Hi all, first time caller, long time listener here :)
We’re purchasing a property with no forward chain, from a seller who is “motivated and wants a quick sale”. I bet you can see where this is going.
We’re now 7 weeks since our offer was accepted, and our solicitor has yet to receive a draft contract. The vendor’s EA / sales progressor got in contact in the first week of July (4 weeks post offer acceptance) to tell me that the delay is due to the title plan stating the property as leasehold instead of freehold. Turns out the house was (or possibly still is) shared ownership and the housing association is still 50% owner on the title plan. We are buying “the full monty” so to speak but we’re not aware of the SO status of the property prior to this. Anyway, the EA said the vendor is chasing to have this remedied but that “this may take some time”.
On paper it looks like the property is still SO and the vendor is trying to do a back-to-back staircase (our solicitor has received a copy of the present title plan from the HA’s solicitor - who is not the vendor’s solicitor). However, the EA said the vendor “definitely”owns the freehold, but “needed to make a payment to the Housing Association” to “get the paperwork sorted”. They apparently have now paid this fee, but they still can’t offer a timeline as to when this title plan will be updated so we can get draft contracts. It’s all very vague as to what this payment is for - could it be that the vendor never paid the HA solicitor’s fees for enfranchisement? Or something to do with getting permission from the HA to sell?
Either way, I fear that this isn’t down to a simple admin error, and that we’re actually waiting on the seller completing a lengthy enfranchisement process before draft contracts can be issued.
Our mortgage offer expires at the end of November, and if we lose that, we may not be able to move at all. I’ve been chasing the vendor’s EA daily, and the only update is “the vendor is still chasing for a timeline”. Meanwhile, our buyers have already completed all searches and enquiries and are asking us for an exchange date; we don’t even know yet when we’ll see a draft contract.
WWYD? Should I tell the vendor’s EA that we’re going to resume our property search? Or should I insist on some better clarification on what the holdup is, in the hopes we can move things along? And any insight from anyone who’s ever had to deal with the re-sale/purchase of a shared ownership property would be most welcome too.