No chain sale - now has a chain!

[Nochainnowchain]

Looking for advice - offer excepted on a no chain property in January and the solicitor said we could complete last week - then the sellers solicitors come back with “we are not in a position to discuss completion dates”

Turns out although they don’t need to the cash from the sale to move they are in a chain with where they are going (don’t know the full details it’s like getting blood from a stone) and the top of the chain is waiting for a build warranty and some enquiry replies.

I don’t know if we would have bought the house if we would have had to wait ages - do we give an ultimatum and say be out by the end of the month or we will pull out? I’m not overly bothered about the house, we would lose about £1000 if we pull out.

You're quite a long way down the line now and even if you find another chain free property to buy, you will likely take as long to complete on it as finishing off with this sale. Only you can decide if the £1000 + the house is something you're willing to lose.

You don't sound very committed to this house though; as you sure you're not mentally using the chain revelation as a "get out" for buying it?

They lied to you and messed you about.

I think that is absolutely grounds to pull out. With the way transactions work in England (assuming you are in England), the only basis to avoid endless delays and twists is trust, and by advertising as chain free they lied from the beginning.

If it were me, and then unless I really wanted the house - and it sounds like do you not - I would probably just pull out now. Or, at a minimum, I would start looking at other properties, and be ready to pull out either as soon as I was ready to make an offer elsewhere, or as soon as had an accepted offer on a different house.

That happens so often unfortunately…I was in the same situation, after 9 months stalling from the sellers side I pulled out. Luckily I then found a property which I liked much more.

Do you have it in writing that it was chain-free? It's not a legal thing so no recourse there but I would massively kick off if so to try and get things moving. If you're not that fussed about buying it then give them a deadline. Might also be worth resuming viewings, maybe find one or two with this EA to scare them a bit?

We had a supposedly chain-free purchase, which it much later emerged wasn't as we were waiting for probate on the seller's onward purchase - EA had assured us he already had a place sorted. But we'd only ever been told chain-free, it wasn't in writing.

They have been dishonest and broken your trust.

Unless you really want this house, I would pull out or at the v least start looking elsewhere for a better home.

I presume you haven't exchanged contracts? I would probably just state that your offer was on the basis of there being no chain. Since it appears that there now is a chain, you are reducing your offer by (insert whatever amount you think reasonable). Alternatively, to keep the offer as is, completion needs to occur within (insert your dates), or you will withdraw from the purchase.

Nothing ventured and all that.

The lack of recourse for when agents haven't done due diligence is a huge gap. Finding ourselves they will never commit to writing anything in an email, only ever over a phone.

Sadly though when you still need them to get things finished I'm loathe to submit a complaint and then escalate until such a time that it either completes or crashes completely

Hi OP, we were in this situation in 2019.

We had cash, no chain, were out of our minds living with family and desperate to move in.

Were assured repeatedly that elderly vendor was moving in with her daughter and was therefore chain-free, could move as fast as we wanted.

After a month or so of inexplicable delays, it turned out she was actually moving into sheltered accommodation - which wasn't vacant yet. So was dithering around waiting for her side of the 'chain' to be available.

I sent a cold and factual email to the EA and both solicitors, copying the (thankfully written) confirmation that she could meet our timeframe becasue moving in with family.

I said that since our offer was dependent on the facts as stated, we were going to drop our offer price by £X,000 per week that the delays continued, starting the following Monday.

The EA called me saying I was being outrageous (!) but I said the offer price reflected our timeframe being met and that, outrageous or not, I was going to proceed as outlined in my email.

Lo and behold we moved the following Monday! She did as she'd promised and moved in with her daughter until the next move was ready. I guess it cost her double van rental but we were paying a fair price for her house and being lied to, so I had zero sympathy.

In your shoes, I think you should decide if you want to proceed at all, and if so what you want that to look like (lower price incrementally for each delay? or just make a lower offer given the chain?)

There's no reason you can't keep looking at what else is available while you decide this. Best of luck.

What is it in this instance that makes you certain it is the agent that is at fault, and not the property vendor who has shifted the goalposts on what was originally agreed?

What due diligence do you suggest an estate agent does that would ensure a vendor sticks to their word that there will be no onward chain?

That when they conducted their due diligence and AML checks and advised they had seen the proof of funds we wouldn't be getting told 12 weeks later that there was an unsold property that wasn't even on the market required to provide the actual funds. I probably could include the other solicitors as being culpable but the agents were the ones who put on a memorandum of sale that they were cash buyers

This happened to us in reverse, we were selling and our buyers were meant to be selling to a cash buyer, we were buying an empty house as the seller had recently moved to a care home. So a short chain but given the circumstances we thought it was ok. But then their buyer withdrew their offer and they took six weeks to decide and organise renting their house instead. We regret giving them the benefit of the doubt but as they were going to be the bottom of the chain we went with it along with a reduced offer as the buy to let mortgage was not as generous. We were on the cusp of exchanging and then they suddenly had a buyer and wanted to sell again but still at the lower price. On investigation it would have added another 5 sales into the chain including a probate and a leasehold property that would have created a lot of conveyancing. We were clear from the beginning that we had to move by a certain time due to work and schools (they didn’t have that pressure) and they didn’t see why we were so concerned about the changes in circumstance and the huge chain nor why we were feeling rather messed about with the goalposts changing again. We told them that we couldn’t continue and we got an offer from another buyer that was at the bottom of the chain. I hate the way property sales work in England, it seems so fraught and uncertain and there must be a way of committing people to their offer and timing earlier in the process.

It looks like you're talking about a different scenario that affected you, rather than the experience the OP is going through. As AML checks and proof of funds wouldn't have made any difference to the OP.

Yes this sounds familiar, happened to us, we were all purchasing cash from sale and then it turned out that there was actually another party in the chain at the bottom, who was delaying things over an issue with the lease, thankfully we did exchange and complete, but it looked dicey right up to till exchange. I hope it all works out ok, do what’s right for you.

Thanks all - I think it’s the trust thing that’s an issue and the fact we were clear we wanted to move fast! It says NO CHAIN INVOLVED on the advert and the estate agent was confused as to what the issue was! It’s also waiting to mention it till completion was brought up.

It’s a bit of a stop gap house to see us through the nursery years, functionally has all we need and will get them into the desired school but I don’t love it. I’ll have a look on Rightmove and see if there’s anything else we like the look of!

This happened to us, we thought we were about to exchange and then suddenly there was an open chain! We stuck with the f#ckers and then they pulled out a couple of months later after a problem with their onward purchase. Really frustrating, can't trust anyone!

There should be better guardrails to stop people from doing this. We were both in a similar situation where the sellers said they were chain free and that they were almost moved out already. We spent solicitor costs, mortgage upfront fees, survey, searches..then after 3 months, they told us they couldn't find an affordable place to move so they decided to stay put. We were out of pocket for 3k+ but of course no obligations for the sellers to reimburse us. They also had the audacity to email us saying this is how house sale works and life is like this and didn't even apologize. We still hope bad karma for them.

We accepted an offer to buy our house from a ‘cash’ buyer. Then it was cash ‘and mortgage’: they showed EA proof of funds. Then, after over a month of us paying solicitors for the sale (and the purchase of our next house), they said they also needed to sell their current flat. The could have done cash & mortgage, they just preferred to sell their flat before upgrading to a house as mortgage was cheaper. Their flat had been on the market for a while but they lied & said they were going to rent it out. They then said they can’t sell it for what they thought and used their chain - which they’d lied & said they didn’t have - to knock £££ off our price! We told out EA they’re no longer credible buyers and we won’t deal with them. The world of EAs is small, word gets around. They’ll struggle to be taken seriously in our area again.

Honestly there is generally always something. One house chain our ‘no chain’ purchase suddenly had a house tagged on. Another time quite a way through the process our sellers announced their purchase was awaiting probate. Another time, very late on we discovered there was a divorce down the chain and the purchase was dependent on parent loans and a parent house sale. I’m yet to ever have a house move go as planned. It’s very annoying and people are generally not truthful, but in my opinion, there’ll be something every time. All these chains I’ve listed above did go through, but they did take longer. Just wish people were more honest about circumstances.

We had similar - we were in a long painful chain anyway and at the last minute, the woman at the top of the chain (who had originally been hassling for an earlier completion) magicked up a new chain that her daughter was involved in and needed to complete at the same time.

We were the second party from the bottom, so I told our vendors estate agent that we would be pulling out of the purchase and going into rented if we didn't exchange and complete within XXX, and they were to pass that message up the chain. Then lo and behold we suddenly were able to exchange and complete as planned!