Is our vendor being fair?

[Areyootakingthepish]

We are in the middle of a short chain. Our buyer is cash, then the house we are buying the vendor has already made their onward purchase.

offers were accepted in the middle of November, and we’ve done all searches, enquiries and survey and so has our buyer.

a legal issue cropped up on our sale, which we are paying to sort out and it’s all agreed what we are doing, but the conveyancers are taking weeks to sort it. Our vendor is panicking and saying they’re going to remarket their property next week if it isn’t sorted.

we have done everything we can, we could never have foreseen the issue and unless I go in a hold a gun to the conveyancers head I’m not sure how much more I can do. We are ringing, chasing etc, have provided them with everything needed.

is the vendor being unreasonable?

No they're not and neither are you. It's not personal.

Sadly being fair or reasonable is not a requirement of the house buying process.

They are probably just trying to force things to hurry up. But (assuming you’re in England or Wales) until contracts are exchanged they don’t have to see the purchase through.

Good luck! Hopefully your conveyancer will get it sorted this week. Or your buyer is bluffing. Regardless, don’t take it personally, because it isn’t.

Just don't worry. They want to get to exchange and even if they put the house on the market tomorrow you'd still be first to exchange.

They are not being unreasonable. You should have checked everything was in order with your title etc before marketing your house.

No one in England does the searches and surveys before putting house on market

Yabu to assume the problem was known to OP

The OP said she had a legal problem with her sale, not purchase.

What is the issue? Can you get indeminity insurance to cover the problem? We had a issue as I didnt have a FENSA certificate for a window (which was replaced when we were broken into a few years before). Our brilliant EA just said to buy a indeminity policy which I repeated to the solicitior (who wasnt brilliant - they seem to have two speeds, slow and dead slow!) and it was done.

Just get onto the EA or your solicitor today and ask them for a solution. They should have seen and heard all sorts of issues so I am sure they can guide.

Fairness doesn't come into it.

They can do what they want.

I would focus your efforts less on wondering whether or not they are being fair, and more on doing everything you can to make what you want to happen happen.

If you are expecting everyone to conform to your idea of "fairness" in house purchasing then sooner or later you're going to be disappointed. And the whole of social media lining up behind you and agreeing with you is going to count for absolutely zero.

i can understand the buyer's impatience: have the conveyancers given an explanation why it’s taking so long to sort and given a date range for expecting how long it will take? I think it’s usually the uncertainty and the fear of things falling over that cause the wobbles - the buyer is probably thinking “ this is taking ages…. Why? Is there some horrible problem we aren’t getting the truth about? We might be better to cut our losses and just start again “

but the thing is, it will be just as likely a problem crops up in their next chain.

I would ask the estate agent to do a charm offensive with the buyer and explain that you are 100% committed and doing everything you can. But make sure the agent doesn’t/hasn’t lied about how long it might take - I found that agents just habitually lie about everything and it leads to no end of problems as the buyer is strung along and the shifting sands of what the agent says leads to a lot of mistrust.

What is the actual issue? I used to work in conveyancing and most of the hold ups we had were because of the land registry.

Ok point taken, but what the hell do we do? House buying is so stressful!

maybe that's what you need to do. go to your conveyancers

I found that agents just habitually lie about everything and it leads to no end of problems as the buyer is strung along and the shifting sands of what the agent says leads to a lot of mistrust.

all of this! we are purchasing a house now and the EA was terrible. pathological liar. the vendor is fed up with them too we feel. I'm going to secretly give my vendor my number.