Selling my flat in the UK

Zoob · February 3, 2012

I put my UK flat on the market at the end of August last year. A few people saw the property and in mid September I accepted an offer for just under the asking price. I was initially told it was a cash buyer who had re-financed another property to help pay for the purchase.

Here we are 4 and a half months later, I've been paying mortgage and service charges on an empty property (I had a tenant but she gave notice once the flat went on the market), and we haven't even exchanged contracts yet. The estate agent has been saying there have been glitches in the buyer's attempts to get a mortgage, but finally last week I was told that everything was in place and that we would be exchanging and completing this week.

Today I get a mail from my lawyer saying the buyer's lawyer contacted her to say that he's now applying for a new mortgage rather than re-financing his existing property.

I'm completely pissed off, my lawyer is pissed off (because she has some scruples and doesn't want to end up charging me way more money than should be the case) but I don't know what to do.

I'm really tempted to just tell the buyer to f*** off, and to put the flat back on the market, but I'm conscious that I'll then end up having to pay for a whole new round of legal stuff, money to the managing agents for them to complete surveys etc... also conscious that mortgage applications are taking longer to be processed these days, so the same sort of thing could happen even if I do find another buyer....

Anyone ever experienced something like this or have any advice on the best way forward? Can I now refuse the original offer and say he has to pay the full asking price?

Hassony · February 3, 2012

This post is not viewable to guests.

You can sign in to your account at the login page here