Our local property market has been buoyant for a while.As a consequence, ‘chain’ transactions are becoming the norm. This is great news for buyers and sellers alike but can be a nightmare if one link in the chain is broken.
Below is an account of what can happen and how AST Hampsons helped to turn the nightmare for a chain of buyers and sellers into the realisation of their dreams!
The Chain
- Builder
- Mr & Mrs Seller
- Mr & Mrs Client
- Mr Buyer
- Mr & Mrs Second Buyer
- Mr & Miss First Time Buyer
We acted for Mr & Mrs Client who were selling their family home to Mr Buyer and buying the new house of their dreams from Mr & Mrs Seller. Mr & Mrs Seller were in turn buying a brand newly built property from a Builder.
The chain below included Mr & Mrs Clients’ Buyer and two other sets of buyers below.
As with most transactions each party in the chain had specific requirements for timescale and reasons for those requirements, for some it was just an eagerness to own their first home, for others a need to get children in to a school and for others trying to ensure the moving day would fall either side of an arranged holiday or work commitments. Each party must make arrangements for removals, storage, childcare and so on.
Meeting the requirements of six parties in one chain and getting them all to agree to a single date can be quite a task, but finally it was agreed. The Builder at the top of the chain and the First Time Buyers required a date as early as possible, Mr Buyer was adamant that the date must be the 30th of the month, Mr & Mrs Client and Mr & Mrs Second Buyer compromised and rearranged work commitments and Mr & Mrs Seller cancelled a holiday – all were agreed that the 30th would be the day they would move, the mortgage lenders were contacted and arrangements were made for mortgage money to be released for the day!
All that was left to do was for the Solicitors to formally Exchange Contracts so that each party was legally bound to their respective Sale and/or Purchase.
On the 28th – just two days before everyone was set to move house the Solicitors began the Exchange process and all was going well right up to the moment Mr Buyer changed his mind. He sold his own property to Mr & Mrs Second Buyer but decided not to buy the house from Mr & Mrs Client!
Mr & Mrs Client were devastated – losing the sale meant losing the house they had set their hearts on.
Mr & Mrs Seller were equally upset.
Both sets of clients had invested substantial amounts of time and money and made costly arrangements which now had to be cancelled – neither party knew what they would do.
In this situation normally, the Solicitors would have nothing to do other than to deal with paperwork, invoice clients for the failed sales and purchases and close their files leaving their clients to look for other property in future but at AST Hampsons we had another idea.
We approached the Builder at the top of our chain, knowing that Builder’s will often part exchange property we asked them to look at Mr & Mrs Client’s house, we negotiated a deal with them and then in the time left between the 28th when Mr Buyer pulled out of the purchase and the 30th when all of the arrangements for removals and money had been agreed, we set about preparing all of the information that the Builder could possibly need in order to purchase the property from Mr & Mrs Client. During the course of the remainder of the 28th and the full day of the 29th everything was done that could be to ensure that the three parties left in the chain, Mr & Mrs Client, Mr & Mrs Seller and the Builder would be able to complete the sales and purchases and that Mr & Mrs Client and Mr & Mrs Seller would be able to move into the homes of their dreams!
The 30th came and everything went ahead as planned – no hitches and no delays – the clients were all over the moon, the Builder was happy as the end of month target was achieved and the estate agents were pleased as their fees were paid.
AST Hampsons were happy to be able to go the extra mile.