House purchase taking too long

[Colliewobble15]

Hi , looking for advice on our current property purchase. We have had an offer accepted on a house 12 weeks ago , mortgage approved searches are complete everything done on our side. The vendors are still searching for their onwards purchase and estate agents told me again today , their search continues not found anything yet.

what position am I in to start applying pressure and how do I go about this ? We are first time buyers in rented property, we have to give notice before we move out and I have absolutely no indication of when to let my landlord know we are moving. Also conscious of our mortgage offer expiring. Really don’t want to loose the property and the costs we have spent so far but seems they are in no rush and no end in sight yet! Thanks for any advice .

Speak to your solicitor about setting a date for exchange and see what they say.

Well did you know they needed to find somewhere when you made the offer? What timeline was indicted?

these things are always based on how much you want the house, and how much they want you as buyers. You can’t really apply much pressure if they’re not too fussed about losing you.

Afraid this comes down to how long you’re willing to wait. Some people are in no rush. One way of looking at it is if there’s no news e.g. that they’re offering on properties you need to pick a date to move on to another property - another 6 weeks, 3 months? Good luck

They had a property when they accepted our offer but unfortunately lost that when someone bidded higher than them. They asked for no pressure until Christmas was over which we have obliged with but seems to be no effort still on their part to find a new property a month later. The house is perfect location to us in regards to school / families however there are other properties for sale near by that we may view too. I’m just cautious about starting over again with costs of solicitor searches etc.

Thank you I will mention this , and have contacted them today for their advice also 😊

Thank you ! Looking at setting a deadline and if they can’t abide by it we will have to look elsewhere.

I would be looking at other properties already.

They are not giving Committed Seller vibes.

It’s a hard lesson to learn, but next time you buy a house, don’t incur any costs until the chain is complete. Mortgage lenders generally require searches to be less then three months old at completion, so unless your sellers get a move on, you may end up having to pay to repeat them 😞

My suggested timeline would be once the chain is complete apply for the mortgage and get the survey done. Once survey is satisfactory and mortgage offer received, instruct the solicitor to submit the searches and start working on the docs.

Obviously none of this info is very useful at this stage! I’m sorry you have this with your first purchase. Hopefully the sellers will find some thing soon. It can all move quickly once that happens, but delays are sadly also very normal in house buying. And of course, no one is committed to go ahead until the contracts are exchanged, so they could decide not to sell after all and there’s nothing you can do. But equally, youre not yet obligated to buy, so keep an eye out for anything better coming on. Perhaps asking to view other properties listed with the same agent might help to focus the sellers’ minds on their search… 😉

It’s a tough process. Good luck!

I agree that you need some clarification of their commitment to move, by agreeing to an exchange and completion date. If they want to keep you as buyers and they can’t find anywhere, they’ll have to short term rent, or prevail on relatives. It isn’t the market to be annoying the people who want to buy your house.

Unfortunately, you have made the mistake of spending £££ before the chain was complete. You should have waited until the sellers had secured somewhere. It's a shame that, as FTB, no one advised you of this.
Too late for that now, of course, but I would definitely start viewing other properties. It's up to you whether or not you tell the estate agent or not. It may be best to do so. It is possible that the sellers may pull the plug but then they don't sound v committed anyway so perhaps that wouldn't be such a bad thing.
Hopefully, there will be lots more properties coming to market in the next 6 months. They usually start to appear from around early March as Spring is traditionally the best time to sell.

I feel for you and agree with others that you should have been advised not to spend any money until the chin was complete. But estate agents are shits and will merrily allow people to start spending money before they need to.
we were the vendors in your situation and we refused to engage a solicitor or allow the buyers to start surveys etc until we had found our next property. It took us 3 months to find one and we were constantly searching ad viewing. We were always very clear that we wouldn’t go into rented and we weren’t going to move until we had the right property. The buyers could have walked away and we would have understood. Fortunately the property we bought had no onward chain so it all moved swiftly from that point. I would start viewing other houses but as youve invested money already you may want to sit tight for a bit longer.

It sounds like it was complete, the sellers had a property that they have since lost. So this isn't down to the OP.

There's nothing you can do about the money that's been spent, this happens for all sorts of reasons and is a common problem in the process.

Probably best not to give notice on your rental until contracts exchanged - but take advice from your solicitor about this. You may have an overlap and have to pay rent after completion. Although this costs more, the benefit is lower stress on moving day and protection against homelessness.

You should begin looking at other properties.

The unfortunate reality is that the vast majority of sellers are unlikely to agree to an exchange date if they've not yet found a property to purchase.

Advice to the OP would be, start looking elsewhere, but leave your offer for the current property on the table. If they find then great, or you may find something else as good first, at which point you'll have to make the decision whether to write off the money you've already spent and start again.

True.

I actually think it would be unrealistic to expect a seller to agree to an exchange date yet.

What is realistic though is to see visible signs that they are progressing the deal and have accepted that if they don't find somewhere to buy very soon they need to be looking into renting or lose their buyer.

@Colliewobble15 my ds and his gf had their offer accepted on a house almost a year ago! The seller has had their offer accepted on other properties several times, but has pulled out each time after surveys. Having only bought the one house I didn't know about some of the things mentioned in this post, re survey and mortgages 3 month time limit. They don't want to pull out as they are worried about losing the money they have paid for searches, but after reading that on this post they might have to spend it again anyway. I've just let them know, so they can look at their provider and fingers crossed it won't be the case for them.
I hope you get some movement either way very soon 🤞

I am sure they are actively looking for a property. It’s not easy trying to find somewhere to buy and they would feel that pressure. I would be very careful what you say to them. Is there property sought after and at a good price? If so you may find they ditch you as buyers and take the house of the market until spring etc when you would expect more properties to be on the market.m

We had this. Saw a house we loved. Put in an offer and listed our house straight away. Sold within 4 weeks. Seller accepted our offer and we waited for them to find an onwards purchase. Their estate agent told us not to engage solicitors or get a survey until they had found somewhere. And what wise words they turned out to be… 4 months later they still hadnt found anything to look at, and our buyer was hassling us to get going. Fortunately three other properties suddenly came into the market that met our needs. We offered on one that was in a better location and had no chain…. And the pulled out of the original. But we hadn’t spent a penny so didn’t loose out financially.

That may be the case, although in many areas, the opposite is true as there is a shortage of buyers rather than sellers. Still, even if they did ditch @Colliewobble15 if she put some pressure on the sellers, as you say, there would be lots more choice for her soon as a buyer.
@Colliewobble15 look elsewhere, see what is available. Unfortunately, house buying is extremely uncertain in the UK and sometimes people do need to accept a financial loss when transactions fail. If this one doesn't work out, you could consider buying insurance next time.
@Mildura is right. There is no way they can agree to an exchange date at present unless they are prepared to move into a rental themselves.

Your DS and GF should definitely look elsewhere. They may have to accept lost £££ (see sunken cost fallacy). It's unlikely that the one they have offered on will be the best or only suitable property in their area.

@rainingsnoring I messaged him earlier after reading this post and he said they have had several mortgage rate checks through this time and the lender hasn't asked for more surveys. Apparently the seller is finally looking at rentals so all being well they should be in soon. They have given themselves a cut off point though and are still looking in the area for anything else. It is a really good house, and I can see why they will wait for it. Nothing anything close has come up in this time

It's good that they have thought about it and chased the selller and that the seller seems willing to move into a rental.