Vendor pulled out at exchange

[JH20000]

Vendor pulled out 30 minutes before exchange. Devastated.
I’ve spent over 3.5k in legal and survey fees.

please tell me it gets better. I’ve wasted 5.5 months to get to this point

Been there and it's utterly shit. Sympathies OP.

Have a good cry tonight, then tomorrow re-group and focus on making a plan on what to do next.

Well in some parts of the country for some types of properties eg terraced it's almost all leasehold with peppercorn rent so 🤷 the issue here isn't with it being leasehold but with vendor pulling out which could happened either way..

@Cornflakelover I have to agree with below posters.

Not everyone knows about the insurance or has the money to pay for it if budgets are tight. Ops clearly in a bit of a dark place rn.

I mentioned insurance for op next time as I only knew about it through to one of my previous house properties falling though.

Op it feels hideous now but you may have dodged a bullet. Truly

It sucks, I'm sorry. You could offer for the vendors to buy the survey from you, but they don't have to.

For next time, you could also choose a 'no completion, no fee' solicitor, but your disbursements (searches) would still be payable regardless.

If your referring to my post with the laughing emojis I actually took the time to explain to the OP what type of insurance she needs to get and the different levels and how it works

the laughing not at the op herself because it’s a horrible position she’s is in but it’s is because in my opinion when dealing with people in general when it comes to buying a house your taking a huge gamble and your relying on them being trustworthy and reliable and your spending ££££££of pounds it’s wise to insure one selves against other peoples stupidity and selfishness and to trust such people is just stupid

it’s stupid not to get some form of insurance when your spending thousands of pounds upfront with no way of getting that back and if you can’t afford 60 -100 to protect against losing thousands then maybe you can’t afford to buy a house right now

Homebuyers insurance isn’t new
the way we buy houses isn’t new either

if your spending hundred of thousands of pounds on something and several thousands upfront then my first question to the estate agent / solicitor would be what happens to my my money I’ve spent if this sale falls apart

i hope that the op gets through this and buys another house with homebuyers insurance in place

oh and for the OP and anyone buying a house and getting insurance against stuff like this happening

if you do buy homebuyers insurance
check the small print
if you get it from the solicitors who are dealing with the sale it should cover you right to the end of the sale even if the sale takes a year or more

the other homebuyers insurance might only cover you for six months after the MOS
so check with the solicitors what happens if the sale takes longer than six months

I really feel for you OP - it is awful and bad luck. So many plans made and getting your hopes up never mind the lost money and time. I wish the system here was similar to Scotland so that there is some protection.

I hope you find a much better place and more honourable vendors. It can happen!

And I do apologies to the op if she thinks my post was wrong
I wasnt even replying to her post but the to someone else who asked if there was insurance

i hope the op gets through this and I hope her vendors have an itchy ass for the rest of their life

I've had similar, though with more notice than 30 mins (not a lot more, but 30 mins is exceptionally shitty). You have all my sympathy.
All I can say is that it sucks. The house buying/selling process in England and Wales is atrocious. Losing thousands through no fault of your own - which I have done (including as a very hard up FTB) - is painful.
You can ask if the vendor will refund some or all of the cost of the searches etc. But they don't have to; it'd just be a goodwill gesture.
The only advice I can give you for the longer term is to walk away and try to forget about it because you can't control it. People are arseholes. Know that, having been through this, you'll never pull such a move and that makes you the infinitely better person.
But walk away, deploy the patience of Jesus and all the saints, and start again. You WILL get there.

Same thing happened to us years back. It's shit, isn't it. Sorry to hear that it happened to you.

Thank you to you all. In a shitty place right now mentally (other issues too) and it feels like another thing to deal with.

Ah sorry OP. I feel your pain..the same thing happened to us last Thursday. There are some absolute selfish arseholes about

You poor thing! To pull out 30 minutes before exchange is a really low thing to do, and without explanation. Look after yourself and take a bit of time to recover. I'm sure something better will come along when you are ready to look again.

You must think I’m incredibly stupid! I work in mortgages and had literally never heard of this insurance. Seems it’s quite niche.

As an aside, think your post was really unhelpful and very unkind to the poor OP. It can add nothing but to make her feel worse.

I'd never heard of insurance - wish we had!

Oh god op the exact same thing happened to me - 20 minutes before exchange. It’s devastating and im So sorry it happened to you. I very nearly lost the property I was buying too but my estate agent managed to pull out all the stops to get a new buyer and they were Able to use the searches and surveys from the original arseholes buyers.

good luck. I hope it all works out for you

I’m so sorry to hear about this. I’ve a family member in the process of buying a house and exchange keeps getting pushed back and she is a nervous wreck.

I wasn’t aware of Homebuyers insurance, we moved a couple of years ago and neither our estate agent, the sellers estate agent or our solicitor mentioned it.

I bought bought and sold 4 times residentially and have 2 btl and had honestly never heard of home buying insurance!! So don't feel daft I don't think it's well advertised at all no estate agent or conveyancer has ever mentioned it to me.

The Cornflake poster sounds like a twat even after a long explanation of why they think they weren't a twat 😂

Really hope you find somewhere fab on the next try and maybe even better

I'm so sorry - our buyers pulled out on the day of exchange too; I was 6 months pregnant and we had to move by the school application deadline.

All I can say is that it did all work out for us, but I was SO angry because I knew they were messing about - they basically kept trying to chip the price and it turned out they were £30k short (this was over 16 years ago) ...we were unable to take such a big hit so couldn't do anything.

Wishing you huge luck with your next sale....the English system really needs reforming.

Well, you can add me to the list of people who have never heard of that insurance and we’ve moved loads of times, in fact we are mid move now.
I am so sorry this has happened op. It’s a shit system and it shouldn’t be allowed. But we’ve been shafted like this a couple of times and honestly? We ended up with better houses both times. It’s stressful as hell but you will get there x

I've never heard of this insurance either and I'm in the middle of buying/selling. My buyers are taking forever to get their act together and I'm starting to worry mines going to collapse soon as this has been ongoing since May.

I'm so sorry OP. Weep and wail today and get it out of your system so you can concentrate on finding another house tomorrow

yeah if you work in mortgages and have never heard of homebuyers insurance ….
It’s been around for years
I took it when I bought a house at least 15 years ago
and my son took it out last year when he bought his house

In my experience if your dealing with the general public and your risking several thousands of pounds on them being nice and honest and trustworthy then more fool you

Well i might be a twat but I’m not the one crying into my cornflakes having just lost a huge amount of money because other people ( the OPs sellers are selfish idiots )

I’m sorry that this has happened to the op and I’ve apologized to her and explained that I wasn’t even replying to her initial post but someone else who was asking about insurance

And this comes up almost every week this is the second or third post I’ve seen this week about people pulling out and losing ££££ it’s very common and I don’t know why estate agents / solicitors offer it - mine did and so did my sons last year

they are clearly missing a trick by not offering it as it seems to be such a common thing at the moment

This is what happens in most other developed countries (binding offers with deposit forfeited for pulling out etc). Gazumping, chains and all these nonsense about failed completion and people having to move into temporary accommodation are not "normal" for property transactions outside England.

Why are you paying solicitors if no exchange?

Yes it gets better.

We were in that position just 2 weeks ago. The whole house packed, removals paid for, days to go and they just emailed the solicitor and said it wasn't happening after months of them messing around asking for the far end of everything. We paid for electric tests and all sorts that they demanded. Looking back we should have heard the alarm bells and walked away much sooner!

We were so so angry. Devastated. Upset. Lost thousands.

Fast forward 2 weeks and we accepted an offer for more money. Clearly we are just at step one of this now but it DOES get better.