Property sales do fall through. It is a fact of life and although disappointing, it is important to remember that this does not mean the end of your buying or selling dream. There are a multitude of reasons why a house sale will fall through and in the current financial climate, with a cost of living crisis affecting millions of households and soaring interest rates making it hard to secure a good value mortgage, it is unfortunately expected to happen more frequently.
Research by Home Selling Expert this year found that approximately one in three house sales failed to complete with the main reasons cited being a change of circumstances, a break in the chain and problems obtaining a mortgage.
Costs
Whether you are a buyer or a seller, a house sale falling through will incur costs. If you have paid for a survey, the surveyor will still need to be paid even though you will not be buying the property and both parties will need to pay their solicitor for conveyancing work completed to date, which will include any money spent on searches. In this uncertain financial environment, many people are considering paying a little more for no sale no fee conveyancing, which protects them to a certain extent from significant legal fees incurred over the course of two or more attempts at purchasing a property.
It is important to remember that no sale no fee conveyancing only applies to the legal fees, and that any disbursement or search costs spent prior to house purchase collapse still need to be paid. Some licenced conveyancers, such as Sam Conveyancing apply this principle by charging a non-refundable deposit which will transfer to each property transaction until one completes, at which point the deposit is deducted from the final price, which will be agreed up front (fixed fee).
Emotions
Whilst there are ways to control the costs, controlling your emotions can be trickier, but it is essential to remain impartial and to carefully investigate your options. It is always disappointing for a house sale to fall through, whether you are the buyer or the seller, but as the law allows for either party to withdraw from the sale agreement prior to the exchange of contracts, understanding that it is a possibility will help to temper the emotional connection.
Understanding why the sale has fallen through can help to prevent it from recurring. If a buyer pulls out because of a change in their financial situation, this, unfortunately, cannot be helped, but if they pulled out because of something discovered on the survey, then the seller should either make good the issue or reduce the price accordingly to retain their buyer or improve their chances of selling next time.
Speed Up
With the financial situation changing quickly and mortgage lenders becoming ever more cautious, speed is of the essence, so buyers and sellers should be as committed as each other to progressing the sale, choosing conveyancers with the capacity to progress the sale in the most expedient way and providing all required documentation as quickly as possible. Open and clear communication is vital at all points of the process and some flexibility may be required to ensure that progress can be made.