House Sales Falling through?

Bob24

seamus wrote: »

A proper register would link the sale to the folio/deed reference and include other stats like no. of beds/baths, floor area, land area, is it leasehold or freehold, BER, etc.

I guess there also is a lot of push-back from the industry. If all you mentioned was included and standardized it would be great for buyers and analysts to get very accurate information about the market - but probably not so much for EAs as everyone would come to viewings with a much better knowledge of the market for the specific type of property they are looking at.

UsBus

As a seller whose house has fallen through twice in the last 5 months i have to say i am traumatised by it. The first buyer, a cash buyer took my house off the market after 5 days as they wanted a quick sale which we were happy with. the day she was to sign contracts she went missing blaming a family anniversary. 2 months later it turned out she didnt have cash...... the latest buyer has just fallen through with no excuse given on the day we were planning to sign... disgraceful is all i can say and much worse. There is just no protection for genuine sellers out there. penalties cant come in soon enough. You are after all committing to a huge financial purchase.

johnp001

UsBus wrote: »

As a seller whose house has fallen through twice in the last 5 months i have to say i am traumatised by it. The first buyer, a cash buyer took my house off the market after 5 days as they wanted a quick sale which we were happy with. the day she was to sign contracts she went missing blaming a family anniversary. 2 months later it turned out she didnt have cash...... the latest buyer has just fallen through with no excuse given on the day we were planning to sign... disgraceful is all i can say and much worse. There is just no protection for genuine sellers out there. penalties cant come in soon enough. You are after all committing to a huge financial purchase.

Do you mind if I ask what proof of funds your agent looked for from the buyers and also broadly what area and price range your property is in?

Bob24

UsBus wrote: »

As a seller whose house has fallen through twice in the last 5 months i have to say i am traumatised by it. The first buyer, a cash buyer took my house off the market after 5 days as they wanted a quick sale which we were happy with. the day she was to sign contracts she went missing blaming a family anniversary. 2 months later it turned out she didnt have cash...... the latest buyer has just fallen through with no excuse given on the day we were planning to sign... disgraceful is all i can say and much worse. There is just no protection for genuine sellers out there. penalties cant come in soon enough. You are after all committing to a huge financial purchase.

Note this also happens with sellers. Friends of mine were sale agreed and had paid the deposit on a property. 3 months after they paid the deposit the seller was still not moving pretending there was an issue with his solicitor. Needless to say it was pretty stressful for them as they were looking froward to move to a larger house having a young child (and they eventually get their money back and bough somewhere else).

Yes the bottom line is that both from the seller and the buyer's side there needs to be more financial penalties if a sale is agreed and they subsequently pull-out (I think one exception should be if people have an AIP from a bank and the bank then refuses to grant the mortgage - but then banks should also incur financial penalties if they had given AIP and are then saying no while people circumstances haven't changed and the valuer/surveyor hasn't raised any major concern).

But hey ... this is all daydreaming :-)

GatsbyGal

UsBus wrote: »

As a seller whose house has fallen through twice in the last 5 months i have to say i am traumatised by it. The first buyer, a cash buyer took my house off the market after 5 days as they wanted a quick sale which we were happy with. the day she was to sign contracts she went missing blaming a family anniversary. 2 months later it turned out she didnt have cash...... the latest buyer has just fallen through with no excuse given on the day we were planning to sign... disgraceful is all i can say and much worse. There is just no protection for genuine sellers out there. penalties cant come in soon enough. You are after all committing to a huge financial purchase.

Yes it's a horrible situation. Unbelievably frustrating for you. We were on the other side of the table. We, as buyers, were sale agreed on two properties which went belly up after several months due to vendors messing us about. One wanted an extra 50k for "furniture" and the other was Nama owned. It is so unregulated that dare I say laughable. There needs to be a bid fee paid by each bidder to make sure that they are indeed serious about purchasing the property. This is how it is done in most European countries and it works very well. It's much more transparent for both vendor and bidders if every action on the property is documented.

UsBus

johnp001 wrote: »

Do you mind if I ask what proof of funds your agent looked for from the buyers and also broadly what area and price range your property is in?

I think the ea slipped up with checking proof of funds the first time. My solicitor delayed so much the second time. the house is not expensive, estate house selling for 140k.
i think any genuine seller would not be delaying for fear of it falling through.
The whole auctioneer solicitor property transaction is a disaster. Solicitors sending faxes and not following up to see if they have been received......???? dark ages stuff...

seamus

It's a complicated thing to include penalties early on because of the way that we do house buying in this country.

The deposit goes down, but then there's setting up the contracts which typically takes weeks, but could take months. During which the buyer is in the cold while the vendor's solicitor sits on their hands and drags their feet.
Then you discover issues that potentially affect the value of the property and require a revised offer and a withdrawal if that offer is not accepted.

On the purchaser's side they have to chase down mortgage approval. What if they don't get it? Banks will be far less eager to provide mortgage approval if there are consequences for failing to deliver on it.

You could have a tiered agreement whereby the purchaser puts down a deposit and both parties sign a contract where if contracts are not issued in X weeks, the purchaser is free to withdraw their deposit. But if the purchaser really wants the property, then that's not a lot of leverage for them.

Perhaps a form of escrow could be useful - in order to sell, both vendor and purchaser put down an equal deposit and then agree on a set of milestones in the process and dates for each. Failure to deliver on a milestone results in a certain % of your deposit being forfeit and given to the other party.

But still, it becomes complicated then, and arguments about whether something has been rightfully forfeit becomes a pain in the ass, and both parties will start inserting all sorts of no-penalty exit clauses that render the whole thing useless.

Ultimately at some point someone has to sign contracts and until then all bets are off. And there's not really any way around that.

Bob24

I think if we look at how it is done in other countries there are ways to make the process a lot more transparent and secure for both the seller and the buyer (if other countries can do it, why can't we?).

In my view imposing financial penalties on any stakeholder (seller, buyer, EA, bank, solicitor) which relents on previous commitments or doesn't fulfill them within a given time-frame is a good way.

It would indeed make the market a bit less fluid as all of these would be more cautious before selling/advertising/offering a mortgage/buying/etc - but I see it as a good thing (no more ghost sellers/buyers/bidders, and sales falling through would be rare and incur financial compensation for whoever did not fail to comply with their commitments).

ABajaninCork

I think the Scottish system is the best one. Properties are advertised as 'Offers over'. So everyone knows what the ballpark is. Of course, you do own research to find out what prices are. You can also get a surveyor out to look at the property at this stage.

You place a sealed bid. Once the bidding process is over, and your bid is accepted, then that offer is binding, and you can be sued if you pull out for any reason.

MarkAnthony

ABajaninCork wrote: »

I think the Scottish system is the best one. Properties are advertised as 'Offers over'. So everyone knows what the ballpark is. Of course, you do own research to find out what prices are. You can also get a surveyor out to look at the property at this stage.

You place a sealed bid. Once the bidding process is over, and your bid is accepted, then that offer is binding, and you can be sued if you pull out for any reason.

You can also buy the survey off someone else if you want. Great is there are problems with the property or at the other end of the scale, everything seems grand and you just want a quick check.

Bought my place in Fife at 21 it was so easy even a drunken student could do it!

Personally though I'd amend the system to open internet based bids. Basically ebay for property, probably based on your PPS number or some such to prevent phantom bids. If you're the highest you're bound. But regardless of that even with closed bids the Scottish system is vastly superior in every respect IMO.

Bob24

ABajaninCork wrote: »

I think the Scottish system is the best one. Properties are advertised as 'Offers over'. So everyone knows what the ballpark is. Of course, you do own research to find out what prices are. You can also get a surveyor out to look at the property at this stage.

You place a sealed bid. Once the bidding process is over, and your bid is accepted, then that offer is binding, and you can be sued if you pull out for any reason.

Sounds like a good one ... is there not any get out clause in case your mortgage is declined though?

My brother just bought in France, and once your offer is accepted and you pay the deposit you are committing to buying. If you are a mortgage buyer you need to specify how much you are borrowing and how much your deposit is (can't remember if he had to give his income), and the seller can decline if it doesn't make sense to them.

Once accepted by the seller, it then gives you a get-out clause whereby if the information you provided is correct and you can show at least 2 banks declined your mortgage application, you can pull-out and get your full deposit back (otherwise the deposit is kept by the seller).

MarkAnthony

Bob24 wrote: »

Sounds like a good one ... is there not any get out clause in case your mortgage is declined though?

It may have changed, but no. That's the beauty of the Scottish system. Time wasters need not apply. You are ready to go before you bid.

Bob24

MarkAnthony wrote: »

It may have changed, but no. That's the beauty of the Scottish system. Time wasters need not apply. You are ready to go before you bid.

So a bank there will give you a full approval before you find a specific property, and you can be sure they will give you the money if you find a property within the agreed amount? (if not this seems a bit harsh to buyers as a bank would have the power to make them lose their deposit for any stupid reason they can think of)

MarkAnthony

Bob24 wrote: »

So a bank there will give you a full approval before you find a specific property, and you can be sure they will give you the money if you find a property within the agreed amount? (if not this seems a bit harsh to buyers as a bank would have the power to make them lose their deposit for any stupid reason they can think of)

Another great facet of the Scottish system is the valuer comes out from the bank before you bid. I was shocked when wanting to spend €295K on a flat in Dublin during the boom the valuer said:

"It's worth whatever the market says it is, if a buyer says it's 295K it's 295K"

In Edinburgh I had 3/4 flats where the valuer came out and said it's worth X, where X was well under the amount I needed on a mortgage. There was nothing to stop me buying it, I could top it up myself, but given I was on a 100% mortgage that wasn't really an option.

- So we had 100% mortgages being used responsibly
- People not going mental on bids unless they were cash buyers, or cash buyers to an extent meaning fools could be parted with their money but the bank were not exposed.
- Everyone knowing where they stood

Oh Scotland the brave, Scotland the beautiful. :pac: the only downfall was the wife staying with me in Perth where people are bonkers. She now thinks all Scottish people are like people in Perth and won't move back

Bob24

MarkAnthony wrote: »

Another great facet of the Scottish system is the valuer comes out from the bank before you bid.

Sounds pretty good indeed!

Getting the property valued and financing sorted before you make an offer ... who would have thought of that? :-)

MarkAnthony

Bob24 wrote: »

Sounds pretty good indeed!

Getting the property valued and financing sorted before you make an offer ... who would have thought of that? :-)

You have to bear in mind the banks are set up to deal with this aswell though.

So you go in and get approved for, say £250,000. Thats a firm offer (subject to valuation - which you get before placing an offer), it's not as tenuous as here. The way they handle apartments is also better IMHO although it can lead to dives, my 'management fee' in my apartment was £30 although I obviously paid council tax and had my own insurance.

The only drawback it is fecking cold :pac:

Bob24

MarkAnthony wrote: »

You have to bear in mind the banks are set up to deal with this aswell though.

Yes I think it is the main thing ... better regulation and more professionalism in the whole chain.

MarkAnthony wrote: »

The only drawback it is fecking cold :pac:

You are talking to someone who moved from France to Ireland 10 years ago .... fecking rainy place but I'm still here, I must like it :-D

Uno my Uno.

In my experience very few sales fall through but when they do it is rarely because of banks, estate agents or lawyers. Rather it is sellers and vendors who either change their minds or never actually intended completing the sale. I know of one buyer who went sale agreed on three properties within weeks of each other and only completed n one of them. I suspect he never intened to buy the other properties, it's very selfish behaviour. The other problem is sellers who aren't up front about defects in the title or building, they will accept an offer but when it turns out the property needs a new roof and gable wall won't allow an adjustment to the sale price.

MarkAnthony

Uno my Uno. wrote: »

In my experience very few sales fall through but when they do it is rarely because of banks, estate agents or lawyers. Rather it is sellers and vendors who either change their minds or never actually intended completing the sale. I know of one buyer who went sale agreed on three properties within weeks of each other and only completed n one of them. I suspect he never intened to buy the other properties, it's very selfish behaviour. The other problem is sellers who aren't up front about defects in the title or building, they will accept an offer but when it turns out the property needs a new roof and gable wall won't allow an adjustment to the sale price.

+1 (bazillion)

5 months I've been buggering about as the vendor would not admit they have positionary title only to a small bit of land to the side of the house. I'd have simply put in a slightly lower offer and gone with it anyway. Instead I've had 5 months of back and forth finally getting to a price I would have paid anyway.

Maybe I'm just stupid, maybe there needs to be more understanding about minor defects in title. I dunno. There's just a complete lack of transparency IMHO.