Dream Weaver

EDIT: Before anyone reads this and thinks its current, this thread is from back in March where a house sale fell through at the last minute - everyone said we would find a better house, and we did - and exchanged today

Just wanted to update it

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We bought a new house back in january now, made the offer, offer was finally accepted, sold our house within 4 days, got the mortgage sorted (finally) and then a fortnight ago we were all ready to proceed.

The house had everything we needed within budget, which is very hard to find round here.

Anyways, guy emails us last week that we are buying from (he's selling it himself), and say he is off work with sever throat pains, and cant exchange until he has seen a doctor which was in the week just gone, so we were on full panic alert, as he also said that the builders of the new house he was buying were ready to pull out!!

He made his docs appt on Wednesday and they gave him the all clear. His wife phoned me Thursday to say it was all back on and they would exchange tomorrow - Monday 22nd March.

Had the family round tonight for tea for mothers day, just about to eat a big buffet when we get a call.

The guy we are buying from is at his best mates house and has got his best mates WIFE to phone us to see the whole thing is off!!!

So after 3 months, and the best part of £3000 in fees it is off. This WIFE reckons he is very ill and cant speak to us, and that he has split from his wife (she seemed fine on Wednesday).

Spineless ****, couldnt even ring us himself - he'd better not cross my path in the next 10 years, livid is not the word at the moment!!

Rant over - what a **** system we have in England where this can happen. he only other house with our requirements is another £60k

ScoobyDoo555

I can sympathise, I finally got into my current property after 9 months due to people pulling out on the actual day of completion - I was driving the lorry up to the house to pick all my stuff up!!!

THE most stressful thing I've ever done.

However, the +ve side - this wasn't meant to be (probably not what you want to hear)
There's a better property for you out there.



Dan

RRB

This cant happen in Scotland, laws here dont allow you to pull out of house deals. Should be the same law all over the UK

RON

Nowadays there seems to be an evr increasing number of deals that seem to fall apart at the last minute, dunno, dman annoying though!
We've been trying to sell a house for 11 months, still no takers, d'you wannit??

Ballistic

Bad luck m8, I'd be just as gutted it this happened at the eleventh hour for me.
Blame the crap buying/selling system we have here in England, well overdue for a shake-up.

GM

Er, I think that should be "what a **** system you have in England"

Seriously, that's a bitch - hope you get things worked out.

G

Dream Weaver

Sorry GM, just realised and edited

David Lock

Hard luck mate but talk to the lawyers first thing. The fat lady may be still singing........ DL

imlach

Yep. I'll never understand why the goverment does not tighten this up so that buyers/sellers have similar legal protection such as we have here in Scotland.

Seems a no-brainer for the goverment to do, so why don't they?

Dream Weaver

Cos they're a bunch of incompitent *****

imlach

I don't mean THIS goverment in particular, just ANY goverment of recent times. It's not as if this is a new situation.....

What is the legal advantage (or anyone's advantage even!) to leaving the English system as is?

GM

Scottish system can break down (fortunately not a regular occurence). A friend and her husband thougght they'd sold their house only for the other side to pull out at very short notice. Their lawyer had forgotten to make sure the other guys had signed the missives - so no contract, a hacked off couple of people and a lawyer with a lot of apologising to do.

imlach

In that respect, I'd suspect there would be some recourse for compensation from the incompetent lawyer. That's not a issue with the system, but a incompetent lawyer not doing his job properly.

Smiler

Pulling out on day of completion?? Once exchanged if someone pulls out they can be sued BIG time.

milo

lawyers get paid several times (as they get paid regardless of whether the deal goes thru). so its to their advantage.

i would guess they're strongly opposed to a reform, and id always figured that they'd need to be the ones to push the govt to reform.

MGJohn

Unlike Scotland, where property is concerned it's always been that way in England. You see, everyone benefits financially with it being that way. Apart that is from the buyer and sometimes the seller too!...

Profit first, service and satisfaction nowhere. It will not improve .... nice little earner you see.

ProperCharlie

scottish system has it's disadvantages, too. try buying a flat in somewher like aberdeen where the market is (or was) very overheated. people coming in with bids massively over the asking price all the time - you can end up losing a lot of bids, and each time you have to have a survey done. plus you can end up paying over the odds as you get hacked off with being out bid. IME the english system has always worked fine, i've secured the deal at below what the advertsied price is, although i realise it isn't always that easy.

GaryK

Thoughts are with you DW, I rememeber back in 95 after spending six months trying to find a house found the one we loved, offered, accepted and 1 day before exchange guy pulls out saying he's lost his job. I remember being at work and being close to tears I wanted that house so much. Found out later he got a better offer privately and sold it, fvcking sucks big time! That said however found a better house for the same money soon after, small beer I know but maybe it wasnt meant to be because something outstanding has got your name on it!


cheers

Gary

ScoobyDoo555

we hadn't actually exchanged - I was pre-empting the exchange and driving up to the house (100 mile round trip move )

Still, all over now - just repairing the house to our tastes now (18 months, and still going!)

Dan

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

Sorry to hear this, try to look on the bright side, my old dear used to say, "it's all meant to happen, and only good will come of it". Perhaps a bit optimistic, but you see what she was getting at.


What we need is a system like in France: An offer is made, and NO other offers can be accepted until that offer is decided on. Offers are made via a Notary, who will not allow other offers in once an offer is lodged.

If said offer is accepted, BOTH parties lodge 10% of the agreed price with Notary, and then have 6 weeks to wait, during which time, neither can pull out without just cause, eg: you can't get a mortgage, seller dies and family inherit property, you discover a motorway coming through your garden, etc, but it needs to be SERIOUS.

If either party pulls out after first signature and lodging of monies with Notary, they forfeit their money to the other party. End of story.

How much time would it take to set up a system like this, here? And how much heartache and greed would it stop?

Alcazar

BOB.T

Gutted for ya mate

Still, at least you know where he lives...give me a call if you want a hand

Dream Weaver

Cheers all, I'm not that upset about the house as it was a compromise for the budget, and not our "dream house". It just had most of what we wanted within budget.

I am more angry at the whole thing, losing money and our valuable time. Lif is too short to be messed about by people!!

Its also a real nightmare round here - there is only a small catchment area for decent houses and everyone wants to live here - we sold our 2 bed terraced house for full asking in 4 hours!!! And it is double what we paid for it 5 years back.

People are being greedy - there is a semi for sale near us, just one of those pebble dashed things with 2 small and 1 tiny bedroom, nothing special and its £210k!! This is near Burnley in Lancs, not Kent FFS!!! This same house was £69k four years ago.

The problem is, we are only 30 mins from Manchester, so all the city workers are buying here then commuting as it works out cheaper than renting in Manc centre.

Spoken to solicitor this morning, and now need to decide whether to withdraw. Will probably withdraw for now, then start agin after summer (also avoiding the redemption fees we would have had to pay).

So as I say, more angry than upset at losing this particular house, but thanks for the support, as always from Scoobynet

scoob_babe

ouch, not nice. We had a seller pull out on us hours before the survey was due to be done then the second house we had an accepted offer for fell through because the wife didn't want to move after all.
The third one we got, was approx £25k cheaper than the first and didn't neeed any work doing on it. Was pissed off at the time but not now.
PS both houses were back on the market again within six months too!

ajm

Can sympathise. I got done last year by a gazunderer when my buyer (local property tycoon) reduced his offer after having stalled his survey for weeks. I was forced into accepting the lower offer because it would have cost more to start from scratch - he then missed several exchange dates with excuses ranging from "I broke my foot" to "sorry I was launching my boat" and all the while assuring me that he was a millionaire and was good for the money - complete a-hole!

One day I will find out where he keeps his boat....

MattW

We got messed about by a seller a few years back. They had been messing around the people they were buying from, got to the situation where on day of exchange they would n't sell to our sellers.

Chain held, but because they had taken so long, and house prioces had gone up they wanted another 15k from us. Told them to take a long run off a short cliff.

In the end we bought the house off the people who were buying ours (they traded down), 30k cheaper in next road to the one we were after, only downside was a single garage instead of double.

Dream Weaver

9 months laster, and just exchanged contracts today on another new house, and mightily glad that the original sale fell through, which resulted in this thread.

The new house is much better, much bigger, in a nicer area and only cost about 33% more.

Moving in 2pm this Friday, fairly sure nothing else can go wrong from now on in.

Anyone nkow when I need to insure the new house, from now, or from completion on Friday??

Dream Weaver

Just realised, people who know we are moving (Dales, Bob T, Scoobychick, 200bhp+ etc) will think this thread is about the new house from the thread title

King RA

I found more than was good for my house insurance if that helps.

ChrisB

I did worry for a minute mate

IIRC, my building society wanted a policy in place on the house before they'd give me the money.

BOB.T

Ya bastid, it's taken me ten minutes to climb down off the roof

I'm glad it's finally gone through for you

I can't remember when my insurance started, I think it was well in advance of moving in due to complications/being fleeced by solicitors etc