on the market and at this point our buyers hadn’t even viewed the contracts (offer accepted August, this was the week before Xmas)

The apparently didn’t know they had to sign and return them. We ended up exchanging 1st week jan with completion the 31st (2 years ago this month)

I think you just need to communicate back that you would also like to exchange by that date, assuming searches and enquiries are complete as you are keen to move things along. If the hold up is with solicitors, I would highlight what is still outstanding so it’s brought to everyone’s attention.

Our sellers didn’t threaten to pull out (they’re actually really lovely), but they did set a very firm date 8 weeks from offer that they needed to exchange by to guarantee their onward purchase. We hustled to get everything ready to by this date. And then the day of exchange their solicitor left on holiday for a week!! He apparently left it with a colleague who was largely unreachable and seemed to always be on the school run. Estate agent was off too. It took 4 days for our solicitor to actually get someone to contact him to exchange! It was fine in the end, but sometimes I don’t think people fully appreciate that getting to that point requires a lot of busy people coordinating their schedules and getting the work done to make it happen.

The hold up has simply been getting mortgage valuation done, solicitors closed over Xmas, plus some enquiries have dragged a bit but not really my or solicitors fault as they were all 'valid' questions!

I'm hoping that it's just her trying to get it to exchange, rather than genuinely wanting to pull out. She will lose her onwards purchase if she pulls out! We are within a week or so of exchange...