Seller pulling out of sale after contracts are signed

What happens if a sale doesn't close after signing contracts and the problem is on the seller's side?

If a buyer pulls out after signing, I assume they can/will lose the deposit - is there a similar penalty for a seller? or does it depend on the buyer initiating a legal action?


I have seen a thread on a sale falling through after auction, but cannot find any for Private Treaty - apologies if this is has been answered previously....

A buyer can plead that they have been refused finance, and there isn't a huge amount you can do about it if they have no money, other than keep the deposit.

A seller has no excuse for pulling out. I would imagine that you can get a court order for the contract to be performed and you should get your costs by way of reducing the purchase price.

Is this a theoretical question or has it actually happened? What did your solicitor say?

This happened to us on a Private Treaty. The sellers were splitting up then got back together - then decided not to sell having signed contracts. They just returned the deposit to our solicitor.
The position was that there was no point in legally enforcing them to sell as in reality it is very hard to get people out of their house if it is their PPR and don't want to sell it to you. They could just come up with numerous obstacles and delays to closing for months or years even, while the buyer foots the legal bills trying to get them out.
We had paid for a survey, valuation and some admin with the solicitor so it had cost us close to 1k that could not be re-couped anywhere.
Our next house deal has recently resulted in the sellers pulling out very close to signing due to illness in their household. So it does happen that something happens that is beyond the seller's control. It's never over until the keys are in your hand.

You could always asking sellers for a goodwill payment to cover half your costs or some such.

Thanks, Sadie - I guess it doesn't happen too often as our solicitor has no previous experience. He did say it was probably not worth pursuing it ...

It looks like in other countries that the purchaser has more protection:

Selling a property in France



Withdrawing from a Sale Agreement
The seller is effectively fully committed to the sale at the point of signing the sales agreement, Should the seller withdraw, they will be obliged to return the deposit to the buyer and pay a further 10 percent of the sale price. This applies even if they get a better offer after the sale agreement has been signed.

Note that the position is different for the buyer. Under French law the buyer has a “cooling off” period of eight days after signing the agreement. In this period a buyer is free to withdraw from the agreement and receive the return of the deposit in full. At that point the agreement is at an end. Should the buyer withdraw after the eight-day period has passed, the deposit will be paid to the seller.

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