We put our cottage on the market at the beginning of March this year and sold at the beginning of June to a couple who, according to the estate agents, had sold and were in rented accommodation.
They viewed only once for an hour, then rang the estate agents and put in an offer, which, after a bit of negotiations we finally accepted. We were told they were going away for two weeks on holiday but when they returned they would start proceedings.
Right from the beginning it seemed odd to us that this couple had not asked to view the property again and seemed to be reluctant to speed things up, we were told after a month that they had their mortgage offer in place although that turned out not to be a fact, it took another two weeks of constant pestering on my part via our estate agent to get that sorted.
Then they decided they wanted a full structural survey, which was fair enough, our property is over 100 years old, that took another two weeks to sort as they refused the first quote, although an appointment had been set up which they subsequently cancelled.
Eventually, after another two weeks, the survey was carried out and we imagined that soon things would get moving. Our conveyancing solicitor had instructed their solicitor that we would be in a position to exchange at the end of July. But were told via their solicitors that their were issues to address, despite numerous inquiries, we have not been able to find out what these ‘issues’ are and during all this were told that in fact the couple had no intention of exchanging contracts until September!
At this point, we appear to be going around in circles, the ‘issues’ appear to have dissipated and the couple have according to their solicitors’ office been in and signed but are adamant that they will not exchange until September, although we have offered them a compromise, exchange now and complete in September as they wish, we are assuming that it is the necessary funds that are a problem.
We are now in a position where we might loose the property we wished to purchase as the vendor is worried that we are not going to be able to complete the sale. Had we known the full facts of their situation we would never have allowed the estate agents to market our property as SOLD as it is clearly not!
We had more people wanting to view, as far as we are concerned, this is taking advantage of a desperate market by unscrupulous people who may or may not decide to complete the purchase. In the meantime, we have lost three months and possibly more of prime selling opportunity, it is time that someone put some safe guards in place for this procedure, it surely can’t be acceptable to allow sellers to be treated in such a cavalier fashion?
C. S. Snow
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