Q: We have been trying to sell our farmhouse for most of 2007 and move into a flat in town. We found a buyer for the house who paid the asking price. He paid a 5 per cent deposit to our solicitor and we exchanged contracts in October. However, the buyer messed us around with all kinds of spurious questions about non-existent drains and so on. He missed the completion date and now says he wants to pull out because he cannot sell his property. We suspect that he thinks he is paying too much. We fear that we may end up with two properties on our hands and are at our wits' end. What do you advise?

A: Sale agreements for houses and flats in England and Wales usually incorporate detailed terms and conditions printed in microscopic type on the back of the contract. For example, most solicitors today use the Law Society's Standard Conditions of Sale (Fourth Edition). Check the copy of the contract your solicitor gave you before you signed.

The agreed completion date is generally not “of the essence” of the contract, which means that it is little more than a target date. Missing the completion date usually has little effect. However, either party may start the clock ticking by serving a “notice to complete”. Essentially this is a letter that sets a hard deadline for the other side to complete within ten days. Provided that you yourself are “ready, able and willing” to complete, there is no reason why you should not serve such a notice on a dithering buyer.

If the buyer refuses to complete by the new deadline, you can choose to continue with the sale or pull out. If you pull out, the consequences for the buyer can be pretty draconian. You can take the buyer's deposit and then resell the house. A deposit worth 5 per cent of the value of most houses is usually well worth having. If you sell for a lower price to someone else, you are also entitled to be compensated for the lower sale price and for the legal and other costs of remarketing.

In these situations, when the facts of life are pointed out to most buyers, they tend to complete. After contracts are exchanged, you have the whip hand. You should use it.

MARK LOVEDAY

The writer is a barrister at

Tanfield Chambers (020-7421 5300). E-mail your questions to: property.consumer@thetimes.co.uk

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