Rob Morton-Jone

Its such a downwer at the moment as we haven't had any interest at all in our house.

Our agent has put it on the internet at Right Move and we have also put our property on a number of other web sites, at our expense, but still no viewings.

We are though, getting lots of hits on the web sites which something but its still not getting potential buyers thru the door

Its just another waiting game and not knowing when we will be off to Oz................................

stevenpoole9

We put our house on the market in the middle of April and sold it a month later. We were then messed around not by our buyers but a person lower down in the chain, eventually our buyers decided they had had enough and put their house back on the market. They resold quickly and we began again. The new person in the chain then lost their buyer so had to resell. They sold again and we were all set to exchange, but last week we had a phone call to say the latest person in the chain had pulled out, even though they had all the searches done and they showed no problems. We have now decided to re advertise our house, so we are now back to square one.
We were under the impression that once you had exchanged contracts there was no going back, but reading the thread before, I see I was wrong.What is the legal situation regarding this, we were under the impression that we could get back any money lost due to a buyer backing out after exchange. Obviously we are ready to go, and would be booking 2500 GBP worth of flights and organising our moving people. Would we be able to get this money back as Emirates operate a no refund policy? Unless we could get the money back we would be out of pocket by a considerable amount. Please post if you can answer this querie for me. Cheers, Steve.

shorty

Fantastic News Paula,

Hope it all goes well. Does you buyer seem committed to buying? There are alot of sales falling through at the moment. My brother sold his house in July, within a week, but the silly cow has just pulled out, days before signing contracts.
No viewings on ours yet, but its only been 10 days!!! Our agent says it's slowed down again after last month. But with us not being in the same position as you yet we still have plenty of time.
I think after our meet last week I have come to realise that when we go to Oz will depend on when we sell the house, not when we get the visa.

Keep in touch,

Joanne & Stefan

possoms

Congrats on finally selling, can I be cheeky and ask did you still get a fair price considering it was on the market for so long? Ours has been on 5 months now and agent has told us dont expect the asking price now

michellemac

I *think* that the deposit your buyers put down is non-refundable if they pull out after you have exchanged contracts. So i guess is depends on what your deposit was - regardless of costs incurred, it's the amount of the deposit you need to worry about. did you actualy exchange contracts with them though?

what a difficult and awful situation for you. You have my deepest sympathies!

Michelle

spottydog

This is what I thought too. As far as I was aware standard contracts state 10% of the sale price for exchange. If the buyers then pull out after exchange you get to keep the 10% plus you can get your costs (solicitors fees etc.) from them too. Once we're exchanged I'm booking shippers & flights as even if the buyer pulls out I can afford to go and if necessarily drop the price quite a lot without losing anything (in fact I think I would possibly gain money if the buyer pulled out after exchange).

Seriously

What do the estate agents say? Surely when they pitch for the business they tell you what an amazing list of ready-to-proceed buyers they have, how great they are at marketing etc.

What do they say when you say 'Where are the viewings then?'

Seriously

As you say, exchange of contracts is legally binding. The deposit, although commonly 10%, in this day and age of massive house prices, many people don't have 10% in cash hanging about, so a much smaller deposit is agreed. Often 5% or even less.

If contracts were exchanged you can sue the defaulting party for the full amount of the contract i.e. the price agreed for the property. They, of course, may not have it!