Q. I have just sold my property to some investment buyers in Malaysia, and everything has been going great so far. They have their mortgage approval from the bank and the legal side is going swimmingly, but I had a call from my agent yesterday saying that because the funds are coming from the bank in Malaysia, once we exchange it’s going to take at least 2 months to get the funds to the UK for completion! Does this sound right or are they just messing me around?
A. As the majority of sellers and their Agents know most of the money around to buy property in the UK at the moment is coming from overseas and particularly from Asia. From everything you are telling me I would say they seem absolutely fine, they have their mortgage approval, the legal side is ticking along nicely, they have clearly already committed themselves financially to the purchase so they still seem like a fairly strong buyer to me but the question you need to ask yourself is, is this long completion date going to work for you and if not what are your alternatives? Clearly your current situation is going to determine whether or not this could still work for you. If you are buying another property and in a chain then clearly you have a problem on your hands, if however you happen to be an investor and still have a tenant in the property paying rent then you are in a totally different position and maybe have no time restraints on you and it really doesn’t matter when you complete as long as you do then this could still work out for you. My advice if you are able to tolerate such a long completion, is to make sure you commit the buyer to exchange contracts as soon as possible, that way the contract then becomes legally binding, so although you may have a while to wait till completion you will at least know that it is a done deal. Alternatively if this long completion date is out of the question then you need to withdraw from the sale and ask your agent to place the property back on the market with immediate effect. Do bear in mind though that it could take a few weeks to sell and then another 6-8 weeks to exchange and complete with a new buyer so its best that you consider this carefully before withdrawing from the sale, as sometimes it’s better that you wait and have a definite buyer, than take a chance on someone new that could change their mind before exchange.