Gone sale agreed but now turns out buyer needs to sell their own home

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JimmyCorkhill

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Family members have recently gone sale agreed on their family home and now it turns out the buyer needs to sell their own home first! Contract went over to purchasers solicitor a few weeks back and there has been radio silence which is how they found out why there has been a delay.

It was down to two bidders and the estate agent told them the person they agreed to sell the house to told them (the estate agent) they don’t need to sell their own house and apparently showed the estate agent loan approval for a value above the price the house went sale agreed for.

Is it typical that people lie when it comes to purchasing houses? Could the estate agent of done anymore here?

Thanks
 
If they've gone sale agreed but haven't exchanged signed contracts (it's not clear from the post if this has happened yet?) they could pull the plug and go back to the underbidder or back to the market.

Yes, some people fib. Not really sure if the agent could have done more/anything different but that's probably only of academic interest at this stage?
 
Sorry, I don’t have the full details around signed contracts - all I know is a contract went to their side to sign and it hasn’t been signed despite it being sent over a number of weeks ago. I would need to ask for more information.

At this stage, the family just want to sell the house so not sure they want to drag it out any longer but are peeved about only finding out the buyer was not a cash buyer after all!

I understand the under bidder has since agreed on something else.

Personally, I think the family members should push the buyer to pay the estate agent fees due to the delay, even though they may say no.

Leaves a bit of a sour taste being dishonest especially as they would know of the buyer through others.
 
If they have loan approval to buy the house and have shown it to the estate agent, that is all the estate agent can do.

It sounds as if they could buy the house if they wanted to but have decided to sell their own first.

Move on.
 
Yeah happened to us.
estate agent was told they were renting and had sold. Half true… they were renting but had a place to sell. We only discovered when they tried to delay the moving date and let slip why…

We were ok with the delay as it turned out the place we were buying had a hitch too.

Having said that it was a stressful experience
 
JimmyCorkhill said:
Personally, I think the family members should push the buyer to pay the estate agent fees due to the delay, even though they may say no.

Leaves a bit of a sour taste being dishonest especially as they would know of the buyer through others.
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Not a hope in hell of the buyers paying the fees.

They should contact the buyers directly and ask for an explanation.
 
JimmyCorkhill said:
Sorry, I don’t have the full details around signed contracts - all I know is a contract went to their side to sign and it hasn’t been signed despite it being sent over a number of weeks ago. I would need to ask for more information.
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In that case it sounds like the sellers can pull the plug at go back to the market if they choose. Their solicitor should be able to advise.
 
Brendan Burgess said:
Not a hope in hell of the buyers paying the fees.

They should contact the buyers directly and ask for an explanation.
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They might if they threatened with the house getting pulled from them as they were desperate for the house and it is house in their “dream area”.

I know if it was my decision I would be having my solicitor giving them a deadline to sign contracts and transfers funds or else pull the house from them. For sellers it is dead parents home so not a case of selling to buy etc or in a rush to sell but more don’t want it dragged out any longer.
 
JimmyCorkhill said:
They might if they threatened with the house getting pulled from them as they were desperate for the house and it is house in their “dream area”.
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No, they wouldn't.

If they do end up buying the house then there's no reason why they should pay the estate agent's fees — they've done what they agreed to do; the estate agent's fees were always the seller's responsiblity; the fees are no higher than they would have been even if the sale hadn't taken longer than expected to complete.

If they don't end up buying the house then there's no reason why they should pay the estate agent's fees because, quite simply, they don't need the seller's goodwill. There is no ongoing relationship between them and the seller.
 
ClubMan said:
In that case it sounds like the sellers can pull the plug at go back to the market if they choose. Their solicitor should be able to advise.
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They can go back to market right now as no contracts are signed. It's always 'no contract/contract denied' until the contracts are signed.
 
My guess is that their solicitor is telling them not to sign until they have sale agreed their own house or even gone as far as contracts signed for their house.

The issue is whether that sale is also part of a chain.

If not, it might only delay things 3-4 weeks which is "acceptable".


At any stage you can ask the underbidder if they are still interested on condition that they are not dependent on selling a house.
 
JimmyCorkhill said:
It was down to two bidders and the estate agent told them the person they agreed to sell the house to told them (the estate agent) they don’t need to sell their own house and apparently showed the estate agent loan approval for a value above the price the house went sale agreed for.
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I was one of these bidders last year. You don't state how long the house has been sale agreed for which is material imho. Also, were there bids at the same price, is the current bidder more favourable overall or was the lack of chain the main factor?

Here are my observations from my trading up experience last year:
  1. I had AIP and savings to break the chain as the saying goes.
  2. After 12 months found a house we really liked, to bid had to upload my AIP and bank account statements so the EA was fully aware of my financial position.
  3. The EA rang me literally hours after I entered in the docs above. The conversation was literally, Are you putting in a bid and if so what is it? I finalised the bid over the phone. Then an hour later bid was accepted and the EA told me the buyer wanted to close in 12 weeks, to which I replied well the buyer can look for same but wait until the solicitors get going!
  4. The important piece from my perspective and potentially your buyer's one, when I went back to the Mortgage provider with details of the proposed house purchase, the whole mortgage process started over again. I had to resubmit all my financial records, get a new valuation on my old house along with an EA declaring what the rent value would be. This took weeks, even though I was not going to rent out the old property but sell it in due course.
  5. For circa 3 months the EA was non stop calling me and my solicitor at least twice per day, until my solicitor told me to tell the EA to stop calling them. Honestly I was getting whatsapp messages, and phone calls from the EA literally when their first born arrived from the maternity hospital.
  6. Eventually I sorted out the mortgage piece and the sale went through, not within the 12 weeks though.
So, if the purchaser has a large savings pot they may be negotiating mortgage terms as what was good for AIP 6 months ago maybe not be today for the underwriters. My broker was brilliant at sorting this all out for me, and while bullet 5 was so super bloody annoying maybe deploy your EA to figure out where things are at and then decide whether to wait or refund the deposit and rescind Sale Agreed.
 
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