House buying/selling - Need advice please

[ICEQUEEN20]

I am just about at the end of my tether. To cut a long story short, we are buying a lovely house, at first it was No Onward Chain, an old lady was moving in with her son, we sold our house very quickly and things were rolling nicely, then just on exchange of contracts old lady decided she wanted to buy her own bungalow near her son instead, our buyers pulled out as they would not wait, we sold our house again 8 days later luckily, this was back in July. Our buyers and ourselves are all done on the conveyancing side, but old lady's bungalow sellers are taking ages, our buyers are now threatening to pull out unless we can complete before mid October. I feel like we are being blackmailed as our buyers have not really had a long wait - we have waited 5 months ! Old ladys family and solicitor/estate agens have no sense of urgency, if there was another house we liked we would buy it - but there is really nowhere else we like. What to do?

[ummmm]

Not much to be honest. Just keep phoning...

[Dris]

I would just short term rent in the circumstances.You cant force her arm and do you really want the hassle of re-selling as opposed to the inconvenience of renting?
Blooming annoying though.

[TTG]

Explain the situation to the agents./solicitor. Best do it that way rather than direct calls to old lady. Hope it all works out for you.

[ICEQUEEN20]

I definitely won't rent, as if the house we want falls through we wont move at all ! It should be the old lady who moves out to rent or moves in with her son, as we bought her house as it was "no onward chain". Now it has a chain. Not our fault.

[ummmm]

But that's something you can't make her do...

[ICEQUEEN20]

I know we cant make her rent, but its either that or we lose our buyers and we pull out so the chain will break, and the house she is selling, which we are supposed to be buying, needs loads of work done and was on the market for 6 months. Her solicitors and estate agents are advising her to move into rented but she wont. So she loses our sale.

[ummmm]

And if you rent you get to keep buy the house you want. If you don't you might lose it..

[ICEQUEEN20]

But if old lady pulls out before exchange, or changes her mind again or does not want to move - We have lost the beautiful house we are currently living in.

[redcrx]

its a gamble you need to decide on.
You cant force her to do anything, just as she cant force you.

you could try threatening to pull out if not complete by a certain date, but risk her saying forget it all together.

[Ankou]

i'm afraid this is just the conveyancing proces that most people experience. the solicitors won't talk to each other, only write, and they are the generally considered the lowest in the legal profession and have no incentive to do a job quickly.

took me just under 6 months to complete on a 3 way chain.