Advice for purchase...they have not found an onward purchase

[Hutnut]

Hi, looking for some advice.
We are selling our house, going ok so far (offer accepted 4 weeks ago).

We are in the process of buying our next home, offer accepted 2 weeks ago. Our seller has not found an onward property yet, but they will be moving due to their circumstances.

Would you pay for survey and searches etc now or would you wait until they have secured an onward property?

We don't really want to lose out on money if it can be helped.

Thanks in advance.

Personally I would hold off for now see how the land lies in a couple more weeks.

We have paid for nothing so far and have told them we will do nothing until chain is complete. We had a buyer in April, found and offered in June and they still haven't found. We have since lost and found new buyer. Looking at other properties to purchase instead so would have been a complete waste to pay out on anything.

I'd hold off too. I saw a post on Facebook the other day by a couple who had paid for searches, surveys etc and the sellers decided to take the house off the market a couple months later because they couldn't find a property in their budget - I'm not saying this will happen to you but you never know!

Thanks for your replies.

This is my gut feeling too. We lost our 1st buyer in August, so we're happy to find another - cash buyer too. So we don't want to lose them, we can't move into rented etc.

I know it's still early days and the EA said they are going for viewings.

Ours have technically been looking since March as they were under before and someone already lost patience with them. It's all a gamble really as the perfect house could turn up tomorrow. But I would delay paying anything for as long as you can, just make it clear to your solicitor.

Thanks, they do want to move now as house is too big for them to manage on their own.

I did say this to the solicitor, the seller has instructed their solicitors. So hoping they find something in the next week or 2!

Boohoo, found out yesterday they have an onward purchase. Even better chain is complete now.

Great news for you! Hope it goes smoothly from now on. I'm in the same situation, waiting for my vendor to find an onward purchase. Hoping to hear some good news before the market goes totally dead until next year!

@HavenSprings thanks. We have now booked the survey and will be pestering the solicitors as we want to be in for school admissions.
How long will you wait? It took 3 weeks for us, I was going to give another week before looking at other houses. Hope it works out for you!!

Good luck on the survey! I think solicitors only work if pestered 😂
I am willing to wait till early next year, as it's almost November and nothing else right for us will come up anyway. I do hope at least our vendors will find something before then! We might then have to wait for their vendor to find something, or to break the chain. Fingers crossed!