Pulling out of house purchase - would you tell solicitor first or estate agent?

[VioletViolets]

I’m aware this is probably a stupid FTB question, but I’d really appreciate any advice.

Had an offer accepted last year what would have made a good starter home, which was what we could afford at the time. There’s been zero progress - vendors have not found their onward purchase and are not being great with updates, the clock is running down on our mortgage offer and in the meantime prices have dropped and we can afford a bigger house and potentially buy our forever home now.

Obviously we feel bad about this but we have waited around for a very long time. So we need to pull out. And I know it’s probably a stupid question, but who do we tell first - the estate agent or solicitor? Thanks for any advice!

Why not one email and address to both?!

Also if you were the vendor in this situation, how much feedback / information would you want about the reasons why?

It really doesn’t matter who’s first
and surely second will be minutes later

Too much of a delay
circumstances have changed

This hadn’t occurred to me! I think because we need to say different things to each of them? As we will want to keep the solicitors on for a different purchase…

Thanks folks - I wasn’t sure if there was an official way of doing this the way there is with making offers.

You’ll re-contract the solicitor for a future house purchase. So that’s a separate scenario for the future, vs keeping them on.

Tell your solicitor first, because you want them to stop doing things that you'll have to pay for asap.

Tell the estate agent first. It will make much more of a difference to them than your solicitor and they will be the ones who need to tell the vendor. I would suggest phoning rather than email as it will be viewed as more polite. They won’t be surprised, nobody wants to sit around for months waiting for a vendor to find an onward purchase.

I would call the agent first thing Monday and then the next call would be to your solicitor.

Thanks everyone. I was indeed planning to call first before following up by email. Appreciate all the advice!

I'd tell my solicitor first, as they are acting for me- the agents are acting not for you, but the seller. But I would contact the agent immediately I'd got through to my solicitors, because to be fair to the sellers, they need to know a.s.a.p. I'd also make it very clear to all parties that you simply got fed up of waiting for the sellers to make any progress with the sale- and that you'd have completed if the sellers had pulled their fingers out. That will, hopefully, stop you getting into a bad place with the agent if you want to offer on any other properties of theirs in the future.

If - and I emphasise if- they were been hanging onto your offer hoping for a fall in the market so they could sell dear and buy cheap, they have overdone it big time.

Solicitor first just to make sure you won't have any financial liability to pulling out. You shouldn't in the circumstances but it does depend on the terms agreed between yourselves and the seller.

This.

Personally I would send them both an email at the same time. Does it matter if the estate agent knows that you will use your solicitor for an alternative purchase?

If anything it shows that you were actually a serious buyer but just wasn't prepared to wait any longer, particularly given the market is changing