house seller pulls out just before contracts were signed. what can I do?

We have spent a lot of money on a survey and we now have a mortgage. The seller changed his mind out of the blue and now it looks like we have nothing. This seems completely unjust to me but is there anything I can do?

move to scotland ?

It is on the south coast of England. Scotland as nice as it may be and whatever the rules are, is out of the question

Is there nothing in the buying process that covers your expenses? As trail_rat hints at if someone had done this in Scotland it would be financial suiside as they can be held responcible for all sorts once they have officialy accepted an offer on their property.

[edit]Just re-read that and it may come accross a little harsh, i am not meaning to rub it in I’m just suprised, i’ve only ever bought property in Scotland[/edit]

Speak to your solicitor

Although I fear there is not much you can hope for

what can you do?

nothing.

it sucks but it’s how it is in England.

Nothing – until contracts are exchanged there is no comeback

it doesnt really work like that rusty mac

in scotland we have to survey at our own risk pre offer …. sucks

no offers subject to survey (i mean you can try but watch it bounce back like a rubber cheque)

so although once the offers accepted its not really any better than the english system regards surveys !

nowt, hard luck mate… send them dog shit in the post…

Unfortunately, that’s one of the perils of the house buying process in England. It sucks but I don’t think there’s anything you can do about it. My best mate’s parents were buying a house some years ago. They had the survey done, got mortgage, booked removals, and the vendor pulled out minutes before they were due to exchange contracts. Turns out he had never intended to sell. He only wanted to prove to the bank that he could theoretically sell the house for the amount stated in order to secure additional funds against it. 🙄

As wwaswas says, there is nothing legally you can do. As a buyer you take the risk until the contracts are exchanged. BTW you don’t “have a mortgage” yet, i.e. the money hasn’t been drawn from the mortgage provider, you have just (probably) paid a hefty fee to agree mortgage terms and interest rates for a certain period (fixed, tracker or otherwise). This mortgage agreement could still hold if you find another property, i.e. you might just have to pay a small admin fee to get the total value changed. You can see why gazumping is considered so anti-social!

Let it go and hope you find a better property soon.

Er, no contract = you’re on your own.

It was your risk to spend the money before having a binding contract.

As for the mortgage – I doubt very much you have actually borrowed anything, and it certainly won’t be secured on a house you don’t own. So, you’ve lost nothing there (except maybe some fees).

wow pedalhead, that is an awful thing to do! what a d*ck.
jumpupanddown – I like the way you think. I was thinking of getting out my bombers

the mortgage was on another house so we could get a better rate so…

I dealt with an extraordinarily good firm of solicitors who sent me a cheque refunding me the total costs so far of any work they’d done and fees i’d paid when a house move fell through a few years back!….they didnt tell me it was coming and i didnt expect anything to be refunded, it just arrived in the post about 6 months later when i’d completely forgotten about the incident.

Depends on the type of property you are looking at, surveys are at your own risk but home report covers more than a basic survey used to. You can sell the more detailed survey on if there are other interested parties to recoup some of the cost.

I get the impression from other posts you are looking at properties that need work where a full survey is more important, where as i have only ever bought flats that have neede more cosmetic work to get them up to scratch.

we had this quite a few years ago when property was going up fast

seller pulled out a few days before exchanging because he wanted to wait for it to appreciate. In the meantime, the bigger house he was moving to also went up, actually by more than the extra his house sold for. Dickhed was a financial advisor too, apparently 🙄

foolishly we honoured the sale of our existing house and ended up out of the market as it was rising 🙄 🙄 (did mean we moved in quick when we finally bought a place though as we were chain-free)

I dealt with an extraordinarily good firm of solicitors who sent me a cheque refunding me the total costs so far of any work they’d done and fees i’d paid when a house move fell through a few years back!….they didnt tell me it was coming and i didnt expect anything to be refunded, it just arrived in the post about 6 months later when i’d completely forgotten about the incident.

i had the same, got a cheque for 3/4 of what i had paid upfront after a purchase fell through. if i had known they were going to send it i would have told them to keep it on account, it paid for christmas though.

in scotland we have to survey at our own risk pre offer …. sucks

Haven’t the home reports done away with this? I know that when I bought my place a couple of years ago I didn’t need to do a survey at least not for a mortgage.

My old boss once agreed to buy a house where there was a better school for his kid then pulled out at the last minute, when the school had agreed he was in the catchment area, never had any intention of moving there, he called it working the system…….

This happened to some friends of ours who ended up staying with us for 4 months, as having sold their own house were let homeless and a bit skint by the toe rag pulling out “as he felt he could get more for it”.

Super T’s should work well.

gonefishing

homereport surveys are not great though

one failed to pick up on large cracks on the rear of the house round an extension – i did a bit of scraping around the extension and found it was on a thin pad of concrete – not really a foundation – was pulling the wall off the house pretty much…and then the concentrate on other areas that are not really of primary concern – like every home report ive read reccomends that all the wiring be redone and that the bathroom needs redone as sealing fails over time on any house that isnt covered by a manufacutrers warrenty still…. cover thy ass basically

how ever i dont really intend to get surveys other than if the mortgage stipulates as i trust my dads/his workmens advice more than any surveyor.

[ideal world]Hopefully the Estate Agent’s in the area will black list them as they’ve lost out too. [/ideal world]

It happens. We bought our house after the chain that it was in previously collapsed on the morning of the completion. The sale on 7 properties fell through! Several of them reduced their asking prices to resurrect it and we got our house with a hefty chunk off. On the flip side our buyer pulled out on us with about a week to go. The Estate Agent sweet talked somebody we had previously rejected back into the deal, but we had to drop a further £5k.

He only wanted to prove to the bank that he could theoretically sell the house for the amount stated in order to secure additional funds against it.

👿

the mortgage was on another house so we could get a better rate so…

…so, you took a risk and your horse didn’t come in. Given that you were going to be paying that loan anyway, you will be now. My guess is there’s some BTL going on here, so you’re in the same position you would have been if the place was without tenants.

And, given you’re already a property owner, and are capable of borrowing against that, I have even less sympathy for your not understanding how buyer beware/caveat emptor works..!

Nothi ng you can do really.

move to scotland ?

That won’t make any difference as although there are rules in place when the missives are signed they are never excercised now. Happened to a few people I know who have had missives signed and the buyer pulled out, solicitors advice was that whilst you could take them to court the best advice was to take it on the chin.

When we were moving 12 years ago our buyer still hadn’t signed the missives the week before we moved with varying excuses from his solicitor, buyer pulled out a couple of days before we were due to move as he couldn’t get a mortgage.

Kick im inna fork.