Buyer pulled out…..again

[Snugmummy]

so I posted before about our buyers needing more time to decide- after offering and us accepting.
They left us 10 long days in limbo and then finally came back and said they absolutely definitely want our house- they completely love it and started negotiating for our blinds, curtains , light fittings and gym equipment- they wanted it all!
We then went ahead and offered on our dream house, had our offer accepted and all surveys were completed with absolutely no issues whatsoever.
They then sent an email… a bloody email! To our estate agents on April fools day (feels horribly ironic) to say that, sorry, hope we understand but they’ve decided to buy another house. I’m so gutted - our dream house is now back on the market and so are we.
Please send me positive stories of a successful end to these situations, I’m aware they happen often, but never to us before. I’ve fallen in love with ‘our’ new house but feeling terribly depressed that we may lose it after all.

Of course I don’t expect someone to lose their dream house over mine

🤷

@brocollilover people are allowed to be disappointed when a buying and selling process falls through. It’s part of why moving house is considered one of the most stressful experiences. What’s your problem with the OP being upset and disappointed?

i have reiterated that “shitty” and “very annoying”

my point was simply no one to blame

The sooner we adopt the Scottish system the better. We had exactly the same experience, except it was our neighbour who pulled out on Christmas Eve. It was awful, especially as she wouldn’t email the estate agent but text me when I was at work. Completely ruined my Christmas, the bastard.

I think shortening and streamlining the process would avoid a lot of this. 8 - 12 week is a long time to have your head turned

when I brought my house now, they had a buyer pull out. They wanted to keep house on the market despite accepting my offer. That was a firm no. Told them im not playing monopoly I’m serious hence my offer reciprocate that by acceptance and market removal. Process took 9 weeks 🙄

That’s horrendous! Agreed, the Scottish system is so much better. Everyone has a right to look around as much as they want, but buyers here can literally pull out at the last minute!

Would the sellers of the house you had offered on not give you any time at all?

That’s a bit heartless if you ask me. I’d have expected a couple of weeks grace to find a new buyer.

Hear this all the time, and all the sunk costs of surveys on the new property only to have the chain fail.

Am beginning to think that people should have to pay a non returnable deposit, held by the vendor’s solicitors, when an offer is made. Kind of like a pre-exchange contract of intent.

I’ve just bought/sold in Scotland and maybe unusual but missives weren’t concluded until the day before we moved in so we absolutely could have pulled out until then.

This is really shitty buyer behaviour. But did you have to let the dream house go immediately? I'd have got your estate agent on the case immediately to try to find a new buyer....then after 5 days or so, talk to the selling agent of your dream home, explain to them and ask if they are able to wait (negotiate some time), for you to find another buyer. I just personally wouldn't have immediately let the dream house go...and before anyone says anything, I don't mean lie or anything to dream home owners as that's shitty, I just mean to discuss it all to see if they can wait. Not everyone is a hurry for the sales to go through so you might have got lucky.

it was suggested that we could ask for a few weeks grace but they are desperate to move due to personal reasons (which we are aware of) so we felt it was only fair to let them do what they have to do. I’m really hoping that a new buyer will waltz in pretty quickly for us tho, but I’m an eternal optimist! There are no other houses in the area that we are remotely interested in unfortunately.

Seeing that they had the survey done (in the OP), I think that was pretty obvious….

Really?

I don’t know but when I was looking for a house, found one, put an offer in that was accepted and were at the point of negotiating curtains etc…
I wasn’t looking at other houses anymore ‘for a best offer’.

That's really rubbish, OP, it's such a broken and stressful system. I suspect it had nothing to do with your buyers finding a dream house and everything to do with them being flaky and not knowing what they want! I hope things work out for you.

Did your buyers have a survey done too? Was there something on it which was offputting?

Whilst I don't think this is great, there's obviously something about the other house they preferred more? If yours was perfect and priced competitively, then it would be odd for them to pull out for somewhere else?

I would speak to your sellers- they're unlikely to find a new buyer in the space of a few weeks, so it may be worth keeping lines of communication open with them, especially as you love the house?

No issues with the survey at all- they specified that they wanted a house near to a shop & drs surgery (we are rural) but the place they have gone to has neither of those- so it is literally just the house. I am in contact with our seller as we swapped numbers on our second viewing (I know the estate agents hate that!) and we have a friendly relationship so we have agreed to keep in contact throughout. It’s difficult to know if we’re priced competitively as it’s a one off build and top ish end of the local market. I know it’s not logical to be angry that they preferred another house, but after all the initial stress and uncertainty they continually assured the estate agents that they were committed to the sale, but we’re obviously still looking around 🤷‍♀️

Sorry to hear this OP. It's gutting when it happens.

We had flakey first time buyers when we were buying the house we live in now. They offered on our flat which was priced very reasonably to sell, then pissed about for ages, not returning the EA's calls, and I ally putting out as had found something else.

The seller of our house wanted a quick turnaround, and fair play to the EA who managed to calm him down and get him to hold off putting it back on the market immediately.

Thankfully same EA put ours back on straight away and managed to get it under offer within a week, and despite a few further bumps along the way, we managed to get our house.

It was horribly stressful though, and not something I want to do again for a very long time. Fingers crossed you get yours under offer again asap.

I hate buyers like this. Our current system is awful. OP, I wish you nothing but good luck and your ex buyers nothing but bad karma.

OP - Chat with your EA. Tell them that the house you want to buy is pretty much the only one you are interested in in the area so if you lose it by not having a buyer you might end up not moving at all.... EAs are the only people in the process that don't get paid unless there is a sale so that might sharpen up their selling efforts.

If you get a buyer quickly you are still a good bet for your dream house vendors because you have already had surveys etc done.

Sending positive vibes OP. As an ex estate agent of many years, I’ve seen these things work out for my sellers plenty of times. Usually, they end up attracting a new buyer (at a better/ higher offer than the original buyers) and are still in time for the dream home…or they get the better offer and end up finding something better too! These things always have a habit of working out 😃

As requested, a story of a positive end to such a situation …

After 13 months in a chain (long story but delays being caused by both our buyer at the bottom of the chain and the new build developers at the top), our buyer pulled out the day before exchange because we wouldn’t renegotiate over a sloping floor which three surveys had confirmed was the way the house had been built (in 1800) and was not a structural issue. Dream house gone, like the OP we’d seen nothing else we liked and were heartbroken. We lost motivation to immediately go back on the market because we’d been playing the chain game for so long and because my MIL had died a month earlier and we were up to our eyes in probate, so we decided to give it a few months and see how we felt.

Six months later, we went back on the market, had an offer at asking price the following day and the day after that, the dream house we had originally offered on was back on Rightmove. Turned out the vendors had also decided to call a halt for a few months and by sheer coincidence had relisted two days after we did! Readers, I am typing this from that dream house.

OP, if it’s meant to be, it’ll happen. Promise.

I had this once.

Buyer faffing around and our EA was shit. Buyer couldn't secure their mortgage in the end. I put house straight back on market and decided to wait 2 weeks before telling our vendors. Within 2 weeks we had 3 offers and accepted an all cash buyer for more than our original buyer had offered! And this wasn't during peak selling times either.

Vendors EA did find out obviously, but by then we had already secured the new buyer. All went well after that!

Really sorry to hear this OP, it’s a horrible situation and totally confirms why moving house is one of life’s biggest stresses. It’s encouraging to hear the stories with positive outcomes. We initially had our house under offer 6 months ago and we had finally found a house we liked and had an offer accepted. Now we’re in a situation where our flaky buyers pulled out, but we were under offer again within a week. The vendors have waited for us, let’s face it, they wouldn’t get another buyer coming along and getting the whole thing sewn up any quicker. Although we now have new buyers, we’re very much aware that it could happen again. I agree that there should be some kind of deposit made at the point of having an offer accepted, otherwise it’s a case of trusting somebody is really committed to buying your house.

I feel your pain. We’re on the second set of buyers who have pulled out. Have incurred over £1k of expenses. It’s really shit. People are so flaky!!

You win! I like your story best! 😊