Going sale agreed on a bank sale - opinions pls

Advicepls

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Ok long story short. I have recently been bidding on a house. At present we are the only interested party and this house has been on the market for a while. Initially it was too expensive and was reduced about a month ago. The vendors don't seem to be in any rush, the EA was a bit vague when I asked were they in a hurry or where they are moving on to. We have told the EA that we will sell our house with them if we go sale agreed on the other house. So we made an offer and EA has come back that he has strongly recommended the Vendor accept. Turns out they are in debt and need approval from the bank that this amount can be accepted. So I don't know whats going on but I don't want the whole rigmarole of going through selling our own and messing ourselves and someone else about if they are just going to drag this out for as long as they can. Anyone any experience of this, EA assures me they are moving on. But he has to say that. There are two scenarios, this could all go in our favour as we need time, our own is not even on the market. Or they may plan on just sitting in the house and never signing the contract, claiming at the time that they are not getting market value (I know of someone this happened to). Any advice welcome. We really like the house and are in zero rush ourselves but have never been in this situation.
 
There are many unknowns here and you would be foolish to accept anything at face value and mad to sell your property.

Put in an offer on the basis of you selling your property, if accepted pay a modest booking deposit to be refunded within 30 days if a contract cannot be entered into by the seller, insist that the property be marked as sale agreed on all advertising as a key condition, have all this handled by your solicitor in writing.
 
insist that the property be marked as sale agreed on all advertising as a key condition, have all this handled by your solicitor in writing.
There is no such staus as "sale agreed", the property is simply "under offer" and thus it's still for sale. The best the purchaser can hope for is the removal od all ads.
 
If the agent is willing to mark the property sale agreed in their office and advertising materials then you know the property is not being actively marketed, that is the best you can hope for and better than doing nothing in order to try and achieve what the OP desires.
 
There was a question here recently which I can't find. The buyer was buying from a bank or their receiver. It dragged on for over a year. Contracts were signed by the buyer and sent back. But in the end, the seller just sold it to someone else.

So, there is a significant risk that you will be in the same position.

Do you have to sell your own house to buy the other?
If so, it will be very difficult to get the choreography right.

You will not be able to sign the contracts on the sale of your home until the vendors have returned the signed contracts to you.


So put your house on the market.
Get your solicitor to have the contracts for sale of your house ready to go as soon as you agree to sell your house.
Don't accept an offer until you have the draft contracts back from the other side.

This is ideally what would happen
1) You will get the draft contracts from the seller - hold them for a while
2) Accept an offer on your own house
3) Send the contracts for sale of your house to the other side with a deadline for return

4) When the buyer of your house signs the contracts and returns them, then send the signed contracts for the purchase back.
5) When the seller returns the contract for the sale, you sign the contracts for your own house.

It will be very difficult to get this right and you may have to take a chance.

Brendan
 
Thanks all. The EA has assured us if the offer is accepted the house won't be advertised or shown any more. Timeline wise I'm not too concerned, our own house is in v good condition, there are very few houses for sale in the area and they all need quite a bit of work. I anticipate it will sell quite easily and the buyer will be willing to wait. I have experienced this with friends buying in the area and spoke to a few EA who all said the same. With regard to the house we hope to buy I will follow all instructions above.
If I get signed contracts from the Seller, does this mean they can't back out? What is to be done to ensure there are no issues with the bank on their side?
 
Once contracts are signed can they pull out? I know they are not meant to but does it happen? Just trying to cover all scenarios going through my head....don't want to be left homeless!
 
Once contracts are signed can they pull out? I know they are not meant to but does it happen? Just trying to cover all scenarios going through my head....don't want to be left homeless!

It's rare enough, but it does happen. You would need to initiate a court action for specific performance of the contract to force them to complete, and that can take months a cost quite a bit to resolve. It's more likely to resolve in your favour though, provided everything on your side is in order, so in many cases the act of initiating the action might be enough.
 
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