Dilemma

Something like this should be dealt with by your solicitor. These people are messing you around and I suspect that they will keep kicking the can along the road, and then finallypull out.

Get your solicitor to put forward exchange and completion dates decided by you. If they do not reply or just avoid a straight answer, get your solicitor to ask them directly what the reason for their delay is. I suspect the problem is that they are having difficulty raising the mortgage, and that is why I think they may well drop out.

If they are still cagy issue an ultimatum, exchange contracts within 3 weeks or you will put the house back on the market - and if they don't, do so.

We too are on the move and our sale has gone well. It is our purchase that is being stalled and running slowly because the seller is 'ditzy' my polite description of her, and her solicitor is nearly as bad. We are just waiting for our sale to complete so that we are cash buyers in every sense of the word. So that we can start reading the riot act and threaten to withdraw from the purchase.

In house purchase, try to be nice to everyone, but always have a cricket bat behind your back and do not hesitate to use it in necessary

Well I wasn’t suggesting that the OP actually hand over money. But the first rule of Sales is Close the Deal.

Against a reduction in price the OP has to weigh

The stagnant market with more buyers than sellers and whether they would have to drop the price to get another buyer

The costs of starting again with new buyers

How much they want to move

How much they want the house they have offered on.. it’s likely it too will be put back on the market.

What difference the loss of a couple of thousand will make in the long run.

All of this might be worth the cost of the rent to the OP to close the deal or it might not.

We all like to think we’ve done well in house sales and purchase but sometimes you have to focus on what it is you really want and roll with the punches.

Ask your solicitor to set a completion date.

I don’t necessarily agree that “closing the deal” is the only criterion. There’s not getting ripped off, there’s honest dealing and there’s getting the reverse of value for money - money for value!
Unless a prompt sale is the over riding factor, I’d call their bluff and do exactly as M0nica suggests.
Gazundering has reared its ugly head in some places and I think your purchasers are trying it on.

We have sold numerous properties. We had a saying when the red flag goes up, take note and always be prepared to walk away

Luckygirl3

The crux of the problem is that even if you agree to the October date (and can make this work with your purchase) you cannot be sure that come October you might not find them kicking the can down the road once more.

I can understand your concern that they have not responded to the agent. Could you ask the agent to contact them again and explain that if you do not get a clear reply there will be no choice but to put the house back on the market? Has your solicitor commented on all this?

Excellent advice, and what I would do.

They are still being very evasive keep mentioning talking to landlord. Not responding to messages promptly after a couple of days if at all . I have spoken to my Solicitor. It’s so stressful x

Put in writing via your solicitor that unless they come up with a contact and can exchange by eg.24 June, the house goes back on the market.
You might want to query why the estate agent did not “vet” them before putting their offer forward.
Maybe a different EA next time?

Exactly RosieanndherMaw. Now is the tme to bring out the cricket bat.

With every day that passes the more likely it is that your buyers will drop out. So take the lead and put your house back on the market before they drop you in it. They can still negotiate with you while you are showing viewers round and the possibility of alternative buyers may buck them up a bit.

Tell your solicitor and agent that if you don’t exchange by a certain date , you’ll put the house back on the market . You’ve been nice so far but it’s not getting you very far .
We had a similar issue with our buyers for our rental house . We wanted to complete before the budget in October last year , due to a hike in CGT . There was only two couples in the chain and the people at the bottom were delaying things . So we issued an ultimatum and it worked . We completed two days before the budget .

We have had to read the riot act to our vendor today. They contacted us through their solicitor asking if they could have six weeks between exchange and completion, instead of a month

The reason is that the house is full of stuff. The family member living their rent free is a compulsive clothes shopper and you cannot move around for stacks of clothes, shoes, handbags, make up and jewellry. The house has been on the market for 18 months and in that time neither the resident nor vendor have done anything to begin to sort it out, so I see no reason why we should be expected to delay completion to accommodate them.

We had expected there might be problems and we had already stipulated that either we or or official representative should have access to the house the day before or morning of completion to check that the house had been fully emptied and that there were not heaps of black binbags left in the garden for us to dispose of and that completion would be delayed if we were not satisfied.

Now our solicitor has told the vendor throught their solicitor that a month it is and not a day more and at her recommendation, we have sent a polite but firm note to the estate agent, pointing out that exchange has not taken place because of their client's slowness in answering queries and is unlikely to happen for another week or ten days, so that if they start sorting things out, they will effectively have six weeks before completion.

We will see what the response is.

When this happened to us , I phoned the buyers wife and said if they could not complete on the date we'd agreed, the deal was off. The property would go back on the market.

The following morning their lawyer called mine to say the buyers had " managed to resolve their problem" and were ready to go ahead as agreed.

I do not think the seller would believe us if we threatened to withdraw. We have been the only people with an abiding interest in this property since it came on the market 18 months ago, and as a previous sale crumbled, as our house went under offer, we immediately got our offer in. The house is very much a one-off, and the owner knows that there is nothing else on the market comparable with this house.

However we can jump up and down waving our cricket bat and shouting and hope that we wake up the rather dozy woman who owns the house, so that she tells her sister to start packing and prepare to vacate the premises. I have no idea whether they are even on speaking terms.

Lathyrus3

Ok, practically. You want to exchange in July. Their tenancy is till October. That’s three months rent. £3000? Are you prepared to fund half of that to close the sale?
Exchange in the next four weeks a condition or it goes back in the market.Completion later.

Galling but pragmatic. Starting from scratch again could mean an even longer delay and no guarantees.

This is an excellent idea.