What happens when you accept the sellers threats?

[Tupster]

My "dream house" purchase has been steadily turning into a nightmare. The vendors are awful and I don't trust them at all. They want my money, but they don't want me to get a say on anything during the process. There's really crucial things that they literally won't give me answers to and we've reached a point where they have threatened to put the house back on the market rather than give me answers. I've been steadily reaching the end of my tether with them, and while I really, really want the house, the more they lie to me, the more I am expecting some major double-crossing to be planned for later down the line and even before their threat I was weighing up whether I should drop out of the whole thing. I'm sure they think they are just throwing their weight around and think I'll cave under an ultimatum, but actually when I saw the threat I just started looking for another property.

What is one actually supposed to do in these circumstances? Do I have to tell them "I'll take option B - you remarket the property" or do I just not do what they want and they have to follow through on their threat? I assume that they have to deal with the agent and not me. I'm not technically the one dropping out, so do I wait for their solicitor to contact us to say they've pulled out? I've already told my solicitor to do nothing more on the purchase until these issues were resolved, which clearly they won't be now, so she's not busy spending any more of my money at this stage.

Our vendors tried this one on as well. We had to get more searches done in extended planning permission from the mortgage company and our solicitors were rubbish and not getting them sorted. The vendors' estate agents were really good and stopped them being stupid as they pointed out any other purchaser would have exactly the same request and it would set them back another 6 months again so pointless. We got the house.

OP, I would take advice from your solicitor - if it’s the case that he/she is not satisfied via their conveyancer that they’re legally able to sell the house, then I imagine they’ll be advising you to pull out. Whether or not they’ve threatened to do it is irrelevant really isn’t it - because neither party is entitled to any compensation. I had a brinkmanship type scenario in my sale - they said “it’s a hard no” after I’d offered goodwill reduction rather than their large baseless attempt to gazunder; we then re marketed as we had said we would if no agreement could be reached. Within a week they’d come back and accepted. If it’s all too stressful and your solicitor is not getting the communication needed to confirm legal matters then perhaps withdrawing is the right course of action.

I think OP needs to step back and stop overreacting. It's the solicitors' job to ensure good title acquired. Delays and the risk of a sale collapse before exchange go with the territory. And as others have said, nonsense about boiler servicing and FENSA certificates is FTB BS when people are stepping out of rented for the first time and are used to a Landlord fixing things. In truth, you pay for the location and plot size. The condition of the building, provided it is habitable/mortgageable, has little impact on price, unless you are talking designer architecture, fittings and super premium location. The vast majority of ordinary houses in the UK are poorly constructed and badly maintained. If you want the house, hang on and make sure you understand what it will cost afterwards to modernise as you want.

Just walk away. There’s always another dream house out there. It’s a buyers market. You’ll be gutted for 10 days and then it’ll fast recede from memory.

Well, this thread has turned into a fascinating example of internet craziness. Tiny handful of people who actually read the question asked and gave useful comments, plus a huge number of people determined to force me to describe every last detail of the vendors situation to total strangers on the internet, but apparently I'M the psychopath for respecting the privacy of people who have not given me consent to discuss their personal affairs in public.

Nope, loads of people said "just tell the agent and your solicitor you're pulling out". It doesn't have to be this dramatic.

Your response here just makes you look even more unnecessarily dramatic and that you're determined to see bad motivation in most people.

I’m sensing why the sale process hasn’t gone particularly smoothly.

@Tupster , I'm sorry you've had some harsh responses. I suspect there are quite a few posters who have sold (or tried to sell) to difficult buyers (not saying you are one of them), and this gives them a different perspective.

You say this is your dream house, but in quotation marks, so I think the first thing is to decide whether it really is the property for you. Then speak to your solicitor. As a PP said, they would definitely advise you to pull out if there were any deal-breakers on the legal side. Then, if all is in order, speak to the EA to see if they can speed things up.

If you do decide you want to pull out, definitely tell the EA, as that is the most likely way to speed up responses. But be prepared to walk away if you get nowhere. If it really is your dream house, you may just need to be patient (hard as that is). It's a painful process at the best of times.

We got that from your posts, tbh.

This is always the way it goes. If you post on Mumsnet expect unsolicited advice and folk jumping to conclusions, along with a smattering of being told off for not disclosing every single detail and inaccurate answers being your fault. Expect approx 25% to actually answer any question asked.

I got into rows with a bunch of folks last year about gravy, because I was 'withholding' key information in my post: namely I have a disability that means I can't stand for long periods of time. Someone literally used that word.

Yeah, alrighty, cos that's completely rational.

I've seen people arguing on every corner of the internet, but it's far more prolific here than anywhere else I've participated in.

You are an inexperienced buyer and it sounds potentially like you’re buying a probate property in which case the vendor’s answers to pretty much everything will be “I dont know - work it out yourself”. If that’s the case, you need a really good solicitor to do just that, and you get one of them by paying decent rates. You won’t get top class service for bargain fees which is something a lot of people don’t appreciate.

If they pull out you just start your search again.

Thanks @ClematisBlue49. The problem we are having is that they won't answer as to whether there is a dealbreaker. The nature of the issue is that I could find out that the answer invalidates my mortgage agreement, or that the house is unavailable until 2025. The buyers have said they won't answer until I have completed the entire conveyancing process at my cost and am ready to exchange, and if I don't agree to do that, they want to remarket. Option A just puts me and the chain below me at unreasonable risk, so as far as I'm concerned the only choice is that they remarket as they have threatened.

I'm really just asking because I expect they've made the threat as a bit of a bluff and they don't really want to pull out, but technically it is their threat and their call - I'm not the one in control of this decision. I've started lining up other viewings because the writing is on the wall, but I don't really know what is expected of me when I'm the one being dumped.

I can so picture how that gravy thread played out! 😁

It was almost worth it to see the other half's face the next day when I said 'Mumsnet can f**k right off, I got into an argument last night about GRAVY'

:D

Like so many posters, I’ll say if you want to pull out, just call the agent and tell them. It’s quite straightforward.

I totally agree that posters can jump unnecessarily on things, and also that many of us are a bit scarred from selling to FTBs with a long list of unreasonable issues so will probably sound unsympathetic, at what is to you a really stressful and upsetting time. But I think there are some reasonable questions here because it’s not clear from your posts what the legal view is on the lack of answer and so how much of an issue it is, setting aside your own anxiety about this massive purchase. Is your conveyancer telling you that this is a serious issue? If so, walk away. If they are less concerned, ask them why.

@Tupster , that does sound incredibly unreasonable of them. I can't think why they would insist on not answering until the point of exchange unless it is something that is indeed a dealbreaker. It can't be that they simply don't know, or surely they would have said that.

Ask your solicitor to provide an interim bill and carry out no further work.
Ask their estate agent to show you different properties.
Everyone will get the message, if they come back contrite then sale is back on all good.

We had a similar situation with the house we're buying (seller/seller's solicitor not providing essential information). We were on the verge of pulling out and asked the EA to show us alternative properties. Suddenly, everything was sorted at breakneck speed! Glad we stuck it out as the house is great for us and it's a time sensitive move. Sorry you're going through this stress, OP, really hope things work out for the best.

@ClematisBlue49 Yes, this is why I am completely against continuing the conveyancing work unless this can be sorted now. If they would rather threaten me they'll remarket than actually give me critical information, I can only assume that the answer when I get it will mean I have to drop out anyway.

@Norhymeorreason Thanks. In a piece of very good timing, I have heard on the grapevine that another house just a few doors down has a sale that has also run into trouble (for entirely different reasons that are not to do with the property), so there is potentially a very realistic plan B for me. This could either concentrate minds for my sellers or soften the blow for me - we will see. I have a very busy work week coming up and I don't have much capacity for endless panicked calls from estate agents trying to patch things up, hence a bit wary of getting into dramas this week - but it wasn't my choice.

@INeedAnotherName the estate agent may not have checked or been reliable.

we tried to buy a house last year and got 6 months down the line (into enquiries) and turned out the vendors didn’t legally own the garden they were trying to sell. 🤦‍♀️ Incompetence all round and wasted our money.

The choice isn't that they remarket

The choice is do you carry on with this purchase or look elsewhere

What is your solicitor saying ?

@KievLoverTwo I remember that thread, it was bonkers. I can't make gravy so always use granules. Every time I buy lamb and mint gravy I think of you and your thread 😁

I've only read your posts OP as the thread did go wonky. My only thought is about this being a dream house. It's a lovely thing to find, but it means you're going to be too emotionally involved to think clearly, or at least it would me. And I have one anecdote as a tale of caution against the notion of a dream house - when we chose ours it was "ok", it ticked all our criteria - we made a list and a spreadsheet and judged each house immediately before looking at the next, and it got the highest score but we felt very blah about it. That meant that we felt safe offering a lower than asking price, which we were given. And on moving in day we discovered that we absolutely love the house, it is in fact our dream house, but we couldn't see that in the moment. We'd been looking at 10 houses every weekend so perhaps we were house-blind. I still remember one house that I never got to view as it sold quickly, on paper it was my dream house at the time, but I can now see that the layout would have been wrong for us. Good luck with your choice, if I was in your posotion I'd walk away.