Contract signed in December - seller pulling now out

[Merowig]

We went sale agreed in August - told that closing would happen End of March. The seller has a different property he wants to move to and he first needed to get the tenants out.
We agreed to this as buying a property in Dublin is the absolute horror - we are currently for two years trying to get a foot on the property latter and starting a family and we both had enough of looking at Daft...

We signed the contract beginning of December, the seller then tried to push after signature then closing to late April. My wife asked then basically to push back on that and that was then with the solicitor to negotiate with the other party.
Now I have been notified by the agent that the seller wants to pull out due to personal reason (divorce apparently but who knows if true). Our solicitor didn't get that notification yet.

I have asked our solicitor if we can compel here the sale but didn't hear yet back. Also told here to see if we can still proceed if we gave the seller more time for closing.

Contract has been only signed by us, deposit was paid - but the contract was not signed by the other party - I assume we cannot compel the seller to sign/exchange contracts?
Any one has perhaps an idea if/how this can be salvaged?

 

[RedOnion]

Contract has been only signed by us, deposit was paid - but the contract was not signed by the other party - I assume we cannot compel the seller to sign/exchange contracts?

You already have the answer here.

 

[Brendan Burgess]

You are caught.

If they have not signed the contracts, then there is no legally binding agreement.

You need to start looking again.

Brendan

 

[mathepac]

We went sale agreed in August - told that closing would happen End of March.

I'm sorry to hear of the awful situation you find yourselves in, but at the risk of sounding like a broken record, I wish the term "sale agreed" was banned completely in property transactions. It is very misleading. As you are discovering to your disappointment and probably at no small cost, nothing is agreed until contracts are signed and exchanged and the inaccurate term, "sale agreed", which has no legal standing or status, flatters to deceive.