Is there ANYTHING we can do? Vendors solicitors and purplebricks.

[Cluelessasacucumber]

I wont give you our whole sorry tale but the short version is: over 2 years trying to buy a house, 2 collapsed purchases and we are now onto house 3.

The purchase process has taken 6 months so far which is at least 3 more than we were led to expect when we put our offer in.

Our vendors are with purplebricks and using the associated solicitors (My Home Move). Oh my holy god it is excruciating. The solicitors literally do not respond to our vendor or our solicitor. Ever. The only way to get hold of them is through the purplebricks sales support team (after explaining everything because it's never the same person)

Thanks to all the delays we've been shoe horned into verbally agreeing a completion date which is just a few days before our mortage offer runs out. This date is now less than 3 weeks away and no one has even suggested a potential exchange date. The vendors solicitors are the hold up, we have been ready to go for months.

So my new tactic is to call purplebricks daily and insist they contact the solicitors. I give them a 12 hour deadline to get the situation resolved and all parties contacted, and then if this doesnt happen (it hasn't so far) I call back.

Is there any point in this? Is there ANYTHING else I can do? If this purchase doesnt work out due to the incompetence and apathy of these people I will actually have a breakdown.

Reducing the price may delay things but not always by much. My daughter just reduced the price by 4K after getting quotes for work pointed out by the surveyor. Her mortgage company (Virgin Money) took less than a week to issue her with a new offer

Thanks all, I think your right about getting a rocket up the arse of the vendor, it should be us who has to do this chasing.

We're going to contact them tommorow and let them know that we need to complete by the date originally agreed to or we are revising our offer. Mortage rates have changed significantly, plus we've been paying rent so these delays are costing us everyday.

What is the problem with exchange and completion on the same day? Happens lots.

I hope you get it sorted. I have read so much about Purple Bricks being useless that I doubt I'd even offer on a house being sold by them. I I walked past one I fancied, I'd even consider contacting the vendor and saying I'd be interested but only if they changed agents. Last time we were in the market, I didn't even look at any 'purple bricks' houses. As a seller, I would never use the HA's choice of solicitor, whoever the HA was.
Essentially, it's the vendors' job to put a rocket under their solicitors.

It's stressful, disorganised, makes packing a nightmare and booking removers difficult and in some cases impossible, in extreme cases can cause some people to panic and pull out from the stress, can make long chains difficult because due to plans not being put in place in plenty of time, funds can't be transferred in time for all the cascading transactions before the banks close, leaving people with their own house sold but not having bought the one they're moving into, and also puts the whole chain in hostage to anyone trying funny business (dropping offers at last minute, etc.). Apart from that, it's just lovely.🙄

Yes, I’d play hard ball with the vendor by explaining that the offer reduces by £x if the date is unmet.

I appreciate the temptation to keep costs low, but she was foolish in choosing a poundshop agent/solicitor and must now deal with the consequences of her decision.

No they wouldn’t.
They have paid for the surveys / searches etc so own them.
My friend changed solicitors a week before completion because her totally mad vendor refused to deal with her first solicitor for mad reasons.
It was fine.

A decent solitor would start from scratch. You never trust someone else’s work and put your name to it. That’s assuming the PB would even hand over the paperwork, let alone do it with any type of speed, given how bad they’ve been so far.
still wouldn’t negate the issue of the mortgage offer expiring either.