Dilemma

Sorry, the other posts came in while I was typing. Didn’t mean to go over old ground.🙂

They informed me they have to give two months notice.

Like extratime my first thought was that they have had to sign an extra six months lease in their rented accommodation.

But my second thought is that the market has stalled and house prices are dropping, and they have realised that they might get be able to get more for their money.

Whichever, October is not reasonable. If it’s the lease problem would you be prepared to help cover the rent for a couple of months?

This is where a good estate agent investigates, gets to the root of the problem and helps negotiate solutions. Put pressure on them. They can’t afford to lose sales at the moment.

We were stuck in a chain going nowhere till our estate agent found out that the first time buyers were short of £1000. The people at the top (it was a long chain) gave them a thousand and we all exchanged the next day.

Thanks for your responses.

Definitely stressful! We are concerned they do not seem to have the need to sort this out with compromise on both sides. We deliberately put the house on the market in April looking for July/August move, this was on advice from agents. The Solicitor said October is definitely not on. I believe if they pull out due to some questions and decisions having to be made then they are not fully invested. If they had reasons which are out of their control for not wanting to move until October then we would understand. The fact they don’t want to exchange a few weeks before is a concern as someone pointed out they called pull out at any time us having waited. Not responding to the agents is very 🤔. We have moved several times and we know how frustrating and stressful it can be. I want to make this less stressful for us and them. Ignoring my message when we were in a dialogue does not bode well. The agents are going to contact them again confirming our proposal.

Actually your estate agent is probably the best person to contact your buyers. . It’s in their interests to see this sale go through and they will hopefully be experienced at handling this scenario

I suspect that they had already signed up for another 6 months on their rental as maybe their landlord would not accept any less.
From my experience if the potential buyers have gone quiet it usually means they are either having second thoughts or they are trying to delay the completion date to suit their situation.

We had a scenario where our buyers did not exchange on the agreed date but we had exchanged on our new property and were left in a very worrying situation. The buyers eventually exchanged and completed on the same day, which they had been told to do by their mortgage adviser, presumably because they had a problem with cash flow!

I would ask your solicitor to tell your potential buyers that you are putting the house back on the market as their dates don’t suit you. See what their response is.

From April to August is only 4 months. Our house sale took over 6 months (with plenty of stress involved), and house sales/purchases do seem to be taking longer and longer these days.

However, the buyers in your case do appear to be stalling, so I'd see if you can find out more information via the solicitors, and then decide whether or not to put the house back on the market. Good luck.

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?

You say you ‘are’ moving near your daughter - so have you already purchased the house or are you relying on the sale of this house to fund your next one ? If so, put the house back on the market. The vendors of the house you are hoping to buy, will not wait forever. Good luck !

This is one of the stresses of buying and selling properties and something I hope never to have to do again.
I'm sorry but you don't have much choice in the English system but to wait it out, or decided to take the house of the market for a while and then hope for a new buyer.
This is the market I'm afraid.
I feel that pressing the buyers too much may risk them withdrawing, which they could do anyway.
The only other things you could do is campaign to get the laws changed...
Even though you seem to be in a hurry October isn't so far away.
When I bought this house I had to wait to move and pay extra rent on the flat I was in at the time because the owners had a holiday booked and wanted to move after this. I thought it must be a much anticipated foreign holiday they had wanted for years, but no- turns out it was a weekend in Blackpool!
It was very frustrating but I've been here eight years now...

Do you think they are stringing us along?

Put your property back on the market....thats what I would do

Sorry what shall we do now? I suppose to hand over to solicitors to sort but I don’t know if this will now look too heavy handed.