How to deal with extremely slow buyer?

[MrsB94]

Hi everyone!

We accepted an offer on our house on the 15th February from a cash buyer. We then had our offer accepted for our onward purchase on the 19th February.

It has been 5 weeks since the offers were accepted and so far we have received our mortgage offer, had a survey done, ordered searches and our solicitor has sent enquiries to our vendor's solicitor for our purchase.

Meanwhile, our buyer has done nothing!! 2 weeks ago she changed solicitor, ours immediately sent the draft pack to her new solicitor and yet they have heard nothing from them.

We have been speaking to our EA who said the woman seems a little 'off' and relies heavily on her brother to do things, so she feels our buyer will need her hand holding throughout the entire process. Yesterday, our buyer told our EA that she had instructed her solicitor to go ahead with enquiries. Today, however, our EA called her solicitor and they said they have not had any instruction from her.

We want to complete by the end of May as our fixed term mortgage ends and our payments will double, we also don't want to lose our forever home that we have an offer accepted on. Im so stressed about this that I'm losing sleep.

I have told our EA that the buyer needs to have searches ordered and enquiries sent to our solicitor by the end of day tomorrow else we will have to consider putting our house back on the market. None of us know why she is stalling so much, she has sold to a developer and they want her out and the home she is in was a family home so the brother also wants her out so he can receive his inheritance from the sale!

I think we should put the house back on the market, but my husband wants to wait as he's positive that once she gets things moving, we will be okay.

I agree with you that it's time to put the house back on the market, unfortunately.

I think you've done the right thing in giving them a deadline. Follow it up and if they haven't done as you've asked then go back on the market. Its hard to know or guess her motives, so stick to your deadline. Good luck.

Stick to your deadline.
Just how keen do you believe her to be on your house? Possibly not that keen, if she's stalling so much and fibbing about her instructions. Is she potentially looking at other places and keeping your's as a back-up?

This is very unlikely but...are you in Warwickshire?? We had an unbelievably flakey woman pull out of buying our house about a year ago. She was also a cash buyer, I believe the money was coming from her brother and he was very involved in the process. Anyway, it all went tits up in the end, and I should have trusted my instinct that something was off with her. Our EA also told us she'd pulled out of another property quite far down the line before.

Even if its not the same woman, I'd urge caution!!! We've had bad experiences with 3 sales falling through. One was understandable, but the other two (including this woman & her brother) felt off to me from the start, and we should have pushed harder for progress and/or remarketed the property while they were faffing around. Hope it all works out for you 🙏

Is she a real 'cash buyer' as they are usually either after a mortgage or there is another reason that they suddenly aren't a cash buyer such as the have a house they need to sell.

If your EA is nervous by saying she is 'off' id be running a mile, especially if she hasn't even instructed solicitors after 5 weeks. I would ignore your husband and get the house back on the market asap. You don't want someone hand holding your buyer through the process either as it will just complicate things.

We’ve had a couple of experiences like this. I don’t know what goes on inside some people’s heads. I’m sorry you’re going through it as well, but I do agree with getting the property back on the market, if only to galvanise her.

I’m guessing she is a cash buyer, does need to move but is in denial about leaving the family home.

i think there’s probably something psychological about this. Sounds like the brother is pushing to get her out and she’s leading him a merry dance because she can’t face leaving.

the scenario sounds uncannily like @Edgeofthesea s situation. In which case, house back on the market.

I'd be telling her that you are placing the house back on the market. And do it. If she is serious, she will pull her finger out. If not, no further time wasted.

Usually if they are dithering at the outset, it only gets worse in my experience.

You can't really do much other than threaten them with putting the place back on the market.

As an aside I would never start my onward purchasing costs/inestigations before I knew the buyer had started theirs.

You can always tell when a buyer is keen because they will be hurrying you along and EAs will be hassling you. If you don't get that sense of urgency whether you are a buyer or a seller the odds are that they are going to take their own sweet time.

Our last house sale had a buyer like this,only I think her issues were down to the conveyancer that she'd appointed. My solicitor said that he'd had dealings with the conveyancer before and she was a bit of a nightmare. He wasn't wrong,she wanted every bit of paper we'd ever got with regards to the house,nit picked about when the conservatory was built,( prior to our buying it,and luckily I'd kept the original advert showing this). Every week it was another stupid question and another delay.
We were selling in order to do a self build and it was holding up the whole build,so in the end I said that if she didn't complete within x days,I was putting the house back on the market. She pulled her socks up and met the date. She was a cash buyer too.
Stick to your guns, people like this will waste your time and money all day every day.

We're in Worcestershire so not far at all and does sound oddly similar!

The house she is sitting is was the mother's home (I believe) and it has been sold to a developer for months now! The developer has told her she can stay until she has found somewhere else to live, but it seems like she doesn't want to leave so they will no doubt have issues with her too.

How do you save the onward purchase ones your buyer pulls out? This is what is stressing me out as we don't want to lose our onward purchase.

This is exactly what my husband thinks, he thinks she has an emotional attachment to the property as it was her mother's/the family home, and is in denial that she actually has to leave. Our EA has worked in mental health for 8 years prior to property and she's sure there is something not quite right with her in this situation. Most communication has come through the brother too as the buyer won't speak on the phone but will respond to emails. However, I feel like we have been burnt too many times by this buyer as she has spent all week telling our EA she will contact her solicitor but we still haven't heard anything from her and her solicitor hasn't heard from her either.

I think we need to go through our options tonight and see how to move forward.

Our EA has told us that the buyer wants our house and they were hoping to be in at the end of April!! Her brother has also told our EA that she needs somewhere to live so she has to buy somewhere. I don't want to talk out of term but when our EA says she seems 'off', I believe she is trying to tell us that she is maybe a little intellectually underdeveloped(?) I haven't met her, so I can't comment but the EA said she won't look her in the eye and struggles with communication. So I wonder if it will be best to cut our losses before it gets too far into the process 😕

I would knock this on the head. Explain to your seller what's happened and go back on the market.

My first buyer decided weeks into the process of buying my favourite house he didn't have the money. But I found a new buyer quickly.

We have put it back on the market tonight and will be telling our vendor and our solicitor tomorrow. Our EA has also told our buyer that until they are proceedable, we’re re-marketing the house. I pray it sells quickly again as it only took a week before

Glad to hear you've decided to get through house back on through market, OP, hope you have another (better!) offer soon.

Wrt your question about saving the knward purchase, sadly we couldn't. We were relocating for husbands work and had to go into rented. When we first marketed our house, we had plenty of time to buy, but we got messed around too much.

I agree with those saying that this woman seems to have a psychological/emotional reluctance to proceed. The woman we dealt with was similar. It dragged on and on, she'd avoid calls and emails for weeks on end, she tried to knock a ridiculous amount of money off right before exchange, and I suspect it was just a strategy for her to be able to pull out because there was absolutely no way anyone would agree to dropping that low (although we did agree to a slight reduction as we were desperate).

I think it's better to wait for the right person. And if I was selling again in a hurry, I'd make it clear to any buyer that unfortunately I've been stung before and will keep the house on the market until they've shown signs of serious progress ie. Not just proof of funds, but have actually instructed solicitors and started searches/surveys etc.

Good update op.
After sold/ bought several times, we always ensure the survey is done in a week to 10 days by the buyer.
This weeds out time wasters
Hope you sell quickly again

Wouldn't the EA have verified this?

They have to confirm a buyer is proceedable before this point, they don't just take your word for it.

I had to show 2 forms of ID and bank statements of the full amount of cash in my bank before it was marked 'SOLD STC' and the memorandum of sale was sent.

Yes the EA received bank statements etc which showed that she was sat on a nice £1.5m, and she was buying ours for £257k!

Thanks @TammyJones we’re trying to stay positive and hope a buyer comes along quickly!

House back on the market and explain to buyer 1 it will be a first past the post situation.
Say you’d love her to buy it but it HAS to be sold whether to her or someone else.