Lost my buyer :-(

[Gumbo Robot]

It's the slow councils doing the local searches. That's the weak link.

Sorry to hear your bad news OP

There are private firms that do this & are much quicker. It really does appear that this particular solicitor spent weeks doing f all.

Oh, and thanks :-)

[Gumbo Robot]

Perhaps get the silage tank thingy emptied now with proof and thats one less thing to worry about for next time?

It's a local farmer.

Perhaps I can take a pic of him spreading it all over the fields as evidence.

[vetran]

There are private firms that do this & are much quicker. It really does appear that this particular solicitor spent weeks doing f all.

Oh, and thanks :-)

she was Invoicing!

[Lightwave]

After 4 months....

Basically I'm spitting nails at her solicitor who advised her to pull out.

The reason? I have been evasive in answering a number of questions that were raised shortly after I accepted her offer. e.g. when was the septic tank installed (don't know, it's prehistoric), provide us with receipt from the last time it was emptied ( I don't have one - I paid cash) .

The point is there was no opportunity to clarify anything - she's been sat on this for weeks on end, is rude to the selling agent when they ring her and is even rude and abrupt to her own client.

So after all this time I've never had the chance to make good some of the outstanding questions basically because the solicitor was being do fecking useless.

Or, am I mistaken, and it's all my fault because I wasn't on their backs all the time? I assumed the amount they charge negated the necessity of this.

Very interesting what comes out on top of Google when I search for FDC Law

Hopefully your solicitor was no deal, no fee?
They are mostly fairly useless.
I expect the septic tank was just used as a delaying tactic.
If the buyer was committed to completing the deal, they'd just have asked for you to get it emptied, or got a quote for emptying and suggested knocking that off the price.
Sounds like the buyer just wanted to secure an option on your place and drag out negotiations.
Our sale was looking that way for a while, eventually we had to put the buyers on the spot with a nuclear option, we were all set to re-market with new solicitor, new estate agent, higher price. Suddenly the buyer was in a rush to complete.
I bet your buyer was well on the way to buying elsewhere in parallel, or had no finance, or lost their own buyer.

[ChimpMaster]

You could always contact the buyer directly, explain the issue and ask if they are still interested.

But I agree with a previous poster in that the price is likely to have gone up over the past 4 months: we have seen around a 5% to 8% increase in parts the SE in just the past 3 months. A lot of this is due to investors rushing to buy before the SDLT surcharge kicks in, but they seem to be overpaying as far as I am concerned.

It could however present you with an opportunity to get another £20k or so.

[SueEllen]

Next time keep have some contact details of your buyer and say if there is a delay to contact you directly. That way if either solicitors or the estate agent starts dragging their feet or talking rubbish you can talk to each other direct and sort the issue out.

[SueEllen]

Hopefully your solicitor was no deal, no fee?
They are mostly fairly useless.
I expect the septic tank was just used as a delaying tactic.
If the buyer was committed to completing the deal, they'd just have asked for you to get it emptied, or got a quote for emptying and suggested knocking that off the price.

Some solicitors are seriously useless.

I have a couple of mates' who have issues selling properties due solicitors not doing their jobs.
In both cases it seemed the solicitor didn't understand the type of property the person was buying so were asking for things that were irrelevant to the sale and doing it very slowly.

[ASB]

There are private firms that do this & are much quicker. It really does appear that this particular solicitor spent weeks doing f all.

Oh, and thanks :-)

A reasonable percentage of solicitors would advise their clients not to proceed on the basis of a non local authority search.

[SueEllen]

A reasonable percentage of solicitors would advise their clients not to proceed on the basis of a non local authority search.

The solicitor decides who does the searches. You pay them to sort this out for you.

[Gumbo Robot]

You could always contact the buyer directly, explain the issue and ask if they are still interested.

But I agree with a previous poster in that the price is likely to have gone up over the past 4 months: we have seen around a 5% to 8% increase in parts the SE in just the past 3 months. A lot of this is due to investors rushing to buy before the SDLT surcharge kicks in, but they seem to be overpaying as far as I am concerned.

It could however present you with an opportunity to get another £20k or so.

I doubt it. Rural property market round here is pretty stagnant - particularly at the low-mid end.

Next option is to look at LTB since I really don't want to lose the house I've had an offer accepted on.

Edit: scratch that - SDLT will apply to the new purchase