Hi James,

We’re very disappointed to have received this review and thought it was important to provide a detailed response giving further clarification on what happened.

Yes, you are correct in regard to delays from the sellers’ solicitors, they were very slow in providing replies to your solicitor’s enquiries raised which was a frustration that we all shared at the time but we did consistently chase them on this and you were updated every step of the way,
The main problem that we had that delayed the sale was due to an enquiry that your solicitor had raised regarding a historic rent charge that was on the title, this in turn was reported to your lender and this caused a blocker, something we worked tirelessly with you to advise on and tried to come up with solutions to overcome.

The sellers’ solicitors were asked by your solicitors to provide an indemnity policy to cover this but this was rejected by the lender and they requested for a Deed of Variation on the title, when this was requested and we did advise to you that this solution would be a long process that could take up to six months or more with drafting, approval, executing the deed and lodging it with the land registry. Despite all our concerns that this would delay the sale further, the sellers’ solicitors did raise this with the management company, and they refused to enter into a Deed of Variation. The sellers’ solicitors then went one step further by approaching the Land Registry directly who responded to advise that they too would not remove the rent charge via Deed of Variation, we had essentially hit a brick wall.

We did advise to you at the time that we had sold many properties in this development in the past we had never had this raised before nor experienced a lender have an issue with this development (and haven’t since as we have managed to get mortgages through in the same development since your sale). This indicated that it wasn’t a general issue with the property but more a specific issue for your solicitor and lender.
At this stage we did even begin to look at the option of other lenders and we reached out to our previous buyers to confirm which lenders that they used so that you could pursue them but the vendor had become increasingly concerned that after six months, the sale was simply not going to complete, and as the property (which was a buy to let rental) was sat empty for six months during this time with the vendors costs were going up the longer that this went on.

The vendor did then make the decision to remarket the property. After we had remarketed and carried out viewings, your solicitor then advised that the lender had suddenly changed its criteria and would accept an indemnity policy after all, which we all agreed was great news and we hoped that we now we would be able to proceed. However, by this point as the owner was aware of the viewing levels and interest in her property, offers came in the next day and by law we do have to make the vendor aware. We tried to encourage her to still proceed with your offer, but we would never be in a position to make the vendor do something against her wishes and as contracts hadn’t been exchanged, she was within her legal right to withdraw from the sale.

Upon remarketing she did receive offers much higher than your original offer and despite us trying to convince her to stick with your original offer due to all of us coming so far and now having a solution to the lender issue, she wanted to proceed with a higher offer. We did ask you if you wanted to increase your offer to match the offer she was going to accept but you chose not to (which we completely understand and respect).

I completely understand your frustration with this and we share the same frustration as we worked on the sale for 6 months and did all we could to push the sale through. We continued to keep the lines of communication open with you, including keeping you updated about remarketing and when viewings were taking place. I would also like to make clear that we have never been paid for the work we did by the vendor because of the nature of why she had to pull out of the sale.

Ultimately the seller was going to withdraw from the sale regardless, because at the time you weren’t in a position where you could proceed with your current lender and if she didn’t remarket with us she would have remarketed with another agent.

We also understand why you requested that your fee’s should be covered by the seller, but I am sure you can appreciate that this is a legal matter and not something we have any control over.

We were very disappointed to have seen your review as we had a good working relationship through what was a complicated and long process. It’s a shame a review has been left for us due to your frustrations because of the sellers’ actions.

Kind Regards
The Sales Team