Withdrawing From A House Purchase

I have just been through a horrendous experience when trying to sell my property and buy another.

I found the perfect place and all the boxes were ticked. I couldn't believe my luck. My buyer was enthusiastic, came round three times, brought the parents and measured up. I even received mail in their name but on the day I was signing contracts and four days before moving they pulled out ! Their explanation was... it took too long. Yeah, pull the other one.. four days from them moving in ! Too late !!!

It turned out after digging that there was another personal reason.. but why lie?

As they had not exchanged contracts they could just walk away and nothing legally can be done about the £1,300 I was out of pocket. To add injury to my losses was the perfect property I had found was returned to the market place and sold again at full asking price within three days.. I was well and truly gutted.

All in all, other than find out where the buyer who jacked it in lived and sending the boys round I was left with nothing.

I have had to put my property back on the market, find another and pay out once again to my Solicitor and the Building Society for fees and surveys. My losses now are around £2,000 and the property I am buying just does not have the wow factor of the original but I have to be satisfied in order to move on.

I think it's time the law was changed on this business...and how many times have I been told..."This wouldn't happen in Scotland !!!"

At the very least, it should be mandatory that anyone committing to buying a property should lay down an "administrative" deposit of say £750 which would be forfeited to the vendor to cover towards out of pocket expenses if the buyer reneges on their agreement.

I think that's fair enough, don't you? If anyone out their from HM Government is reading this, I think it's about time you got off your butts and did something about this outrageous situation sooner rather than later.