Vendor’s onward purchase still listed online, should we be concerned?

[Sellinghouse2026]

Hello I’m hoping for some advice please on our house selling/buying situation & hope someone might be able to help.

We accepted an offer on our house in late January Feb & then had an offer accepted on our purchase very shortly afterwards, received a Memorandum of Sale etc for our purchase, although our vendor had not found a suitable onward purchase at that time which is understandable. Instructed our solicitor the same day as our offer was accepted on the advice of our agent who we have used for our hopeful sale, searches are back on our purchase.

Our Vendors have we are told have had an offer accepted now on their purchase which was apparently agreed two weeks ago. this information we feel has not been freely shared with us by the agent who is selling their property & came from our agent two weeks ago… its taken a while to get a firm confirmation from our Vendors agent that this is the case & we finally had a short email from their agent early last week to let’s just say, ‘loosely confirm this’…. mid week last week we were then told our Vendors had submitted their paperwork to their solicitors for our purchase.

My concern is that the property that we believe they have had an offer accepted on is reflected as still for sale on the agents website & the usual platforms some two weeks after we heard that an offer had been accepted. We are told (again by our own agent) that it is a vacant possession/ probate sale so theoretically the top of the chain, however we are now also having pressure applied (again understandably) from the chain below but feel a little out of our depth. We have spoken directly to our Vendors agent too as opposed to just contacting them via email & we still feel they’re not being very transparent.

I have to admit I am finding the whole process quite overwhelming so would very much welcome any sensible advice on what I do next. I was tempted today to call the end-of-chain agent to ask about the property feigning interest in a viewing but didn’t as knew it would likely stress me out even more..would be hugely grateful for any advice on what - if anything - we should do next.

I hope my post makes some sort of sense, my head is a bit muddled at the moment with it all.

Correction we accepted an offer on our house in late January- not February

I would get someone to call and ask about viewing the property.

Has the property definitely had probate granted ? Its reasonable for you to ask for confirmation. The other issue that crops up with probate a lot is beneficiary's not agreeing. One may have agreed to an offer whilst another wants to push the buyer higher for example. That can cause long delays or even chain collapse. Generally beneficiary's are not reliant on the sale with the same sense of urgency as a family that needs to move - obviously.

We are at the top of a chain buying a probate sale and the comms from the vendors are fucking glacial and it’s doing my head in. I’ve had no pressure from lower down the chain yet but I know it’s coming because they all started the process before me and they are all moving at a reasonable pace. I think my vendors are three people in the later stage of life and they just seem to treat everything as a community association meeting with absolutely no sense of urgency on their part at all. It’s taken them five years to even sell the property, it’s just been empty while they decided what to do with it. So your vendors might be in a similar boat.

You can search the probate records online and it is free. Check if probate has been issued. Also, ask them why they are still marketing the property given they have told you they have accepted an offer.