Bought a house being told it was chain free...now there is a chain...what can we do?

[alliwantforchristmasis50k]

Basically the title...

We put an offer on a house a few months ago being told that the seller was moving in with a relative and that there was no onward chain. The exchange date has been July 17th for about a month, and today we have found out that the seller is actually buying a house and now we have an onward chain to wait for! No idea how many people are involved in forward chain we only just found out this morning.

We have handed the notice in on our rental, booked time off work etc all with the assumption that the exchange would happen as planned on the 17th as there was no chain to hold anything up and we would be in by the end of July.

Not one mention of any of this by anyone from the start of the process in February!

Is this allowed? Why have we only found out there is a chain a couple of weeks before the move date everyone agreed to? Our solicitors have only just found this out as well and are saying "don't worry it should be fine"

Will it be fine?? Should we be worried??

Extremely common situation. One of the many things that puts me off moving house. Such a pain

Are you sure your vendors aren’t going into rented thus still looking to complete on 17th. As others have said you are not legally bound until exchange so either one of you can pull out at no legal cost other than abortive fees with your conveyancer. I would get your sols to spk to the other side first to confirm. Just remember tho it may take a lot longer for you to find another house without a large chain. Good luck conveyancing is a minefield!

Exchange and completion can (and in my opinion always should) be done on different days. On exchange, you agree to a completion date which is when you get the keys. You should never give notice/book moving vans/etc before you have exchanged and have a completion date. You could ask for original dates to be stuck to or ask for money off, but they could say no.

I won’t play house move games with liars even if I lose money - we’ve had similar years ago. We said we need exchange by x date and move by x date or we’d walk. They said okay walk, so we asked the same estate agent to view a different house as we needed to find somewhere where the sellers were transparent and trustworthy. They came back within 24 hours (a very stressful 24 hours with tears and anger on my part) and had arranged to move in with parents and would go with our timeline to save the sale.

They left the house filthy which I think was their retaliation as it was clean on visits.

I have exchanged and completed on the same day but my God it went to the wire. I wouldn’t advise it.

It can happen, for our first ever purchase we exchanged and completed on the same day. For our second purchase there was about two weeks between exchange and completion. As others have said, until the exchange happens your completion date isn't cemented legally, which is why having a gap between the two gives you some security.

Unfortunately what your sellers have done isn't illegal, but it is inconsiderate and super annoying. I'd be inclined to point out that you made your offer on the basis that this property was advertised as chain-free and really emphasise that you cannot shift on the previously agreed date without incurring additional costs. (This happened to my friend and unfortunately in her situation she lost close to £10k in the end as the buyer on her house insisted on lowering their offer when the chain lengthened and then my friend also had to pay additional rent and fee for changing her date with the removal company she'd booked).

You'll look back on this in 10 years and laugh but buying a house is so stressful. Hopefully yours agree to honour the 17th.

Yeah I think we got confused with difference between exchange and completion...the way I am staying positive is that I think we can exchange anytime in the next 2 weeks and still get keys on 17th.
And then we have 2 weeks left of tenancy to move.
New house is a 2 minute drive round the corner.

Happened to me too, we sold to a first time buyer and viewed an empty house which was chain free. After accepting our offer, the vendor then moved her daughter into the house, supposedly for a month while she looked to buy a property of her own. It took nearly five months to get her out! Our buyer ended up putting furniture in storage and sofa surfing for nearly six weeks. We felt awful but we had pets so couldn’t move into a rental and family didn’t have the space for us. It’s a nightmare way to buy/sell houses.

Have you spoken with your landlord about this? You need to ensure you have somewhere to live if it doesn't go your way.

Sadly, you were very foolish to give notice before exchange, but hopefully you'll be lucky and either the purchase goes ahead or your landlord will allow you to remain.

Yeah I think we are going to give it a day to see what happens and then speak to landlord to see if there is any leeway.

In hindsight we shouldn't have given our notice but I guess thats what happens when you trust that people will do what they say! 😂

You've got a rubbish solicitor. They should be walking you through this process.

It's not uncommon for exchange to be delayed as legal stuff is being finalised. You should never hand your notice in on a rental before exchange. You negotiate the gap between exchange and completion. But a week is normal as banks like 5 working days to draw down funds

Also, on an unrelated note, if you are using a HTB ISA or LISA, make sure your solicitor does the paperwork in good time. Otherwise that will delay exchange too.

So so annoying. It happened to us too. We were supposed to move in the June - supposedly the sellers were going in to rented. We had a deadline because of our wedding (we weren't living together before marriage).

A few weeks before the deadline they announced they'd found a house to buy, which would have delayed everything by months! Fortunately for us their surveys came back really bad so they reverted back to the original plan. We moved house a few days before the wedding! V stressful.

We didn't want to play hardball because we really loved the house and wouldn't have moved any quicker if we'd started again. But I think very poorly of these people.

I've said this to many first time buyers and I'll say it again now.

• You have not bought property in England until someone hands you the front door keys (and even then...)

• try your damnedest not to become emotionally involved with said property until someone hands you the front door keys. It's the biggest financial commitment most people will ever make - it's best if you can think of it as purely a business decision

• the estate agent works for the seller, but they want their commission too, so they will work to push the sale through.

Like others have suggested, be active in this. Get onto the estate agent and ask them what's going on and to confirm the date for exchange of contracts is still the 17th. That you want confirmation by close of business tomorrow and if that isn't possible book some viewings for this coming weekend, preferably with no onwards chains. Book through the estate agent handling this sale - they'll be straight on to your sellers letting them know you mean business. Sadly very few first timers actually buy the first property they put an offer on.

Don't be passive, b active and firm. Passive is seen as a walk-over, especially as you are first timers.

Buyers/sellers are understandably attracted to those who have no chain but it's not always the better option. If there's no chain, there's no impetus to keep things moving along, then things start to wander and people drop out.

If someone is in a chain it generally means they are serious buyers/sellers.

Someone I know recently accepted an offer from 'chain-free' buyers - a couple of weeks later the buyers dropped out, so the property is back on the market.

I think another thing that has confused me is that about a month ago we were asked by the solicitors what our preferred move date was, and then that was agreed with the sellers...so why ask us that if there is no guarantee that the exchange is going to happen by then?

There are no guarantees in English system. It's all basically just wishful planning

It simply gives everyone a date to work towards. The completion date is only formally agreed when you exchange contracts.

I'm glad i'm learning all this days before its all about to happen! 😂

Have you actually asked if they are still prepared to exchange/complete as agreed? It's possible that their proposed house purchase may not affect your purchase (eg they may temporarily move in with relatives).
My DC was a first time buyer and was told the house they were buying had no chain as the vendor was moving in with their partner. A couple of months down the line we discovered that the partner had moved in with the vendor! DC queried it with the agent and it turned out the partner had sold, was in the process of buying another house which was due to complete any day and that DCs vendor would have moved in to that with partner before DCs completion date. So it all worked out in the end - but I suppose it could technically have gone pear shaped, and was not quite what DC had been led to believe by the agent originally.

So annoying when this happens, it’s happened to us too, we were told chain of 3, no it was a chain of 4, the first person in the change held things up as they had a lease issue that needed to be resolved. We did eventually all move, OP. Good luck

I mean, it’s a pretty significant purchase. There’s a bit of an onus on you to do your due diligence before committing to pay hundreds of thousands of future ££s, surely?

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5d72293340f0b60926ca4cfc/6.5492_-MHCLG-_How_to_Buy_Guide_WEB.PDF

@alliwantforchristmasis50k when I bought my first property in 1981 there were books available about buying and selling houses. They explained everything. Nowadays you have the Internet. Have you seriously done nothing to research how this works as this is likely to be the biggest investment you will ever make?

You have a poor estate agent and a poor solicitor by the sounds of it. Usually:

Mortgage in place
Offer
EA provides due diligence advice re sellers position, triangulated by yiur solicitor
Independent structural survey
Mortgage survey
Exchange
Completion
Keys

You have been messed about. I believe it is a bear market (prices falling). I'd go in hard. Email to EA "please advice your clie to we offered on the basis of no chain. This appears no longer to be the case. We are therefore resuming our search and viewing properties without a chain. If your client wishes to confirm they are returning to their original position of Exchange on 17th July, our offer stands. If this is not the case and we have not exchanged by close of business on 17th July, our offer is reduced by 5% and we retain the option to withdraw when a chain free property becomes available.

Yiu do not have to buy this property.

You don’t get keys until completion, unless you exchange and complete on the same day.

I think you normally complete and get the keys sometime after the exchange.

Yes, the completion date gets fixed at exchange.

(No need to “think”. I’ve shared a comprehensive guide a few posts above yours.)