Have you ever collapsed a chain? How did it feel?

[Finallybreathingout]

Very long, sorry!

We are close to exchange on a house; we’re the bottom of the chain as we have already sold ours. Our vendors are buying a house of real sentimental significance to them - they only put the house on the market to grab the chance to buy it. So there is a LOT of emotional investment. They are really nice people and would live very locally, and have welcomed us to the community.

We had a long delay getting our final mortgage offer owing to underwriting issues so have already delayed things. We also changed solicitors as our original one was dreadful and we didn’t have confidence in them, so we have already been crap buyers, much to my mortification. But things were finally running smoothly.

Then enquiries came back and there are no building regs. To cut a very long story short, indemnities won’t cut it, the material value of the house is affected, and we’d need building work which is currently very roughly estimated at about 10% of the purchase price all costs included. We are weighing up whether to ask for a retention or just to pull out. We really didn’t want to do building work, so immediately we are in a situation we’d looked to avoid, and it will cause major inconvenience to the whole family.

Has anyone ever pulled out and collapsed a chain? Did you sleep at night? This is so difficult but I feel I’m putting the feelings of total strangers above my own self interest. We like the house very much but could carry on renting and find another without all these issues. Everyone else involved has their plans ruined, and all the same sunk costs wasted as us. This is awful, and because it’s now so last minute, even if we ask for the retention we’re going to look like those people who gazunder. We’ve already said we would take the fact that the house is old and needs a new boiler and probably rewiring on the chin and not negotiate over all that.

Yes this - it appears to have a floor built on ceiling joists designed only to support the ceiling. A huge red line and loft would need to have rsj's built into the supporting walls to build a new floor on and that's probably only the beggining of it. A complete rebuild seems to be on the cards from what you have alluded to.

Dusted ourselves off and booked some viewings for Friday on some nearby houses. The difference in the last few months in estate agent attitudes is quite striking - just had two absolutely bite my hand off for viewings, and both the houses we're looking at have already been reduced.

I do wonder whether the vendor will end up regretting turning down our reduced offer, and whether the house will reappear with the same number of bedrooms in the listing.

Well done I'm sure you've made the right decision and will actually be better off in the end. Unless they get a cash buyer who isn't interested in a survey then this is a problem that isn't going away.

I am vaguely looking at houses locally and I asked via email from one agent more details - I had 3 phone calls within about 2 hours trying to get me to book a viewing...

The market definitely feels different

Told the kids the move was off and lots of tears. Everyone had picked out their bedrooms, loved the garden etc. And I can't stop thinking how upset the vendors must be. This is no fun at all. We need to grit our teeth, say goodbye to our old mortgage offer, carry on and look forward. Our budget is now lower but we shall prevail.

You have swerved a money pit house and builder nightmares of ever-escalating budgets and household chaos for many months with a nagging underlying feeling of why the hell did we buy this place when we had a choice, that combined with falling prices and more choice and a salutary lesson in how to avoid future pitfalls. All good.

You have done absolutely nothing wrong. If anyone is at fault, it is the vendors, and their solicitors when they bought the house if the work was done before they bought it. Your budget may be lower, but if prices fall a little it may balanc out at least a little bit. I hope you find a house that's beter than the one you thought you had found- and for sure it will be better than that one actually is; to me, it has all the hallmarks of a disaster in the making, and I'd have done exactly as you have and given backword.
I wonder myself how honest the agent will be with any future buyers; at the very least those 'bedrooms' ought to be taken off the bedroom count. I have a feeling this house will be going backwards and forwards as under offer, and then back for sale, and under offer again, for some time, until the agents find a sucker, a builder who'll buy it cheap, or the vendors get the work redone and certified.

We recently pulled out of a house buy. The survey came back with quite a few issues including one room being unusable (damp) without significant work being done on it. We considered still taking it on, but something didn't feel right so we pulled out.

Felt absolutely awful about it, and still gutted about that beautiful house

Some things are not meant to be and as pp said you’ve dodged a money pit. The right house will come on and you won’t regret pulling out. Good luck with the search

It's a horrible feeling, we were in a similar situation and it took us another 4-5 months to find another property and finally move into it after 3 months of living in rental as well.

But we love our new house and are really glad now it worked out the way it did, our old house had potential for some serious problems and required a lot of work.

We wouldn't have found our current house if we hadn't gone through that, so in a way it worked out for the best.
Hope you find your home soon.

Thank you! I’ve got three viewings lined up tomorrow although more to get a sense of what sort of houses we can buy at our current budget, and we’re settled in a rental house so we can wait for the right place to come along.

The house is back on the market today - still listed with the same number of bedrooms. Guess the agent continues to fundamentally disagree with us about the legality of them. I’m pleased to see it though as shows the chain is still live; I hope the vendors find the right buyers for them to get moving, whatever that looks like.

Just a coda. We viewed four houses and the fourth was amazing. We both fell utterly in love, in a way I never did with the last one. We’re going to offer on it on Monday. It’s not where we thought we’d wanted to end up, but it has some practical advantages. Also it has (we already asked) all the appropriate paperwork in place.

Sometimes these things are meant to be

I am so, so pleased for you. This is brilliant news. Well done for holding out.

Thank you. This thread was so helpful. I still feel wretched about our vendors if I let myself think about it but there really was nothing else we could do.

We’ll lose our mortgage offer as we won’t be able to complete before it expires, so this will cost us more. But it’s a lot cheaper (because in less desirable location) so we should be OK to get new borrowing.

You really ought not to feel sorry for the vendors. Not the tiniest little bit. They have chosen not to accept the problem, and worse, they seem now to be allowing the HA to describe the house as having those rooms a bedrooms when they now have no excuse for not knowing there is a problem with that description. It looks like they are going to try and hoodwink some other poor buyers. This makes me wonder if they knew all along about all this. Whether they did or not, they are the ones who ought to feel bad- for either intentionally or inadvertently costing you time, money, and losing you your cheaper mortgage deal.

Mis-describing property wastes buyers' time, can cost them money if they don't pick the problem up before they spend money on surveys, etc, and at the very worst, land them with a turkey/money pit.
I hope you get the house you have your eye on, good luck.

We dodged a bullet on a house once. I was gutted, It was a lovely period property, we'd paid for surveys etc. but no way was I paying what we'd offered when I found out what was wrong with it (and which the vendors MUST have known about). We ended up buying in a rush a very plain 1960s semi, in a village (which was something I'd absolutely ruled out previously) and we lived there for over 30 happy years.

I should have said, the house disappeared from the market within hours, and the house they were going to buy reappeared, so they have clearly decided not to sell now, whether because they are working out the ins and outs of the house or not I don’t know. So I wonder if the agents pushed them into going back on immediately and then their solicitor or someone else suggested that might not be the right thing to do. No way of knowing, but they’re not proceeding with a new sale so far as I can tell.

I have thought all the way through that they are not acting with any bad intention at all and are the ones who have come off worst in all this.

The seller should do the work and get ot signed off before selling, or accept a realistic deduction in price. Buying and selling is a fragile process. Have both collapsed a chain (mortgage offer was withdrawn) and had buyers pull out. But also have scrambled to get building regs signed off for works that we realised lacked paperwork last minute, and paid for works to get it sorted. It's a business deal. You are not responsible at all for the feelings of the sellers. If they are invested in a dream property, they should have got their eggs in order or take out a bridging loan.

"You are not responsible at all for the feelings of the sellers. If they are invested in a dream property, they should have got their eggs in order or take out a bridging loan."

Exactly.

I'm not sure how they have come off worst. What are your lost costs compared to theirs?
They lost their ideal house, yes, but if they are telling the truth, the reason was because they or their solicitor were not thorough enough when they bought their own.

I would not have a shred of sympathy for the vendors. They were selling a house with two fewer bedrooms than advertised and, frankly, the idea of children sleeping in those unsupported loft bedrooms chills my blood. They should not have been relying on the estate agent for structural advice. I am pleased it is off the market so no other family buys it without realising it is a potential death trap.

I am so glad for you that things are working out. Far better to walk away than be stuck with having to retrospectively sort building regs or have invasive work done.

Just to say that our offer on the new house has been accepted. And we are so excited.