Trying To Negotiate Completion And Moving Date

[Jenarry]

We are at the very final stages of a house sale and purchase and we have been asking for an approx. date for ages. The end of last week and this week we have finally started talking dates.
Our buyers are 1st time buyers and are flexible with completion and we have been given the impression from day one that are vendors are also in rented accommodation abroad and so no chain that end so ultimately we are the only ones who have to move house on the completion date and with the most to arrange.
There are a number of factors we have had to consider and we suggested 30.10.15 as a completion date.
We have to think about work commitments,arranging help on a weekday to help us move our furniture, childcare(if we move before that Friday I will be a new area with no child care arrangements in place and the following week is half term) if we move on the 30th I will have til Christmas to make childcare arrangements for my son.
The vendors have threatened today(thru our solicitors) that it must be next Friday the 23rd otherwise they will lose the property they want to buy in Australia as the property developer is insisting on this date otherwise he will sell to someone else...and hence our chain will break. :/
It has took us 3 months to get to this point-surely this is an empty threat-he won't pull out of us buying at this late date for the sake of a property he is at the beginning stage of buying in Oz?...I would play hard ball with them but I know my husband is dead soft and will say ok it will have to be the 23rd then and cause a whole load of headache and stress for us both.
My general impression from their own estate agent is that they are not very nice people and on previous occasions the husband has been on the phone to them shouting and swearing and stressing them out. :/
How would you play it?...

[rockyracoon]

I'm very lucky in the respect that I'd be confindent I'd sell my house again very quickly, so I'd tell him to poke it.

[Sycamore3House]

I would go ahead with the sale of your current property and call the vendors bluff. If he does pull out there are always hotels where you could stay before finding a rental/moving in with family etc and then property searching again with no ties on your part.

[Dogsbody2]

The first answer above appears to completely miss the point the OP is making; she wants the house that is being threatened with 'complete by Friday or there's no deal'. The OP HAS a buyer for her house.

The way I reckon this is playing out is that the vendor has suddenly realised he needs to place a large deposit down in Australia, and hence wants the money from completion to use for this. He has probably found out that the deposit to be handed over on exchange (10%, but often agreed between solicitors to be less) is inadequate to cover it.

Unless he has had a shadow buyer in parallel, it doesn't seem plausible to exchange an complete from a standing start in 5 working days.

[Dogsbody2]

Also, use the estate agent who is selling your house to work for his fee. Remember he gets nothing if the chain falls.

Get him to ring the vendor to find out what this is really about. You can test my theory above by asking the question directly - is the sale money needed for a deposit in Australia?. If it's true, he could of course take a loan for the deposit - he just wants an easy life and use your money.

[Jenarry]

Thanks everyone. I will give my estate agent a ring tomorrow to see if he can help.
This was all going on today with countless calls and voicemails from vendors estate agent and our solicitor and then we run out of office hours so its all been left unresolved and of course we won't be able to discuss it anymore until Monday.
I was hoping we would have an agreement for the 30th today. :/
I would be jumping thru hoops if the house the vendor was selling to us was our dream house but it's not. It's just in the right area and is close to being the right size for us (we will prob have to extend) and we were feeling under pressure as we were keeping our buyers waiting and not a lot of new houses were coming on the market.
That's a good idea Sycamore about calling the vendors bluff-and if he does pull out we could put everything in storage and sort out a stop gap.

[Jenarry]

Phew we did it. My hubby stressed me out on Saturday when he starting discussing with what seemed like the Saturday lad at the estate agents about moving this fri-sat with our buyers agreement to give us a days grace to move out of the house. He'd already been told by our solicitor that isn't likely to happen.
But anyway our solicitor knew our preferred date and stuck with it and the seller's solicitor did a U-turn this lunchtime and agreed our date.