Would I be unreasonable to do this???

[Bizzieizz]

I’m a cash buyer, I’m coming from rented. People I’m buying from are buying a house, but those sellers are also going into rented.

When I offered at the beginning of March I was very clear I was basing my offer (what they asked for) around this moving quickly.
The people I was buying from assured me that they would move to their parents if I could complete sooner than them.

So all my stuff was done by beginning of April as I pushed really hard to get it done quickly, searches, survey, questions etc and I started pushing for exchange, as I am moving with no furniture and I can’t order anything until I’ve exchanged just in case (DFS for example is a 12 week wait), they then decided it was too difficult to move to their parents and wouldn’t do it.

I know that they are committed to this, but they only got their mortgage agreed 3 weeks ago, so was assured we would exchange imminently.
We still haven’t exchanged, but the suggested completion date is 3-4 weeks. I suspect we will exchange next week, but Ive been told that we will exchange next week for weeks now

Ive now missed the date for notice here. I am going to have to pay for an extra month (should have been done by 2nd) and also I’m liable for council tax, insurance, utilities etc until the tenancy is up.

Im a bit pissed off, as the point of cash was to go quickly and I paid more than I wanted on the understanding they would be going if need be.

I don’t want to be an arse, but I’m thinking of reducing my offer by 2k to cover a months extra rent and bills on a vacant rental, because I’m going to be left quite out of pocket.

Is that a shitty thing to do and will that slow it all down if I do that?

Just to add, they didn’t need a survey on their house and their solicitor has been ridiculously slow answering questions.

It feels like the seller has for some reason been trying to slow this down to a timescale that they want to have

If you are prepared to not get the property risk it if you really want the property don’t.

Have you ever bought a house before? IME ther has always been delays and I just accept that as part of the process.

Yes I have bought before, and I accepted there would be delays, but I feel I have been strung along for over a month.
Sellers assured me they would move out if need be as I was clear on my situation and as it stands, having done everything quickly on my end I will now be losing money when I move.
My issue is the exchange, I can’t give notice until I do.

If you are willing to lose the property ask for the compensation the sellers could take offense and pull out if this is something you can accept nothing to lose.

If you reduce your offer the sellers will potentially need to get a new mortgage offer so it could backfire and take longer again. You haven't lost anything financially by things being delayed and there's always a risk the notice period for ending a tenancy won't line up. Why do you say you have?

Your sellers are selling and buying - this is really stressful. Chances are the delay (in your eyes) is down to the enquiries their mortgage company is insisting on so our of the sellers' hands altogether. I think you would be daft to reduce your offer now and would come across as an arsehole tbh.

I will lose money. The suggested completion date is at the same time my tenancy started. My landlord wants a months notice and isn’t getting new tenants in (wants to sell) so no hope of being released early.
So when we complete I am obviously liable for everything in new house, but also liable for everything in rental.

If it was a week or so then fine, but it won’t be it’s going to be the full 4 weeks, and it’s frustrating for me, who has done everything as quickly as possible, was clear from the start and was assured they would move to parents in the interim as I specified I needed a quick move.

I was given the impression they had their mortgage in place about 6 weeks ago, but the Agent let slip they only got it 2 weeks ago, so all the time the Agent was telling me we would be exchanging this week as everything was in place he was aware that everything was not in place.

Like I said, I don’t want to be an arse, I’m just asking. I’m not looking to drop 20k, just the equivalent of what I have to pay out, based on their delays and them not doing as agreed over moving out

If you only offered at the beginning of March it really hasn’t been all that long in the grand scheme of things. I get it’s frustrating but I would just sit tight. If you try to renegotiate now you will just piss everyone off.

So could you just delay completion so that you wouldn't be paying for the two properties?

You don’t need to justify it just ask but be prepared for them to say no and potentially pull out.

If I was the seller depending on my circumstances given my personality I would pull out from selling to you if you tried to drop the price by a couple of thousands just on principle alone however, if I was desperate to sell obviously I wouldn’t do that. You have to gauge how motivated the sellers are to sell to you and take the risk or not.

Nobody’s right or wrong in this situation you just need to be prepared for the outcome not being what you had hoped should the sellers take offense and pull out.

A no chain transaction usually take 6-12 weeks. Unfortunately it's the solicitor surveys which tend to take the longest time.

They've acted really poorly and it's incredibly frustrating, but I think I'd give them a month's grace - so say now that you're down £2000 and that if there's further delays that mean you need to extend your tenancy your offer will be reduced accordingly. The house buying process is so weird that I think there is a risk of causing offence / fucking up their mortgage / delaying everything.

We had a slightly similar issue in that our purchase (of a vacant house!) was inexplicably slow on the seller's side and the window for reduced stamp duty was closing - we were very clear that everything had been done at speed on our side and the offer would be reduced to cover the additional stamp duty we'd be liable for if completion wasn't in time. This certainly sped things up.

I don’t think they would pull out.
Unfortunately I can’t delay the completion, we have all specifically planned it for half term (all parties have children) and no other time will work for us all (again sellers asked for that date after previously wanting End April) and tbh I don’t want to spend more time chucking rent money down the drain than I have to.

I will have a think about what to do, because I’m now at the end of another week where I was assured we would exchange, so I suspect again it is not going to happen.

in your shoes, I'd put a hard deadline on completion and say if we're not done by then the offer is pulled from the table or lowered by x amount. And really mean it.

You may have to accept a month's extra rent if you really want that property.

Personally I'd start looking at other properties as a contingency plan. As a cash buyer you're in a very strong position to find another property quickly. The interest rates are rising which sadly will trigger more people having to sell so you're in the best position to possibly take advantage of that.