We are sale agreed for ages. Can we change our minds?

B

Bamhan

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We are selling our house, had sold it actually about 10 weeks ago and still no contracts signed by buyer.
In the meantime the houses in the new phase in our estate have risen in price so we are not getting the good deal we thought.
Our solicitor has been on to the buyer to hurry on and there was some problem with paper work blah blah blah.
The upshot of it is that my husband wants to pull out of the sale now and either rent the house out or put it back on the market.

Would we still have to pay our estate agent even though the sale fell through?
I think the time frame involved has been unreasonable.
 
As far as I know most estate agents are 'no sale, no fee'. AFAIK you can pull out once contracts haven't been signed, the same as the purchasers can pull out and get their deposit back. If the houses have gone up the purchasers should be trying to get their *rses in gear.
 
Would we still have to pay our estate agent even though the sale fell through?

I think so. Although it has not actually fallen through yet. You can pull the sale now.

You might have something ( small!) on your side if you decided to keep the house. But if you put it back on the market , why not do that with the same auctioneer?

mf
 
I actually think our auctioneer was wokring more for the guy who bought the house than us.
He gave him my husband's mobile phone number to arrange to show the house to his prospective tennants!
We allowed him to show the house to his son the first time but called a halt when he asked if a different person could have a look around.
If I was going to sell again I think I would do it myself.
 
AFAIK either party can pull out before THEY have signed the contract. Don't feel guilty - they could just as easily change their mind about buying your house and leave you hanging high & dry. For all you know, they could still be looking around.
 
Pull out if you want! No sale no fee is the most common agreement!
 
Bad form I think. This country is rotten. What ever happened to a deal being a deal. 10 weeks seems long but have you checked the reason?
 
The Punter said:
Bad form I think. This country is rotten. What ever happened to a deal being a deal. 10 weeks seems long but have you checked the reason?
Click to expand...

Yes but we have thus kept our part of the deal which was to sell them our house an agreed asking price.
They have kept us waiting ten weeks and counting as this is wek 11 and still no contracts...............
In my opinion they are the ones not keeping their words.
And yes when asked for the reason for the delay a missing piece of paper work was the answer.
We could nopt say to the people we are buying our house from can you wait for your money until my purchaser gets time to sort out his paperwork, it may take him a few months but I don't like to go back on my word to sell huim my house so I guess I will just have to wait until he decides he is ready to hand over the moola.
 
If I was you and I still wanted to (kind of) have the sale go ahead I'd tell them that unless the contracts were signed within the next 5 working days, you'd pull out, and if they don't make it, then they're obviously not that worried about it, and then you should put the house back on the market. I'm in the process of buying, and my solicitor only had 3 weeks to get us to sign contracts and do searches and return to the vendor. If you wanted to pull out alltogether I wouldn't worry too much about being the bad guy either, you've shown patience and willingness, noone can blame you for running out of both after waiting for someone to sort their stuff for ten weeks, when they should have had it all sorted before entering the whole process!
 
The Punter said:
Bad form I think. This country is rotten. What ever happened to a deal being a deal. 10 weeks seems long but have you checked the reason?
Click to expand...

Having being on the receiving end ie going sale agreed 8 times on 2 houses, I have changed my opinion - if you can't beat them join them. His buyers could quite easily be using delaying tactics to wait for something better to come on the market. They still haven't signed after 10weeks. I certainly wouldn't go house hunting before I had my mortgage approved and so they should have been able to sign contracts weeks ago.
 
The Punter said:
Bad form I think. This country is rotten. What ever happened to a deal being a deal. 10 weeks seems long but have you checked the reason?
Click to expand...
This is their right if the shoe was on the other foot they would do the same, this is the Ireland we all helped create
 
You can pull out at this stage yes. I know because we had a deposit on a house (5k) and the vendor pulled out after about 6 weeks as they decided not to sell. Once no contracts are signed anyone can pull out of it.

From what I have seen as a FTB, alot of people will put a booking deposit on a house before they actually have mortgage approval then hold things up while they are putting exact amount of wages etc into bank and trying getting themselves a good track record with the banks before the can get the mortgage. Most banks want to see 3 months statements at least.
 
Personally I would be reluctant to go back on my word and pull out of a deal, even if the contracts are not signed. However, if they did not complete the deal within a reasonable time frame I would have no hesitation in backing out. I do like the suggestion above of giving them a few days to complete the deal. You might want to ask your own solicitor if the other party have been given a closing date.

As for the estate agen fees, your estate agent may argue that they sold the house, if you pull out, and hence say that they did their job and deserve to be paid. So you would probably want to make it clear to them that the deal has fallen through because the other party did not complete it in a reasonable time, and not because you changed your mind.
 
i cant see the estate agents being entitled to fees, if you were buying somewhere else and that sale fell through as your old house sale was delayed, you wouldnt have any choice.

I think that you should decide whats best for you. However, you dont actualy say where you intend moving to. If no plans yourself, ie going renting, moving in with family etc. then ok, but if buying something else you could end up with a house on the marked at a higher price unable to sell it. Greed sometimes bites back.

Best of luck
 
We have built a house and are ready to move into it. This build was not dependent on selling this house, but we do need the money to complete the furnishing inside and this is holding us up.
 
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