Penalties for pulling out of house sale - any advice?

[posey]

Very briefly - we are in middle of chain. Buyer of our flat is renting so ready to go. We could exchange tomorrow.

We are/were hoping to buy an empty property. Thought all plain sailing. However vendors have been very slow and rather cagey/not forthcming with paperwork etc. It has turned up that there was no planning permission applied for to have roof terrace installed, and also some problem over boundary at back and that the very very tiny bit of space out of the back door probably doesn't belong to the house.

We are in quite central London where outside space, even a teeny bit, comes at a premium. We are not willing to pay that premium for something we actually may not be entitled to use. This has just come to light.

SOOOOOO, my question is, if we pull out now completely, what financial penalties will we face? Obviously we've paid for surveys, HIPs..we'll owe the solicitor, what about estate agents? Could we be "sued" or whatever by our buyer for his losses?

Any help gratefully received.

Nothing apart from aborted sale fees from your solicitor.Why don't you rent?We just pulled out of a purchase which has a balcony that wasn't on the deeds but we have exchanged on our sale and have a rental for 6 months

Thanks for that, that's reassuring. So no fees to the estate agent?

We could rent but it is really expensive to rent round here. At present our mortgage is very very small so if we stay put we could continue to save towards a bigger move. We had loads of interest in our flat and knowing the market round here would not have trouble selling again(it is affordable for many and in a nice area, 2 things which combined aren't common here!).
And finding something to buy in our price range and right area is not really easy so we could be looking for months and months.

I am so gutted about this but trying to remain practical. Best we found out now.

There is a good chance prices will fall later this year so you could recoup your rent and earn interest on any capital you have so might not be too expensive.

I hadn't thought about that. Of course we will have a lot of money sitting in the bank from the flat sale which could be earning interest.
AAAAAAARRRGGGGHHHHH

Right, off to look at Primelocation rentals...

Thank you!

Bank interest rates not great atm unless you fix for years but nsandi have bonds at 2% instant access no penalty

Hijack - OMG noddy, you've sold again?

I know I am mad!

No, you did brilliantly last time. Can't wait to hear about the new project when it materialises. Also, you read the market so well last time, it gives me hope that prices will go down and we will be able to afford to make a leap up the ladder.

Sorry, OP. No penalities for withdrawing from sale prior to exchange and you'd be mad to continue if there were legal question marks over a property. Give the sellers a deadline to satisfy your solicitor that the garden does belong to the property, and walk away if they can't do that.