house Sale Agreed in June still no contract returned

My house went sale agreed in June , the buyer I was told is a cash buyer a developer , Its now October the signed contract has still not been returned to our solicitor despite numerous requests. We have been told that the buyer will be returning them shortly in the next week/two weeks, we ve been told this over the months. Now we have decided to put the house back up on the market. So I would like some advice please . How long is too long to wait for signed contract to be returned? Is there a normal amount of time ? When sending out contracts again in the future should we set a period of time that the buyer has to return the signed contract?
Our house is in an area of high demand and went sale agreed quickly. The estate agent said we would be better to wait it out until this buyer pays up rather than go through the whole process again.

That is crazy. He is trying to keep his options open.

Put the house back on the market.

You just don't know if you will get a higher price or not.

If he returns the contract, then hold onto it until you see if you get a better price.

Brendan

Also, bear in mind that your EA doesn’t want to do twice the work for his commission.

Absent a really good reason, you should expect to receive signed contracts within 6 weeks of your EA issuing a sales notice to your solicitor.

If I was in your position, I would instruct your EA to return the purchaser’s booking deposit if signed contracts are not received by your solicitor within 3 business days and thereafter to immediately re-advertise the property for sale.

Good luck.

I agree completely with Sarenco. I think that is a first.

Next time it's probably a good idea to instruct your solicitor to specify a return date for the contracts.

We went sale agreed early May and no sign of contract being signed by early September so we threatened to pull out - they were quick to sign then. We really wouldn't have waited any longer.

Thanks for the advice. It put the situation into perspective for us and we asked our solicitor to contact buyers solicitor to inform them that we were planning to put the house back up on the market. The buyer submitted signed contract and full deposit the next day so we're relieved

as I understand the paying of deposits have no binding on contracts and in fact are just a way for the auctioneer to get their fee quicker as they usually hold on to it. have dealt with auctioneers many time over the last 30 years and I still find them to be a very shifty lot with poor professional standards.