£45,000 cost of the sale that fell apart

The Times, Saturday December 5, 2020.

The moving van was on the doorstep when one family found out the chain had collapsed.

For almost a decade Abdus Saboor and his wife, Mounia, saved up for the perfect home to bring up a family. At 10.30am on November 9, it seemed as though their dream was about to come true.

A removal van arrived at the front door of their two bedroom house in Caversham, Reading, to take their possessions to a four bedroom semi-detached house that they had bought for £675,000. Then Abdus received an email from his solicitor telling him not to pack the van.

His buyer's mortgage funds had not arrived, so the deal had been held up. The couple, who have a ten month old baby, waited anxiously until, at 2pm, their solicitor emailed them again with worse news. The deal was off.

The buyers mortgage company had withdrawn their mortgage offer at the last minute, and their chain had collapsed. Abdus and Mounia were stranded in their property, which they thought they had sold for £339,000. All their furnishings, including curtains, were packed away and they didn't even have a fridge because they had sold it.

Worse was to follow. On November 24, ten working days after the completion date, the couple had an email from their seller's solicitors saying they had defaulted on the purchase and would forfeit their £67,500 deposit, handed over when they exchanged contracts on October 30. They may also have to pay £12,000 compensation to the sellers.

Abdus and Mounia will retain their buyer's £33,900 exchange deposit - but it leaves them more than £45,000 out of pocket. They had already paid £2,800 on solicitors' costs and £400 for the removal company that they could not use.

"These are hard-earned savings of the last 7 years and we cannot afford this." Abdus said, "This has been hugely stressful and we haven't been able to sleep. We're surviving on food deliveries because we have no functioning fridge. The reason this chain has collapsed is not our fault."

Had ClozeSure existed in 2020, the cost to Abdus and Mounia would have been £203 to secure their move and save on the financial and emotional consequences of buyer failure - for whatever reason.

A link to the article is available here.