House seller has pulled out

[DarcyBlue]

The owners of the house that we were in the process of buying have pulled out. We are completely shocked and baffled by it. They are an older couple, and one is a surveyor so we had hoped that they would understand the house buying process and it may actually make it smoother (!). Is it worth making a higher offer in this circumstance? And does anyone have experience of recouping costs from the sellers?

We have two young children (one starting school) and hoped to be settled in the house before September, and we made our position extremely clear. We are chain free buyers, with a very healthy deposit and finances in place. We viewed the house, made an offer then improved the offer after feedback from the sellers. It was a few percentage points below the asking price, but the market in the town is mostly slow, barring the one or two competitively-priced properties in the price bracket that go quickly.

Its very frustrating but from the other end, if their purchase has fallen through/not viable what are they supposed to do? Would you move out of your home in that situation with nowhere to go?

It may well be worth explicitly saying to the EA if you could stretch to a few thousand more just in case it is the current economy/stock market which has made a hole in their own finances.

Look into movers insurance, your survey costs would be covered if the sale falls through and it’s not your fault.

I cannot imagine putting a house on the market, doing viewings, accepting offers and moving forward with the process and then pulling out. Such a lot of effort to change your mind.

Why? Lots of things can happen in the time between sale agreed and completion. I was up for sale a couple of years ago and went up from sale to buy a particular house, sold mine then my Dad died. I just CBA in even thinking about moving and so pulled the house off the market. Yes it is crap but one of those things.

I think if it was “that house or nothing “ for their onward purchase then there is little point you offering more money.

You should try to forget this house and look hard for another one. If it did become available again I’m sure the EA would let you know. But it sounds like they are no longer interested in selling their house.

This happened to us around 20 years ago. We spoke to the estate agent we were buying through and they actually got the seller to give us the money back for the survey we had paid for, so it’s not impossible. They were using a really great estate agent and they were sympathetic sellers which went in our favour.

If they were only moving because they wanted a specific house, then it makes perfect sense that they are now withdrawing from the sale. It's hard on you, but presumably you are willing to look for a different house, so that's what you'll have to do.

The other way round, it can work to the buyers' advantage- we got our previous house cheaper (couldn't have bought it otherwise) because the sellers lost their buyer and didn't want to lose the house they had offered on.

Then for our current house, we were the sellers who had to accept a lower offer to keep the house we wanted to buy.

The joys of home buying! Good luck going forward!

So I have been in a similar position. We were buying a property and the vendors pulled out as their onward property wasn’t right for them. We therefore pulled out of our sale too because for us, it was that property or nothing.

I put a note through the vendors door with my details and said to contact me if they found a property. A year later, they did, and we’ve now been here for many happy years. We got new buyers as our buyer had moved on.

sometimes it really is ‘I’m only moving for that one property’.