Chain advice

[Mover2024]

We agreed our sale mid April and our purchase start of May. We thought it was bizarre that we haven't heard anything about our vendors onward purchase so decided to chase. Our vendors had originally stated that they would move as slowly or as quickly as we wanted to. We should have clarified what that meant as we assumed it meant they were willing to go into rented.

Our vendors have now found somewhere. Their vendors have found somewhere, which is a house of a divorcing couple. One of the couple is moving into rented and another is now looking for somewhere, so the chain is not yet complete and we don't know whether there will be a further onward chain. Our buyer is in rented so it's currently an enclosed chain of six.

Our sale is ready to exchange. Our EA are saying it's not really fair on our buyer to have to wait for an indeterminate amount of time when she is ready to exchange, which I completely appreciate. Our EA is saying someone will need to break the chain as it's too long. So she has called our vendors EA to ask if our sellers will go into rented. He said he thinks it's unlikely but he'll ask. We're now waiting for the response.

Any advice on what to do please? We're porting our mortgage so can't really be the ones to break the chain. We really do not want to lose our buyer as the housing market at the minute is obviously awful. I'm just a bit 🙃 even DH is stressed and he rarely gets stressed

I mean, if you can’t break the chain all you can do is hope your vendors are true to their word. I think in another week you could push much harder on their EA and say your offer was at least partly down to their flexibility which you now need otherwise you will lose your buyer, and they will lose you.

Equally at the moment, your buyers have only waited 6-ish weeks so I really wouldn’t be too stressed by them waiting a little longer.

@DecafCanEffOff thank you. This is helpful. Yes, you're right in the grand scheme of things it's two months today that we accepted our buyers offer so not ages and just over a month since our offer was accepted.

I think saying that if their onward purchase and rest of the chain isn't ready by end of August then our purchasers should break the chain is reasonable?

"chain advice"

Avoid at all costs if possible or have them as short as you can

If a place you are hoping to buy has been on the market for a while or been on the market before and advertised you can often do searches on the net - ask why it was not sold last time

OP, you have a very, very complex chain - if others feel like you and are serious - some people will just sell and move to rented in order not to break chain and stay in rented for a moth or two whilst they get their own purchase confirmed

I think your EA is putting her own interests ahead of your own and that she needs to back off.

It’s only been six weeks and it doesn’t sound as though there are any problems further up the chain.

So she has called our vendors EA to ask if our sellers will go into rented

Did she ask your permission before doing this? Do the vendors think this is coming from you, or the EA?

I think it is unreasonable to just expect someone to "break the chain". People throw the phrase "just go into rental" around like it's an insignificant step. You've stated yourself that you have a reason why you can't do it - there are many other reasons that other people will have, not least that rental is hugely costly and the risk is massive. Especially now when prices are in a bit of a slump - selling first risks getting priced out of the market if prices suddenly pick up.

Also be aware it's not really a true "buyers market" at the moment - certainly in my area there is very limited choice and for sellers who are prepared to sell at the right price, it's much easier to find another buyer than it is for buyers to find another comparable property. This will be why chains can be slow to piece together at the moment. Getting pushy with people to put themselves at financial risk may mean the better solution for them is to pull out of the sale.

Thanks. Yeah, the chain is complex and I think the EA is right that at some point it will need to be broken. It's just when

I think the issue more so is that the chain isn't even completed and we don't know how long the chain will be once the person at the top finds somewhere.

Is it unusual for people to move in with family/go into rented to shorten a chain?

I completely appreciate all that but we're worried about losing our buyer down the line as the chain isn't even complete yet. We also don't know if any of the properties have any complexities etc

If you can't break the chain and are concerned about losing your buyers then you need to be looking for another property with no onward chain.
I personally wouldn't have gone into rented and completely understand why someone wouldn't. Your sellers could probably find someone else to buy their house fairly quickly again so don't need to bend over backwards to please you unfortunately.

Hoefully it works out but if not - next time try to avoid as much as possible - like I said, some people are so fed up, the sell their place first and rent for a couple of months - easier to sell your place and buy a place if you go chain free but not feasible in most cases

Good luck

You can still break the chain if you are porting your mortgage. You usually have 6 months in which to port the new mortgage to another house. You may need to initially pay the early repayment charge but this then gets refunded once you draw done the mortgage on your new house and the rate will be the same as your original mortgage (we did this a couple of months ago and have also done the same several years ago).