House buyers dragging their feet again. Is this normal now, or are we just unlucky?

[tverds]

Just a bit of a moan really, although I'd welcome some advice from anyone who's been through this recently!
We're now on our second attempt at selling our house. Our first buyers strung us along for three months before eventually pulling out, causing us to lose our onward purchase.
We put the house back on the market, priced it to sell and received multiple offers within three days. We deliberately chose the buyers who seemed to be in the most straightforward position. They're selling their house to a cash buyer, so we thought we'd have a relatively simple chain.

Fast-forward 10 days since accepting their offer and it's pretty much radio silence again. Our solicitors have already issued the draft contract pack, but the buyers haven't even booked a survey. The estate agents have sent them surveyor recommendations, but apparently nothing has happened.
Meanwhile, we've found another house, had our offer accepted and are desperate to get moving. We're currently doing an exhausting daily school run because our children have already started at their new school, so we're really keen to get this move completed.
I appreciate it's only been 10 days, and perhaps I'm being impatient after our previous experience, but I'm absolutely dreading another three months of being messed around, only for the whole thing to collapse again.
Is this just how house buying works these days? Are we being unreasonable expecting buyers to have booked a survey by now? Would you be chasing at this stage, or just leaving them to it?
I'm finding the complete lack of control over the whole process incredibly frustrating!

Your not entitled to see anything - but you have the right to, and should, ask for proofs to either be shown to the selling agent or if they baulk at that - to both solicitors.
Agents are not keen to do this extra work. So the best way is to insist on provisionally accepting the offer, pending proofs, and to keep marketing until proofs are provided. However you have gone past that stage already.
Doesn't mean you shouldn't push for it but it may be harder now.
I would be concerned, if the buyer did not provide the information promptly, that things are more complex than you are aware. Happens a lot.

In our experience buyers can lie anyway, the bottom buyer in our chain who was meant to be a cash buyer Investor now suddenly needs to remortgage to release funds for a deposit and will also have a small mortgage alongside this. How they got past the initial affordability and fund proofs to the estate agent I have no idea. The EA insists they’ve done nothing wrong.

This is more common than agents let on, and you do not have to take the listing down. It is your listing and your contract with the agent - when you accept an offer the standard options are SSTC (sold subject to contract, the listing stays up while viewings pause) or fully withdrawn, and you are allowed to choose SSTC. Agents push for removal because a clean sold board helps their numbers, not because your buyers require it. On seeming awkward:: say it plainly to the agent and let them carry the message - we lost a sale late once already, so the house stays listed as SSTC until exchange; any serious buyer understands that, ours included. Your buyers will almost never even look at the portal status, and a buyer who is genuinely proceeding will not blink at SSTC. Also ask the agent to keep logging every enquiry while viewings are paused, so if these buyers wobble you have a warm list within days instead of starting from zero. And with the school commute hanging on this, I would push for one concrete thing:: a target exchange date agreed through the solicitors in writing. It is not binding, but a buyer who will not even name a date is telling you something. The kids settling into their new school matters more than these buyers comfort - protecting your backup is not awkward, it is sensible.

Did you reduce by 50k?

It's a brutal process OP.

We've just sold my parent's house. Keen buyers, similar chain to yours, we were at the end of a chain of 3.

Here's a vague order of events: Offer made & accepted, about a week or two later, all contracts drawn up. One month later, survey booked (I think they were waiting for searches etc to come back). Then nothing at all seemed to happen for about 6 weeks, except vague promises of "awaiting answers from enquiries." We kept chasing up our solicitors and estate agent... nothing for a further 2 weeks. Then our buyer's buyer's solicitor went AWOL for about a week - we started losing the will to live at this point. Then a promise of exchange in 2 weeks - but they couldn't agree a completion date for a further few weeks. Then some scrabbling around for exchange dates, and then finally exchanged.

The whole process took four and half months. I have no idea why the house buying process in UK is so traumatising.

When we sold our last house in 2024 we had issues with whether our buyers had the cash or not. It was a very niche period property in a rural location where houses were taking ages to sell. Ours was fully renovated and realistically priced so we attracted what our EA called a flurry of interest (eight viewings in total including one second viewing)!

The buyers we went with were supposedly cash buyers, having already completed on their sale. Our EA insisted they'd seen proof of funds...then decided to tell us the buyers actually needed to sell a piece of land too in order to buy. This then morphed into "they can just about afford it without selling the land". We kept asking if they'd definitely seen proof of funds which they assured us they had.

At the eleventh hour they had a survey and - having stated they wouldn't try to renegotiate - waited five weeks to ask for money off due to issues with the septic tank (we'd already accepted 25k under asking price). Eventually we agreed to split the cost with them. We later found out they hadn't sold the land, but had sufficient cash to pay full asking and get the septic replaced.

@tverds hopefully your new buyers will come good and you're just worrying unnecessarily, but I totally get why you'd be nervous having been through this once already!

You have my sympathy but it may be out of control of the buyers.

DS is a first time buyer buying a house with no chain. It has still taken since mid May, no re-negotiation after survey or any hitches BUT he made the now obvious mistake of using an internet solicitor who had been soooo slow and nothing seems to hurry them. They took over two weeks to review some financial info that they could have asked for months ago. Everything is slow and DS is as frustrated as everyone else. He has chased them, the estate agent has chased them, the seller’s solicitor has chased them, I’ve even spoken to them about something they got wrong. (I am not a solicitor but good at detailed documentation and they seem not to be). We are considering a formal complaint when this is finally completed.

The plan is exchange and completion on the same day next week. 🤞🤞🤞

What makes you think they’re doing that though?
If they’ve instructed a solicitor then they may just be waiting for the searches and enquiries to start.

Not everyone does a survey? I’m in a chain and my buyer hasn’t done one and neither have I.

is it worth asking your agents if the previous buyers who pulled out our willing to sell/share the documents the searches and surveys they had done?

i’m sure a friend did that, and paid a very small sum of money to get the documents to reassure the new buyers

From the get-go, when our EA books a viewing and says "they are cash buyers" we tell them we want some form of validation of that status before it gets to the offer stage.

Too many people bandy the cash buyer trope nowadays and they never back it up with fact.

We'd rather lose someone early than them promise us the earth and deliver a bucket of sand. If people are genuinely interested they will do what's needed to give reassurance of their financial status, if they refuse to, they are time wasters.

its always so disappointing to have one's hopes dashed, but ultimately stringing vendors along and then pulling out should be a crime!

Not everyone does a survey? I’m in a chain and my buyer hasn’t done one and neither have I.

Mortgage lenders normally need a survey, even if it's the basic one. If you don't need a mortgage then the choice is yours not to have the property you're investing significant money in surveyed, but it isn't advisable. If it's a doer upper where you know it's going to need significant work, then maybe you can get away with not having a survey, but caveat emptor applies.

You don't have to do this. Go back to the buyers and set a reasonable deadline eg exchange in xx weeks or the house is back on. It sounds a popular house so be a bit more insistent that things are done by deadlines. And if they don't agree then they can let you know

I am afraid that when I hear the term cash buyer I expect trouble to follow. If they genuinely have the cash sitting in the bank then they are likely to try and gazunder at the last minute. Many of them aren't really cash buyers at all.

For those saying in XYZ country it is so easy, how do you get the money for the deposit?

If for example you’re buying a house for 500k and you have a mortgage of 300k with the balance of 200k coming from the sale of your existing house, how do all those pieces come together?

I think this is often done via bridging loans in other countries, to cover the shortfall until your sale funds are fully released.

We're using a different agent now. I'm still annoyed with the previous agent for mishandling the previous negotiation, I don't think the chain should ever have collapsed if it had been handled differently. I don't think I want to go back to them now! Thanks for your input though.

Oh dear. This worries me! We're the end of a small chain of 3 and both our buyers and our buyers buyers are apparently cash.

What do you think a reasonable deadline for exchange would be? The house we are buying suggested they would like is to be in by Christmas (we would love this too) but the estate agent warned that was very ambitious! I just don't understand why it has to take so long.

Thank you. X. And I'm sorry this happened to you, these stories seem far too common.

The mortgage company will do a valuation (not visiting the property) but it’s up to you to arrange a survey.

I didn’t do a survey on the house I live in now or the one previous either and they’re both mortgaged. Depends on what you’re buying.

I wouldn’t think because it’s gone quiet it has anything to do with surveys .

One word - solicitors!

Thank you all for your thoughts and suggestions. A little update, and perhaps some more advice needed!

I called the estate agent's "sales progressor" yesterday afternoon. She told me she'd just returned from holiday, hadn't yet been brought up to speed on our sale and was hoping to find out what was happening later that afternoon. Erm, isn't that her job?!
I asked her to establish some target exchange and completion dates with our buyers and their buyers. That's the entire chain below us, and the same estate agent is handling both sales, so surely it shouldn't be that difficult to get everyone talking? She promised to come back to me, but I've heard nothing.

How long would you leave it before chasing again? And is there anything else I can actually do to get things moving?
I'm just feeling so utterly defeated by the whole process. We're a normal family trying to move closer to our autistic son's new school. The daily commute is exhausting for all of us, particularly the children, and we desperately need to get settled.

We've already lost one sale and our previous onward purchase after being messed around for three months. This time, we deliberately priced our lovely family home significantly below what we'd originally hoped to achieve, purely because moving quickly matters more to us than squeezing every last penny out of it.
We had multiple offers within three days and chose the buyers who appeared to be in the strongest position. Yet here we are again, with a second estate agent who doesn't seem particularly proactive and another buyer who, as far as we can tell, isn't doing very much.
I know it's still relatively early days, but after our previous experience, the lack of communication is making me incredibly anxious. We don't expect miracles, just some indication that everyone is actually committed to moving!

What are we doing wrong? Are my expectations completely unrealistic? Do I need to be more assertive with the estate agent, or am I just going to drive myself mad chasing people who'll move at their own pace regardless?

You priced below what "you hoped to achieve", but how does that price look in context of the reality of the market? A lovely family home priced below other recent sales for example might expect to get multiple viewings, a family home priced below what the seller "hoped to get for it" might not be such a great deal? Are you using price tracking apps like PropertyLog etc. to see what other sellers are doing?

They aren't necessarily cash buyers. They may be relying on the proceeds of their sale to fund their purchase.

The market is full of players right now. Set them a deadline of a week to book the survey or you go back on the market. Otherwise how do you know they aren’t looking at other properties to see if something cheaper comes up. At this point you could go with one of your other offers if they choose not to proceed. The deal isn’t done until they do the survey.