When buyers want to purchase a new home, they normally have the intention of selling their old property, unless they happen to be first-time buyers. This is commonly known as a property chain, and if one part of this chain fails, the whole process is at risk of falling apart.
There are different times during the purchase of a house when you can pull out. Here is a look at some of them.
Withdrawal Before Contracts are Exchanged
In England and Wales, until contracts are exchanged, both the seller and buyer of a property can withdraw from the deal without incurring any heavy costs. The costs you do pay are usually linked to conveyancing fees or estate agent costs.
The initial stage in the conveyancing process is where the seller and the buyer exchange contracts, and the buyer pays 10 per cent of the value of the purchasing price as a deposit. This initial stage acts as a contractual agreement to ensure the conclusion of the title transfer on a pre-arranged future date, which is known as completion. The remaining 90 per cent fee is paid on the day of completion, which would have been previously arranged and would not include added costs such as conveyancing fees.
A lot can occur before the completion date
A considerable amount of time and money is spent to ensure that there are no reasons for either parties to back out of the deal. A charge based on an hourly rate will be paid as conveyancing fees if they have already started work on the transaction and there is a failure to reach completion.
In addition, buyers who abandon the deal will not recover the mortgage consultant or the lender valuation fees. These costs can add up to a sizeable amount and must be considered.
Withdrawal After Contracts are Exchanged
In a situation where a seller or buyer decides to back out of a contract after the date of completion, this action will be considered a breach of terms as the contract is legally binding. It will then be up to the faultless party to decide if they want to issue a Notice to Complete, which would give the party at fault a 10-day period to go through with the completion and pay a daily interest rate every day until then.
