Why do house sales fall through? Typical reasons

Home sales aren’t guaranteed until the final exchange of contracts and money

Unfortunately, even if you have secured a prospective buyer for your house or flat there’s still the chance that the sale might not happen. Nothing is guaranteed until the day of completion and the buyer has paid you for taking over your home.

There are many reasons why this can happen, including delays in the paperwork process, sudden problems with the buyer’s finances, and more. But a few of these problems can be addressed or prevented, although not always. The guide below has details to inform you of when a problem with a house sale could still be resolved and the sale completed, as well as the instances where you might have to start the process again and find a new buyer.
You will learn more about the specific reasons behind a property sale falling through, whether that’s problems you’re experiencing with the home, issues with the buyer, or anything else.
This guide also outlines the four top options available for selling a property, to give you more insight into the pros and cons involved with the different approaches for seeking a buyer. There are some selling methods that could increase the potential of a sale falling through, for example if you decide to sell through an estate agent or if you sell without any assistance.
And there are other selling strategies where a sale collapsing is less likely to happen. One such approach is selling to a quick home buyer like LDN Properties, because these companies will make fair and fast offers to purchase practically any type of house or flat, no matter its age, condition, location, shape, size or type, and they have the funds to buy your home right away.
Keep reading to learn all you need to know about property sales falling through and to obtain the information you need to make a decision about how you’d like to search for a buyer, so that you can ideally get the sale of your home through to the final exchanging of contracts.

Top reasons why home sales fall through and some solutions

Every sale of a house or flat that collapses does so for reasons unique to that property and the people involved with buying and selling, but here are some common causes:

You’ve gazumped the buyer by taking another offer

Gazumping has an uncommon name but is a common practice, and it’s the word used to describe the situation where a seller has initially started the process of selling to a buyer but then gets, and accepts, a better offer from another buyer. For the first buyer they typically have no recourse because the only point at which they have a legally binding stake in the sale is when you have signed, or exchanged, contracts.

Solution: This is one of those instances where the failure of a home sale is because of the seller taking another offer, so it can be hard to predict or avoid.

The conveyancing process causes major delays

Part of the process of selling your home includes hiring a conveyancer who’ll manage the various legal documents and other papers needed to transfer your home ownership to the buyer. Sometimes this process can take a very long time, because the conveyancer has to do a lot of work including writing sale contracts and contacting the UK’s government’s Land Registry to confirm ownership of the property. The risk is that the buyer gets impatient and breaks off the sale if the conveyancing takes too long.

Solution: You can hire a conveyancer to start the complicated paperwork process as soon as you list your house or flat for sale, which will reduce the amount of time it takes to complete conveyancing once you have a formal offer in place.

The buyer experiences significant financial problems

This is perhaps one of the most reported reasons why a home sale might fall through. If a buyer is relying on a mortgage lender to provide the money needed to complete the sale, they won’t be able to exchange contracts and formally buy your house if the lender turns them down for a loan. This can particularly happen when mortgage companies make what’s called a down valuation, where they assess a home as having a lower value than either you’re selling for or the buyer is willing to pay.

Solution: Ensure that your home is properly priced, taking into account any changes you’ve made that might increase its value. You want the price to be close enough to both the offer from the buyer and the mortgage lender’s valuation so that you avoid any financial setbacks.

A house survey uncovers problems with your property

As part of the process of selling your home, a surveyor may perform a survey that will assess its condition as well as any possible legal or physical problems with the property, and other issues. Sometimes these surveys can turn up significantly negative information on your home that can cause the buyer to break off the sale.

Solution: You could pay for a survey on your house or flat before putting it on the market, because this will help you discover any potential major problems with the home and give you the chance to address them before you try seeking buyers.

How to proceed with finding a buyer after your home sale falls through

Experiencing the sale of your property collapsing can be a very stressful and emotionally draining situation, and you have every right to be upset about it happening – but at the same time, there is no need to panic or worry that the sale of your home falling apart means that you will never be able to sell your flat or house in the future.
Instead, you should try to relax and not be overcome by any potential stress from the situation. One way to do this is to channel your energy into reassessing how you will move forward with selling, as you have plenty of options still available for finding a buyer, as Ideal Home says. You can start over with selling either via an estate agent, at an auction, without any help or to a quick home buying company like LDN Properties.
If you have tried one of those four methods before and the sale eventually fell through, you might want to review the three other choices and try one of them to find a buyer for your home, rather than attempting to use the same strategy that involved the sale that collapsed.
Later in this guide you will be able to read specific details about all four of these selling approaches, including important factors such as their speed, costs involved and even their likelihood of having a sale fall apart. Armed with all of this knowledge, you will be able to try again with selling your house or flat and hopefully get a sale to the exchange of contracts.

Ways to find a buyer for your property if a sale has fallen through

You might have previously tried to sell your home but then because of one or more problems with the buyer the transaction collapsed. And this could happen through any of the popular methods for selling a home, whether that is doing so through an estate agent, at an auction, selling without any assistance or selling to a quick home buyer such as LDN Properties.
If that has happened – or even if you are just looking at selling strategies for the first time – then it can be useful to know more about all four options and how they differ in terms of cost, time taken and the potential risk that the sale of the property might eventually fall through.
Below you’ll find all the information you need about the different ways for selling your home. It can help to note down your top aims with selling, including how fast you want to sell, whether you can accept paying any commission, and your ideal selling price, and then comparing these facts against the specifics of the methods to find the one that best suits your needs.

Selling through an estate agent

Selling this way is one of the highest risk in terms of a sale falling through. That’s because a buyer can make an honest offer on your home but then later change their mind and rescind it. This would cause the sale to collapse and require that you start again with looking for a buyer, possibly extending your selling timeline by many more weeks or months. And there’s nothing you can do to penalise the buyer for doing this if you have not yet exchanged contracts.
Another drawback of selling this way is that you will have to pay the estate agent commission if they manage to find a buyer for your property. This fee will be taken out of the sale proceeds and therefore will add to your expenses. It’s usually charged within a range from 1.15 percent to 1.40 percent of a home’s final sale price, but the exact rate may be above or below this range.
This commission pays for the work that the estate agent does in selling your home, starting with developing a listing that describes your property’s main features and also includes photographs of the exterior and interior. The estate agent will advertise this listing in their office, in local newspapers and online, and then schedule viewings to give potential buyers tours of your home. Finally, they’ll hear offers and try to get one through to the exchange of contracts.
Regardless of whether or not a sale falls through, this is a slow process for selling any type of property, as it can take more than a year before you are able to find a buyer. So, if you’re looking for a speedy sale, you should consider some of the other choices, such as selling to a quick buyer like LDN Properties where the timeline should only be a handful of weeks.

Selling at an auction

Selling at an auction has a lower risk of sales falling through compared to some of the other methods, for example using an estate agent. That’s because a winning bid on your home is considered to be a legally binding commitment to purchase the property, and you could sue the buyer to force the sale through if they attempt to abandon it after the auction.
But that does not mean this approach has no drawbacks, as there are a few downsides to know about. One issue is that you will need to pay commission to the auctioneer if they succeed in selling your home, and this fee adds to yours costs as it will be taken out of the sale proceeds.
Many auctioneers charge commission at 2.5 percent of a property’s auction sale price, although the exact fee could be higher or lower than this amount. As one possible option for reducing your expenses, you could ask individual auctioneers if they are open to reducing the level of commission they will charge, or to have the buyer pay for a share of your auction costs.
It can also be far from the speediest way to sell a home, with many weeks or months of waiting after you opt for selling this way and before the auction takes place. Then, if your home does sell, the buyer will have about 28 days to sign all of the mandatory documents involved with the sale and to finish their other tasks that are needed to complete the purchase of your property.

Selling without any assistance

Just like selling via an estate agent, the risk of a sale falling through is much higher when selling on your own compared to some of the other options for finding a buyer. Someone can make an offer but then withdraw it, causing the sale to collapse – and they can do this without facing any risk of penalties so long as you have not yet exchanged contracts on the property.
Selling without any help puts the onus on you to take care of every step needed to attract a buyer. You will first need to put together a listing and advertise it, then schedule viewings and hear offers from buyers, and finally try to turn an offer into the exchange of contracts.
This is a major undertaking that you cannot just do in your spare time, and it can also be a very stressful situation. That’s why you should only really think about using this method if you have a family member or friend that is experienced with selling properties and can help you at no charge with finding a buyer, or if you have previously managed to sell homes at a profit. Without such knowledge, it may take more than a year before you are able to sell your flat or house.
The clearest advantage of selling without any help from a fee-charging third party is that you will not have to pay anyone commission once you sell your property, and this helps with reducing your total expenses. But you might discover that any saving you made by avoiding commission is cancelled out by the funds that you will spend on marketing your listing and other tasks.
An alternative approach would be selling to a no-commission quick buyer such as LDN Properties. This would give you the same benefit of avoiding having to pay any fees, but with another advantage of being able to complete the sale of your home within a few short weeks, and with a significantly reduced risk of the sale eventually falling apart.

Selling to a quick home buyer

Selling this way is not only relatively low risk when it comes to the sale collapsing, but it also offers a streamlined, hassle-free and zero-commission way to complete a sale within weeks.
LDN Properties and other quick home buyers are companies that have the funds available upfront to purchase properties right away. They don’t have to wait for weeks or months to first get approved for a mortgage to pay for the transaction, which cuts the typical selling timeline down to just a few short weeks. And this includes the important last steps of exchanging contracts and paying you the proceeds.
And these companies will make competitive and swift offers to buy practically any home, even so-called problem properties, so there’s no worry about them changing their mind at the last minute just because your home has some issue that is discouraging other buyers.
Since 2003, LDN Properties has been buying all types of leasehold and freehold homes throughout the UK, including off-plan properties, houses with a loft conversion, flats with a right of way, homes near traffic lights, properties near the coast, self-build houses, flats near to an industrial estate, timber-frame homes, properties without a structural warranty, guest houses, blocks of flats, Wimpey No-Fines homes, and many other highly varied examples.
Quick buyers also will never charge a seller commission when buying their house or flat, so that will help you with reducing your overall selling expenses. If you instead decide to try selling your property through an estate agent or at a property auction then will have to pay that third party commission, and this adds to your costs as it will be taken out of the selling proceeds.