Purchasers have gone past closing date and not paid for my house

Leo said:

I think that may be a little harsh given how little information we have here. .................. It's not like the solicitor is in a position to verify that the bank will release the mortgage until the funds are sitting in their account.

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The solicitor cannot verify that the funds will be there to complete the purchase. But this would be my concern:

Von2balurn said:

They had previously cried poverty when the 10% non-refundable deposit was due and my solicitor agreed it was unusual but advised me to accept they would pay the full amount on the closing date.

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Unless there is more to this story than we have heard so far.

Knuttell said:

Recollect my Solicitor had to confirm funds were there and sent confirmation to estate agent (iirc)

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Yes, that is common, but solicitors generally have to take their clients' word on the matter. They have no ability to actually confirm whether the funds exist in reality. No bank will confirm same to a solicitor and statements and loan offers are easily doctored or faked entirely. I recall a Sherry Fitz agent in Dublin a few years back vent their frustration at having multiple sales fall through when it turned out that the purchasers didn't have the necessary funds even after providing solicitors letters confirming all was in order.

Ruffian said:

The solicitor cannot verify that the funds will be there to complete the purchase. But this would be my concern:

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Is it all that unusual for purchasers to request lower deposits? In most cases such sales go through without an issue. We don't know enough to guess whether the solicitor's advice to proceed was well founded or not. If they went sale agreed in January and only agreed on a closing date in late October there's more going on here than we're aware of.

I get the impression from the OP that they paid no deposit.

Which means that they have no comeback as legal action is not really viable.

Of course, the solicitor may have advised them of the risk, and the OP may have decided to proceed anyway, as it was the highest bidder.

It seems to me that one should insist on 10% with exchange of contracts so that the buyer suffers a serious loss if they don't proceed.