Grrr...long story short, we accepted an offer on our house in the UK within 2 weeks of listing it. We'd actually had 2 offers, one slightly higher than the other, but the higher one was in a chain (she had a house to sell), and the lower offer was not, so he was the preferred buyer (we were really after speed). From a personal level, we much preferred her over him, he showed up at the door out of the blue one night wanting to be shown around immediately, claiming that he had an appointment to see the house the following evening, but was in the area so wanted to see it straight away. We told him to go jump, and make an appointment like everyone else. Turns out he didn't have an appointment booked (shocker), but did make an appointment, came and saw the house. He made another appointment and came back the following day. He then wanted to know what we were leaving with the house (he pretty much wanted it furnished, but was not willing to increase his offer accordingly).

In the end, we accepted his offer specifically because he had no chain. He then proceeded to just show up out of the blue demanding to be let in so he could measure this, or check the colour of that, etc (about 4 separate times). We kept turning him away and telling him to make an appointment, which he'd do and then come back.

Things progressed, we received our copies of the contract and signed them, then we were just waiting for his solicitor to finish all the searches etc. We had a phone call from our solicitor saying that his solicitor had requested our bank details, so we were nearing the end. Our requested completion date was the 3rd of June (to give us time to pack and move out).

Got home last night (with a transit van to start moving stuff!) to find a voicemail message from our solicitor saying that she'd just spoken to his solicitor to check the status, and was told that they were just waiting for the sale of his OTHER HOUSE to go through, then they could proceed with ours! WTF!!!!! We checked with the estate agents, and yes, every single document that he completed and signed stated that his purchasing our house was NOT dependent on the sale of another house, but now it turns out that he lied the whole way through to us, the estate agents, his mortgage advisor, etc!!!

Hopefully this won't affect the sale too much, since his sale is supposed to complete in the next week or so, and ours is in a couple of weeks, but if timing wasn't an issue I'd be quite happy to cancel this sale right now, despite the fact that he's paid out for searches, bought furniture to match our curtains, etc!

Fuming!!!

Looking on the bright side, at least he is still on the hook ... most time-wasters are just that .. time wasters.

I pray for a return to a system where a buyer makes an offer, the seller accepts it, and a contract is signed there and then, subject to searches/mortgage approval. South Africa, Australia and I believe Canada have this type of arrangement.

The system in the UK stinks. It is so easy to change, but we are continually forced to hope that a potential buyer is really genuine, and not some monkey just having a laugh at our expense.

I hope everything goes through for you, Cov-Canuck .. I know how bl**dy frustrating it is ..

I know what you mean. When we sold ours in the UK there were quite a few people that I wanted to say s*d off, I'm not selling to you, as we seemed to have been messed around alot.

The first couple that put in an offer just dragged thngs on for a good couple of months without anything really moving forward. In the end I said that every week that goes by prior to exchanging contracts the price goes up by another £500. They then said to the agents that they couldn't actually afford the mortgage for our house and were pulling out. They then asked to view another property which was up for sale for £80,000 more than ours!!

karma sent!

I'm on my 3rd offer on our house as 1st 2 fell through at the last moment

Good Luck
Mans

Not surprised you're fuming! He sounds like a right ar5e. Fingers crossed it justs completes quickly now.

- Why don't you leave him a moving in present? Some mackerel under the bathroom floor boards for example? That will a pleasant treat for him in a few weeks time

Typical Lancastrian

The selling process is a nightmare. I'm flying to Calgary on Thursday for a 2-week trip and our sale should complete in our absence. I hate the fact that I've no control whatsoever and if the buyer gets the wobblies at the last minute its back to square one and 3 months more on my timeline, 3 months more in limbo, 3 months more in this job, 3 months less in Calgary before I die ..............

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaggggh.

Thanks, I feel a whole lot better.

M

You've played this game before, haven't you ...

I feel your frustration!!, we're trying to sell ours at the moment, dealing with all the time wasters, that i'm sure just come out to view houses for a 'day out' We haven't even had an offer yet and i've had enough already!
K sent.

Ditto

I don't know why we don't take on the Canadian real estate system. We have just bought a house in Ontario and had to pay a deposit and sign a contract which basically means if after our conditions have been met (which they have) if we back out, the vendor gets the deposit and can also sue us.

As least then as a vendor you know you will be at least compensated for any problems that occur, but it puts the buyer off pulling out because they loose the deposit.

In the UK there are too many loopholes and it doesn't help that estate agents are not regulated in any way.

Hope everything works out in the end
Jane

How long has your house been on the market?

I see things haven't changed much since we emigrated in '75. At that time we thought we had sold our house twice, only to have people back out for no good reason, or simply disappear. We did not believe in gazumping, so we wouldn't take another offer while we had what we thought was a firm deal on the table. Silly us. Eventually we sold in haste, at a much lower price than we'd anticipated, but were leaving in less than 2 weeks so had no choice.

Now I work in the legal side of real estate in Canada, and this sort of thing simply can't happen here. Contracts are firm and binding from the get-go, with specific conditions only being a way out. If those conditions aren't spelled out in the contract then the buyer faces a huge legal action if he reneges. I just don't understand why things are so unprofessional in England - or why solicitors think they can suddenly introduce conditions as they go along. Yes, Britain definitely needs the system we have here in Canada.

The UK system is a joke. We managed to sell our house just be fore we moved to Canada (literally two days before!)

The estate agents did a fair bit of running around for us, but the solicitors were complete tw*ts and couldn't really care less about either us or our buyers - in fact both our solicitors worked for the same company! They couldn't even be bothered to get off their butts, walk across the building and talk to each other!

We have had house sales fall through before, so we were natually quite anxious!