The flawed process of moving house

Adam · 25 Jun 2013 at 10:32

Wow what a painful process this is.

I accepted the first offer on my house in April. They pulled out and I was quickly able to find another buyer in May. My offer was also accepted in May.

Fast forward to today, just a few days away from exchange and the person at the top of the chain has simply changed their mind and no longer wants to sell. All of the time, effort and money (most important to me) that has been wasted throughout the chain because someone changed their mind. I estimate I am nearly £1k out of pocket with nothing to show for it.

My only option at this point in time is to try and find a short term rental property for my family and push my sale through. I'll look at some houses in the mean time and hopefully find something in due course, right now there doesn't seem to be anything suitable. I certainly don't want to lose my buyer and go through this process again so it seems best to suffer in the short term, regroup, save some more money and start all over again.

I'm sure I'm not the first person to have this happen to, but what a terrible process this is from start to finish!

PapaLazaru · 25 Jun 2013 at 12:37

Sorry to hear. I had a buyer pull out of buying my house last year four months after they gave a firm offer. They just called the estate agent one day and said they had changed their mind. Luckily, we still managed to sell ours and hold onto the property we wanted so it ended up ok. On top of these types of problems, you also have to deal with two of the biggest set of professional crooks around, estate agents and solicitors.

Nightglow · 25 Jun 2013 at 13:15

It about time this was stopped, I know many people who have lost money & end up out of pocket.

Need a scheme where the other party needs to put down a deposit say 1k, & they forfeit it to the other seller if they pull out.

Woogie · 25 Jun 2013 at 13:22

Sorry to hear that and is very unfortunate and expensive. I will agree with the part about solicitors though, Ours took the mick a little bit as we were buying a house that someone pulled out of previously and they were using our solicitors for that purchase meaning that all the searches had already been completed by the previous buyer via this solicitor yet my solicitor still charged me the full amount as he had to "purchase" these searches from the other solicitor even though it was the same firm..... ARGH!!!

alx · 25 Jun 2013 at 13:22

This is what's good about the system in Scotland, you tend to sign contracts and it becomes legally binding much earlier on in the process so you tend not to get the situation described in the OP.

It seems stupid that you can almost move into a house in England and the seller cancel at the last minute.

I'm English btw before anyone jumps on my back

peige · 25 Jun 2013 at 13:32

Its a faulty system but how best to sort it is not perhaps as straight forward, right now its all up in the air until contracts are exchanged but of course you can't exchange contracts until all the searches have been done and the paperwork is in place to show that the property is legally correct and there are no hidden problems (legally)

You shouldn't be able to just change your mind but until the chain is in place fully I don't see how you can be legally bound to the process, what if it takes 5 months and then you loose your job, you'd want to be able to drop out.

If I were you I would sell and rent till you can buy, finding a purchaser is the hardest bit, if you can put yourself at the bottom of the chain and your looking for a family property then you stand a good chance of getting into a very short chain.

TripleT · 25 Jun 2013 at 15:17

Why aren't searches the responsibility of the seller. No-one will be out of pocket as the buyer would still have to do searches on their own property.

So the seller basically gets their house in order and checked out before anyone even views it etc.

valve90210 · 25 Jun 2013 at 15:30

TripleT said:
Why aren't searches the responsibility of the seller. No-one will be out of pocket as the buyer would still have to do searches on their own property.

So the seller basically gets their house in order and checked out before anyone even views it etc.

I was thinking exactly this while buying recently, would make a lot of sense!

One example where it would have helped is a house my brother looked at. It had been on the market for a while, he put in an offer. Was told by estate agents that it had been under offer before but had fallen through.

He paid for survey etc and discovered that there was no paperwork to support a change or room use brought about by an extension, nor something to do with the rerouting of a drain (I forget the exact details), as this would make it hard to selll, and the owner was being rather elusive and secretive my brother pulled out of the purchase.

Over the next year or so, the house remained up for sale and on at least 4 occasions had it's status and signs changed to sold. Each time after a few weeks it was back to being for sale again.

Having spoken to the estate agent it seems that each time it got to searches and survey and fell through, so at least 5 lots of people paid out all that money only to find it was not really suitable for buying!

Deleted member 77746 · 25 Jun 2013 at 16:05

I don't like chains

alx · 25 Jun 2013 at 16:13

TripleT said:
Why aren't searches the responsibility of the seller. No-one will be out of pocket as the buyer would still have to do searches on their own property.

So the seller basically gets their house in order and checked out before anyone even views it etc.

Again, this is what happens in Scotland - the seller has to have a home report/survey/energy report carried out before they sell and it needs to be renewed every 3 or 6 months (can't remember which) whilst on the market.

Makes much more sense as you have a pretty good idea of the state of the property before you even view it.

Firestar_3x · 25 Jun 2013 at 16:46

alx said:
Again, this is what happens in Scotland - the seller has to have a home report/survey/energy report carried out before they sell and it needs to be renewed every 3 or 6 months (can't remember which) whilst on the market.

Makes much more sense as you have a pretty good idea of the state of the property before you even view it.

Not sure many would trust a survey not conducted by themselves / someone they trust, too much scope for playing around imho.

However i totally agree something needs to be done about the current system.

gman1981 · 25 Jun 2013 at 16:48

Wasn't that the point of the home buyers report that got canned?

ci_newman · 25 Jun 2013 at 18:47

I feel for you O/p, I had the same situation a few years ago. Everyone was ready to Exchange and then out of the blue our sellers decided that they didn't want to move any more

Voices · 25 Jun 2013 at 19:22

We're in the process of buying/selling at the moment. Stories like the OP's... they make you just want to bury your head in the sand and hope that everything works out alright. So many things with the current system that need changing, not least that of the buyer having to have a report done.

Here's to future positives for you, OP!

£15 · 25 Jun 2013 at 19:27

I feel for you, really. I've been in my new house for just a month and it was a long time coming. Losing houses, losing buyers, it's a nightmare.

peige said:
If I were you I would sell and rent till you can buy, finding a purchaser is the hardest bit, if you can put yourself at the bottom of the chain and your looking for a family property then you stand a good chance of getting into a very short chain.

I also think it would be worth seriously considering moving into rented accommodation, friends, parents, anywhere, just so you don't lose your buyer. Losing a buyer could be very bad news. At least if you sell, you effectively become a cash-buyer and have more power when it comes to negotiating on your purchase. A new house will come along soon, I'm sure of it.

Good luck!

Tunney · 25 Jun 2013 at 20:40

I'm in the middle of moving house (probably going to exchange next Friday) so I'm trying my best to ignore the horror stories in this thread.

The_Baron · 25 Jun 2013 at 20:48

TripleT said:
Why aren't searches the responsibility of the seller. No-one will be out of pocket as the buyer would still have to do searches on their own property.

So the seller basically gets their house in order and checked out before anyone even views it etc.

The searches are only valid for a certain period of time usually after which they need redone. It's not that common for a vendor to pull out. It's usually the purchaser that throws a spanner in the works! You've been unlucky. Still, getting your own sold leaves the OP in prime position when the next right property comes along.

physichull · 25 Jun 2013 at 20:59

I've got to say, I'm just as guilty of this as the story in the OP. We saw a house which ticked all the boxes, but we didn't quite have the "heart" for it but decided to go for it anyway. We got our offer accepted on the Friday, but pulled out on Monday. After the weekend our hearts just weren't in it, even though it seemed right.

And I don't regret it, we now have the perfect house. So in that respect, I'm kind of glad that the system is like it is in England. I withdrew my offer quickly though, so no real harm was done to either party.

Adam · 26 Jun 2013 at 11:44

Thanks for the comments everyone, I had a mope around yesterday morning but back on track to getting things back to normal for my family. My buyer has been fantastic, she has agreed to give me until early August to find somewhere (she will be incurring additional expenses in terms of storage etc) so I'll leave a nice bottle of wine for her when she does move in.

This leaves me with the task of doing 2 moves but it can't be helped. In some ways it's good as we are moving to a new town (less than 10 miles away) which is further from work and would be quite different to where I live now. If we don't enjoy the area we can focus our efforts elsewhere.

physichull said:
I've got to say, I'm just as guilty of this as the story in the OP. We saw a house which ticked all the boxes, but we didn't quite have the "heart" for it but decided to go for it anyway. We got our offer accepted on the Friday, but pulled out on Monday. After the weekend our hearts just weren't in it, even though it seemed right.

And I don't regret it, we now have the perfect house. So in that respect, I'm kind of glad that the system is like it is in England. I withdrew my offer quickly though, so no real harm was done to either party.

To be fair, that would be an annoyance but at least you didn't get to the stage where people have paid money out etc. A reasonably price house should sell in this market (I can attribute to this as I can't find anywhere!) so hopefully they can find another buyer and you can find something more suitable.

bowey · 29 Jun 2013 at 09:33

there has to be some sort of rule that stops this, i put an offer for a house last year, they accepted i payed solicitors fees ect (around £600) to be told a week later they didnt want to sell anymore.. complete waste of time stress and money.