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Sellers buying a new build- do we move out?

3 replies

Willowmayjune · 05/07/2022 20:10

Hi just looking for some advice. We went sale agreed on our house to first time buyers in May. We were clear from the beginning that we wouldn't move from our house until we had a house to go to. Our buyers have now advised however they have a deadline of September to move into the house (mortgage offer expiring/they are having a baby and understandably want to move in before this).

We've been actively trying to buy a house and have finally got to sale agreed on a property today. The issue is the sellers are buying a new build which won't be ready until December (I'm assuming this is an estimate though and it may be later than this!). They do not want to go into rented so we would have to wait until at least December to move in. Obviously this does not fit in with our buyers timeline. We would rather not lose our buyers and in fact the people selling to us went with us because our circumstances were better than others who offered higher. If we were to lose our buyers and have to remarket the house we wouldn't have this advantage.

We do have the option to move out of our home and in with family, although this would be a pita and cost us in terms of storage and removals x2. My concern is that this leaves us vulnerable should the sellers then pull out. We did tell the estate agent today that we would want to at least exchange before moving out and they said that the solicitors would deal with that (I will be ringing our solicitor tomorrow to discuss but wanted to see if anyone had been in a similar situation).

I'm now thinking it might be mad to even do this though!? I'm worried if building takes longer our mortgage offer would expire for example. It seems like we are the ones taking on the risk if things fall through.When I've tried to research this it always seems to be the seller (buying the new build) that moves to break the chain, not the buyer. I suppose I want to know if we would be mad to consider this and if there is anything else we should be thinking about if we go ahead with the purchase? Hope this all makes sense!

(Just to add when we viewed the house the sellers told us they were buying a new build and the timescales but advised that there were plots available that were further on in being built but that they couldn't be considered for these until their own house was sold. Although they indicated then they would explore this option and be open to moving quicker the estate agent today has advised this is not the case).

OP posts:
Nc58985 · 05/07/2022 20:40

We sold our house and moved in with parents to avoid losing our buyer. The house we were sale agreed on then fell through and we ended up with parents for nearly a year (!!) while finding a new one!

Actually living there was fine. What was a bit sad was seeing the house we sold shoot up in value and everything else we were trying to buy do the same. So felt like we’d fallen behind in our place on the housing ladder or something if that makes sense!

PointyMcguire · 05/07/2022 21:00

We had to break the chain when we were buying as our buyers refused to wait the 6 weeks it would have required to link the sales. Our sellers were lovely and in regular contact with us but it was still bloody stressful and I spent the whole time waiting for our purchase to fall apart. Thankfully it all worked out, but I swear I aged 20yrs in those 6 weeks!

Covidagainandagain · 05/07/2022 21:08

We moved in with family for 2 months because our buyers needed to move by September because the kids were moving school, and our sellers first house purchase had fallen through and they were only half way through the second one.

I worked on the theory that if we ended up having to buy a different house instead we would be in a much stronger position as we wouldn't have a chain, and we did look at a couple of other houses in the area as a back up just in case

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