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A young friend of mine sold her house recently. Apparently she decided to use the solicitors recommended by her agents, and she wasn't buying anything else. She has decided to rent for six months rather than trying to do simultaneeous deals.
The solicitors sounded like the pits to me. First the buyers announced that they had no money for a deposit. The solicitors told her to go ahead without a deposit, assuring her airily, "They'll be liable for 10% of the price if they default." They'd be liable for other things too - but if they ain't got any money it is pointless to try to sue them.
The buyers then sent in surveyors, followed by an electrician, followed by a plumber, followed by somebody to measure the place for new carpets - all without exchanging contracts or handing over a dime.
Then they demanded an entirely arbitrary completion date of their own choosing - but still said they weren't yet ready to exchange contracts.
Then, stone the crows (and I've never heard of this happening before) post started arriving addressed to the buyers, without them even having had the decency to ask whether this would be OK, and without them having exchanged contracts either. The useless solicitors told young Rachel to put it in a neat pile. I'd have said, "Send it to me." I would have sent the first lot to the buyers' solicitors, telling them, "Any more post that turns up at the house for your clients is going straight back into the post box marked, "Not known here," gedditt? Get those animals of yours under control or I'll do it for you. They can be thugs towards my young and inexperienced client, but they can think bluddy twice about trying such ill-mannered stunts out on me."
In the end, these bastards finally declared themselves ready to exchange contracts the Friday before the Whitsun weekend (the week before) threatening to dump the deal unless they could complete the following Friday, to give them the three days of the holiday weekend to settle in. My poor chum had to go and talk to her boss and get immediate permission to have a week off - beginning that minute - in order to get all her own stuff packed up and moved out in time.
I was absolutely appalled when I happened to see the lass a couple of weeks after completion and discovered what had gone on.
I fervently hope that none of you ever have to put up with the Buyers From Hell, which is what Rachel's buyers sound like to me. If anybody treated me even half so badly I would refuse to sell the house to them and that would be that.
Nite all
Gill
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