England's house-selling system

[dan_b]

I'm so cross/ depressed...

For the last 4 weeks, I had been safe in the happy knowledge that, having agreed to sell our flat, and simultaneously agreed to buy a house, that I knew where we stood. We were going to sell our flat and buy a bigger house, all on March 31st 2006. Everybody was going to be happy - our buyer was going to get a lovely 2-bed flat, we were going to get a lovely 3-bed house in which to bring up our forthcoming baby.

Everything was agreed, surveys had been booked, mortgage valuations done, mortgage applications paid for, plans put in place. Except now the people who we are buying off have decided they don't want to sell anymore.

We're now back to square one and have no possible means of recompense. Even though they had agreed to sell to us, and have paid out good money to get that sale in progress, we have no come back against that.

Why is the house-buying process in England so open to abuse? Why is it that agreeing to sale is not actually any legally-binding contract to actually go through with it?

I'm so depressed. We now have to start the whole house-hunting process again, and basically we've wasted the last 3 months-worth of house seeking, and frankly nothing other than the house we had offered on was anything like worth buying, and I'm worried we'll not find anything else remotely as good for the money we can afford.

And yes, I am having a baby

[imster]

chin up matey,
ur right about the current system, my bessie mate had the same experiance....a while later he found something similar in price and size to the one he lost but with garage space, which he never figured into his melting pot - hes now officially 'luvvin it'
hang on in there..you will find something...maybe even better
imster

[rotoryboy]

Everything happens for a reason Dan, as said you may actually end up better off (glass half full theory). And I agree with the house system in the UK, bag of sh 1te. Good luck and congrats with baby number 1

[dan_b]

Cheers mate. I'm still livid/gutted/depressed in equal measure at the moment though The thing is, we've got such a "hard deadline" with the baby, that what was a nicely relaxed move process has now increased in anxiety levels quite dramatically! There's so little on the market round my way that's affordable and remotely worth living in, or remotely suitable for a wee baern. Bah. Where's that gin bottle gone...

[rotoryboy]

I know it's the more stressfull option, but can't you stick everthing into storage and rent till you find the right house?

[dan_b]

Well that's a possibility yes, and we'll keep that in mind, but with an increasingly heavily pregnant wife, moving twice is something we'd prefer to avoid if at all possible...

[Sidspud]

I can understand your dilemma Dan

I moved house in August from a 1 bed to a 3 bed. What a nightmare. Luckilly here in Scotland, once your offer has been accepted thats it! Legally binding. If you decide to pull out of the deal then the other party can and will sue you for everyhing their solicitor can dream up, until they find another buyer. As you know that can take a very long time, so you've got to be sure you know what you're doing.

Good luck in finding the right house. We thought we'd lost out on our dream home when our offer was pipped at the post. 2 months later an almost idential house (this time with a driveway) appeared just around the corner and we got it.
Good things come to those who wait.

[PeteRR]

Sorry to hear that fell through Dan. But agree that you may find something even better!
Are you looking to stay in Richmond?

[dan_b]

We are trying to stay in the area, but maybe we can't now. We'd love to stay here as we do love the area, and it's convenient for both our jobs, and we have friends here too now, plus I do love the rugby, and it's great to be able to get out of London so quickly if you need to! We've seen so many places that were frankly awful and for the money you do start asking questions about what it's all for...

I'm just so annoyed that in Scotland the system seems to be at least honorable and sensible: if you agree to accept an offer it's actually a legally binding contract - why the frick doesnt' that apply down here too? :bash:

[jubjub]

As said elsewhere, it is a pile of *****.
I had my house on the market unsold and took a chance on putting in an offer on a place I fancied. The offer was accepted so I proceeded to have a survey done on said property to get the wheels moving along quickly. As luck would have it my gamble paid of - I got an offer on mine at the full asking price a couple of weeks later.......

Thats when the problems started Got a phone call of the agent saying that even though my offer was accepted, unless I upped the ante by another 5k they were going to accept another offer.I did this and a few days later got the same call again, another 5k Again I thought it was worth it for what I was after.

Kid you not, another few days, and I had to up the offer by another £2k. I snapped at this point, obviously not having a leg to stand on, andtold both the vendor and agent to stick it. Survey money and search money up the spout, and then my buyer pulled out Mind I ended up with another buyer a few weeks later, and buying somewhere that was better, but really could have done without all the sress and hassle.......

Oh and congrats on the soon to be little 'un

[robo]

I am sure this will work out better Dan...
I put an offer on end of terrace house and offer was accepted but then someone gone in with cash and we could not compete even thou we did not have to sale, two months later I found semi for the same money and now we exchanging on Thursday.
Cheers

[dan_b]

@Rob - good luck mate!

[s2driveruk]

yep can thoroughly agree with the pain on this - we had it when we last moved and sold our flat 3 times before we actually managed to move with huge amounts of stress trying to keep the sellers of the house we wanted sweet and at the same time watching 2 buyers of our flat lead us up a dead end and a small fortune in wasted time, effort and bloody legal fees.

The whole process here sucks, in fact our experience was so cr*p we looked to move this year and decided that in the end we werent that desperate and binned the whole idea As with most things the govt touch in britain, they end up being more complicated, less efficient and a damn sight more expensive to boot

Congrats on the baby news - welcome to a world of amazing highs, and mass sleep deprivation.... but i wouldnt change it for the world. My boy will be 19months on the 7th Dec, after a cr*ppy day in the office being greeted with a 'daaaaaaaddy' more makes up for it. his little fingers will come in more than useful for getting to those hard to reach places in the S2 engine bay too

[topsparky]

I'm so cross/ depressed...

For the last 4 weeks, I had been safe in the happy knowledge that, having agreed to sell our flat, and simultaneously agreed to buy a house, that I knew where we stood. We were going to sell our flat and buy a bigger house, all on March 31st 2006. Everybody was going to be happy - our buyer was going to get a lovely 2-bed flat, we were going to get a lovely 3-bed house in which to bring up our forthcoming baby.

Everything was agreed, surveys had been booked, mortgage valuations done, mortgage applications paid for, plans put in place. Except now the people who we are buying off have decided they don't want to sell anymore.

We're now back to square one and have no possible means of recompense. Even though they had agreed to sell to us, and have paid out good money to get that sale in progress, we have no come back against that.

Why is the house-buying process in England so open to abuse? Why is it that agreeing to sale is not actually any legally-binding contract to actually go through with it?

I'm so depressed. We now have to start the whole house-hunting process again, and basically we've wasted the last 3 months-worth of house seeking, and frankly nothing other than the house we had offered on was anything like worth buying, and I'm worried we'll not find anything else remotely as good for the money we can afford.

And yes, I am having a baby

if you lived in scotland they cannot d
o that .i know it's n
o recompense the system needs to change .when i moved house we had to rent b4 we found the one we wanted .that was after 7 different houses and 6 surveys.so chin up congrats on new bambino :

[flossymeister]

Dan,

why not just make the lives of the people in that house hell (without letting them know its you, obviously!!) for the next few weeks? Set up some ghostly noises, pay their neigbours to make lots of noise etc...... you'll have them begging you to come back with another offer in no time

the above is said in jest, but a guy I used to work with actually did something exactly along these lines after the seller backed out on him...... and it worked! Better still, because they were (a) now desperate to sell and (b) had screwed my mate over the first time, they had to accept my mate's offer of £5K less than the price agreed first time round. revenge was sweet!