House sale fallen through day before exchange

They were not nasty.
They were doing what's best for them. It's a business transaction not a social relationship.
They probably lost confidence on discovering the lack of compliance and wondered what else might be lurking as yet undetected.
You should have ensured that all necessary certificates were in place.
They probably feel that you wasted their time.
If you leave malicious reviews it could rebound on you negatively.
You could even be sued.
Regard it as a learning experience.

Time wasters. Don’t leave a bad review but ignore them when they move in and don’t be a helpful neighbour. I hope you find some genuine buyers.

What did your gut tell you? Has this come totally out of the blue?

I agree with Skydancer step above taking revenge as much as you want to you’re better than that, but I certainly wouldn’t be helpful or chatty. I d keep my distance, what a cheeky couple of so and so s arriving next door after giving you the run around

My DH and I say it is not done until it is done.
We never ever count chickens.

Sorry about what has happened.

I’m utterly appalled that you would do something so dishonest as to leave a bad review of their cafe. Not because the cafe is bad but to “get revenge”.

And you think they are nasty.🙄

Exactly, well said, Lathyrus3.

I feel like that because I am so angry. No I wouldn’t leave a bad review I just feel like doing that because we have waited 5 months for them. They had 5 months to insist on building regs which we would have got for them but nobody their solicitor or our estate agent told us that is what they wanted. Yes we will have to move on but we have lost our business we were going for. At 63 and jobless the business we were going for would have given us a reason to carry on. We are not nasty people just angry.

Will another business opportunity come your way?

Quite often the fault lies with the solicitor who does not read the documents you fill in until just before exchange.

DD had a flat with a rather strange clause in it that could not possible affect her property, but could cause problems. Viewers were told of it as soon as they viewed the property, the buyers solicitor was told of it when the negotiations started. Everything went through smoothly until the day before exchange, when the solicito finally actually read the lease, read the clause and warned the potential purchaser of its significance.

Having said that, the cause they gave for dropping out was so trivial. I would guess your neighbours house only came on the market after yours went under offer to this couple, they then viewed the neighbours house and preferred it.

As others have said. buying and selling houses is a business deal, there is no place for sentiment, but people have to live in a house after they have bought it and if they preferred the neighbour's house they wouldn't want to live in a house that became their second choice, right next door to their preferred home.

Do not mistake me, I have every sympathy for the predicament you are in . It must be so distressing for you to lose so much that you had set your heart on.

My granddaughter and partner are in the process of buying their first home and I dread something like this happening to dash all their dreams.
It shouldn’t happen, the Scottish system is so much better.

They may take five months to not buy next door too!

watermeadow

My granddaughter and partner are in the process of buying their first home and I dread something like this happening to dash all their dreams.
It shouldn’t happen, the Scottish system is so much better.

I have bought and sold in both England and Scotland, neither system is better than the other, they both have faults.

As other have said, it's business.

Don't leave a bad review, remain calm and polite.

Suzie13 - just curious, but was the door that needed buildings regs approval a fire door?

I suspect that this was not the real reason for the couple pulling out. I never believe anything estate agents tell me.

You may be better off without these buyers in the long run, though it may not seem that way now.

www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2025/10/homebuying-selling-government-reforms/

Labour Government is going to make buying and selling property cheaper and less fraught.
Well overdue.

Dreadful thing to happen to you, at such a late stage. Don't think you are nasty, just having a wee rant in the comfort and safety of a GN Thread.

Thanks everyone for your comments. It was a french door from the kitchen to the patio. I agree I think there was another reason and we just have to accept it and move on. I just wish people would be honest. If they had changed their minds then just say. I think they used the door as an excuse or they could have been liable for our solicitor fees.

When we moved from Cornwall to Berkshire we were told that the owners of our new house would be moving into rented accommodation while they looked for another house. Great! we thought, no chain to hold us up on their side. A week before we completed they told us that their rental had fallen through so could we postpone moving in for a week or two? Our buyers were waiting to move in, so all our belongings had to go into storage and we stayed with my daughter. We were there for three months in the end, while house prices were going up and I was terrified that our vendors would notice and cancel the sale so they could start asking a higher price. Fortunately they didn't and we got in in the end, but it was a fraught three months.

We once lost a sale, supposedly because the buyer's father drove past and decided he didn't like it. It was a very average 30s semi, no different from millions of others. We lost the house we wanted to buy, which was very disappointing.

I now think that it was an excuse. People drop out for all sorts of reasons. Maybe the buyer split from her husband, or lost her job, or had one of any number of reasons for pulling out.

Meanwhile, my daughter is buying a house, which is dragging on and on. It has been renovated, and there are issues with certificates and consents, which her solicitor appears to have only just realised. My daughter has spent money on a survey and will have to pay the solicitor whatever happens, so is keen for the sale to go ahead, but if there are problems with legalities she needs to know now - before the sale goes ahead and she may be liable. IMO they should have sorted out all of that before the survey, as the survey needn't have gone ahead if the sale can't go through because of non-compliance or other planning issues.

I hope there can be reforms to the system so that everything can happen much more quickly. Waiting for months, with the rest of life on hold, or with jobs and other things in the balance, is so stressful, not to say expensive.

My experience is that many of the delays are not the result of legaal processes or getting loan money. They arise because solicitors are dilatory.

Most of the work in conveyancing is done by conveyancing clerks, and only seen by the solicitor to check everything is properly done shortly before exchange. that is when the solicitor finally gets round to reading the lease, as in DD's case and ssuddenly flags up something everyone else had been flagging for his attention for months.

We have recently bought and sold proerty and, while we were were completely happy with our solicitor, our seller's solicitor - and our seller were incredibly dilatory and seemed to think they were doing us a favour selling the house to us - it had been on the market for 18 months. We were stuck because the location of the house could not have been better for our circumstances and it was the kind of house we felt most at home in.

That is exactly what I was describing in my daughter's case. The solicitors should have been looking into this before the survey was carried out, and should have been much more proactive in pushing the other side. The impression I get is that they waited until they should have been near completion (the original date given was early November) and then started to go through the paperwork.

Unless the surveyor found a problem with the door it's hard to think that that was the real .

Business may be business but these people haven't behaved in an honourable way.

This is dreadful, we have accepted an offer on our house and had our offer on a bungalow accepted but have already had buyers pull out once and then when we had buyers interested a second time my husband had a stroke so we pulled out.
This time we are praying it goes through.
Pulling out just before the exchange though - ouch! That is brutal. And then going for the house next door!
Moving is just horrid. Commiserations to the OP and I hope you get new buyers soon.
Maybe keep out of the new neighbours way whom I imagine will try really hard to keep out of your way after pulling a stunt like this.