Sellers have backed out because they are not ready to sell for another year...

I'm a first time buyer with mortgage approval in principle. I had gone sale agreed on a house last Tue, only to get a call from the vendors EA yesterday Friday to say the vendor was pulling out. My understanding is the couple will put the property back on the market next year but for now want to hold onto it as it is their holiday home (they are UK based, using it again this summer having been unable to use the property for the past 18 months due to covid) and as they were finding the sale stressful. I would like to know if anyone has good experience of buying a house and renting it back for a period. I am considering proposing this should it save the purchase, meeting the needs of the vendor to have access to their holiday home for 6 - 9 months. I am paying rent in a shared apartment currently and should be able to keep my finances ok for this period with a fairly nominal rent on the property from the vendor.

Conscious it is probably best I simply accept the purchase has fallen through, both as this buy/rent back option could be fraught with challenges, and also since even if it allowed the contracts etc to progress, the vendor could once again pull out given their form. At least I have avoided the transaction costs at this point, so I may just count this as a blessing.

Grateful for any experiences so I can make a well informed decision on how to proceed.

Hi Curtley

It seems to me that this has fallen through and they are just giving you an excuse. It could be that the husband and wife are in disagreement about what they should do. So they are unlikely to be interested in any complicated deal.

What you are proposing is too complicated.

A much simpler solution would be to suggest to them, a deferred closing date. In other words, you would exchange contracts now but then close the sale in March 2022.

Both of you would be legally bound by that.

The downside for you would be if anything happened in the meantime, and you could not get a mortgage, you would, at the very least, lose your deposit.

On reflection, the best approach for you would be to move on. Tell the estate agent that you understand and you will now look at other houses. If this comes back on the market, he should let you know.

Brendan

Thanks very much @Brendan Burgess, great to know keeping it simple and moving on is the wisest option.

Brendan,

Are you sure the deferred closing date would carry any more weight than "sale agreed"?

I actually think the initial suggestion of renting the property back at a very reasonable rate makes a lot of sense. Getting ownership now obviously reduces the opportunity for things going wrong, life changes, u turns etc (and puts any inflation in the price in your pocket).

My view is if you like the home (which you must) then it costs nothing to make the offer. The EA may then come clean that it is more complicated...

To be fair, if the reason given was genuine, I would have expected the EA to make the suggestion of such a proposal to you, as this is not good for the EA either. So Brendan may be right that this is an excuse.

Thank you @presidenttttt for your thoughts. You are correct that it is in the EA's interest to propose options to keep the sale alive, and in fairness the EA did ask me if I would be willing to "pause" all matters for 2 - 4 weeks to allow the vendor time to de-stress, enjoy their holiday home during their holiday, get back to the UK etc as their issue seemed to be short term as they do want to put the property back on the market next year. I agreed and the EA proposed the "pause" to the vendor however they confirmed they wanted the property off the market.

I wouldn’t entertain a pause, all the risk is on you, and no risk on, they could agree even if the have 95% chance of not progressing. Offering a cheap rent option for a decent period forces genuine cards onto the table and protects everyone’s apparent interests. And if rejected you also benefit by not wasting time and emotional energy.

presidenttttt said:

Are you sure the deferred closing date would carry any more weight than "sale agreed"?

Click to expand...

I am not a lawyer, but exchanging contracts binds both sides to the contract. I know of cases which set closing dates a long time after the exchange of contracts.

With the anti-landlord rules and atmosphere in Ireland, it is very risky giving anyone a tenancy.
And it certainly should not be given at below the market rent.

Brendan