Crashing contract - help

Hi all

I would appreciate some pointers. We ended crashing a contract due to B&P report (you might have read my post last week). All good and our conveyancer sent a notification to the seller legal last Thursday.

Thursday late evening the REA called and was rather upset that we crashed the contract. Saying he could have got the seller to reduce the price etc. We indicated we are not prepared to proceed.

Since then it has been complete radio silence. I talked with conveyancing Monday and they sent a follow up. Again silence. I’m getting worried.

Am I overthinking it? What happens if they don’t respond? They have our deposit, which took us a lot of calls to get a receipt for (there were excuses that it’s apparently in the post and so on and so forth, we got an email scan of the receipt eventually).

 

Probably. If you want your deposit back, then a good start is just asking for it.

 

Thank you @thatbum. I would assume the conveyancer indicated that in their letter. But good point. I’ll ask them tomorrow.

I’m more worried they don’t respond to contract cancellation letter. I assume their needs to be some kind of “We agree to cancel the contract” or something along the lines.

With this uncertainty, we can’t start looking for property...

 

I’m not an expert. B&P clause gives you the right to cancel unilaterally. I believe so.

 

We are in QLD. It has B&P clause (date). We requested cancellation before the date (9 working days before the B&P date).

 

It will depend on the wording of the clause. The vendor is usually entitled to see a copy of the report to verify the issues justifying crashing the contract.

I suggest you consult the solicitor handling the contract.
Marg

 

Thank you @Marg4000
I understand it is not an advice. I just want to see what is reasonable in the way of dealing with them and if I should start emailing them myself instead of waiting.

We sent them a B&P report along with the termination letter according to the conveyancer. She requested a copy of B&P report to do just that.

B&P has a lot of major issues listed.

 

Forgot to mention. The B&P clause is the standard REIQ clause. No changes.

 

When you terminate a contract on a B&P, send an email to your solicitor advising that you will be doing so and point out the reasons why as stipulated in the B&P report. Then attach the report for verification.
Ensure your communication with your solicitor is in writing before the B&P condition is due, and request a response from your solicitor advising they have received your instructions and has been communicated to the seller side.
The rest will be up to your solicitor and if nothing has been communicated after B&P condition is lapsed, it will be your solicitor at fault quite frankly.

Its normal to not hear any response after B&P in terminated. Its not like they are going to celebrate you not buying a property. Just call the selling agent/their office and request the initial deposit to be transferred back to you

 

Just to add to that, if the agent calls you "rather upset" and that you should get the seller to reduce the price, I would see that as an invitation to negotiate....hard. Find out how much these "major issues" are to fix and go for your life. At the point of terminating, you have nothing to lose and you might end up with a cracking deal after all

 

Thank you @Simon L for a great post. I think it’s a bit late to negotiate
When they called, I wasn’t sure what to do so I kept telling them to talk to the conveyancer instead of me. They did try and I see now that they wanted to negotiate. However, after 5 or so attempts with the same answer of “Talk to conveyancer not me” they just gave up.

I think I’m overthinking it now. I’ll wait till end of week before panicking again

 

Phone the RE agent and ask for your deposit back.
If you ARE interested in negotiating on price, tell the agent.
The agent is not a mind reader. He/she is probably just waiting to hear from you.
Marg

 

Thank you all. Called them this morning. Spend about 30 minutes saying no to “This is a rare opportunity “/ “We can negotiate a lower price”/ “ You will regret missing out”.

At the end of the day was told to wait. Finally, after 4PM got an email saying “We can confirm contract at end. Deposit will be refunded within 7 working days”. Pretty chuffed. Yay.