No contract had been entered into, you had no obligation to the seller & vice versa.

Actually, we had - we, and all the sellers, had signed a Vorverkauf contract, and the Vorverkauf had been deposited with the notary. We had also paid 10% of the purchase price with the Vorverkauf. It was at the final contract signing that the one seller changed his mind.

(And you can imagine the family feud that provoked. As we walked out the rest of the sellers were getting ready to lynch the hold-out. )

We got our 10% back, fortunately, albeit after a delay.

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No idea what agreement the sellers in the OP's situation had signed with their agent, but in interviewing agents with a view to selling our house all have demanded exclusive contracts - and I've even felt I needed to be careful in my preliminary discussions with them so as to avoid anything that might be construed as a verbal contract.

I have no idea how effective a clause stipulating exclusive rights really is, though...

Thanks for all the responses and advice.

It was a shame; it was one of the few houses that seemed like a proper "home", rather than an insanely overpriced renovation job, a terraced concrete box with no garden that overlooks an industrial esatate, or a nice house built on a 60° slope with a useless garden...

We could have moved quicker, but due dilligence is, of course, required and that takes time. The last thing we want to do is to jump into an expensive mistake that we then regret.

Anyway, our gut instinct has told us to move on and keep on looking elsewhere - in any case, the estate agent and vendor gave us the story that the house is basically gone. Still no idea what happened between those two; the estate agent was a 'friend' of the vendor..

We have dug up local contacts in some villages and have put the word around (so far, this is yielding some results), and will also advertise in the local rags.

Let's see what the coming weeks bring !

Cheers,
Chris

You've got the right attitude, Chris.

Best of luck in your search.

Hello again, the story develops!

We put an advert in the local rag and got quite a few responses. One house is extremely nice, built in '45, well maintained with the essentials done (windows, roof, electrical) and the services to the street have all been replaced in the last couple of years. It has also 700m² of land. We haven't bought it yet, but initial negotiations and due diligence are underway.

The house is built on a slope so the cellar opens out onto the garden, not the living room. Our initial plans are to extend the cellar outwards by 4m or so, and convert the cellar to a living area / kitchen, such that it's the main living area that opens out onto the garden. (We have friends who have done this in their house, and it worked very well. It cost them 200k, but they did nothing themselves; this isn't the case for us, we would-and can-do as much ourselves as possible to keep budgets under control.)

We're looking for the extension to be of a modern, contemporary style, but also for it to sucessfully engage with the older style of the original house and work with it, not fight against it.

We raided the Universtiy ETH Baubibliothek last night and the books we got have given us a lot of inspiration (one example was using wood as a main bulding material, not concrete) - of course it is just inspiration and reality-checks are in order.

If anybody has any experiences of such 'Grand Designs' activities, I'd be glad to hear them !

Also, recommendations of a sympathetic architect (i.e. no concrete-box or eccentric architects, or ones who have the "I'm the expert, not you, so shut up." attitude) in the Turgi-Brugg-Gebenstorf-Birmenstorf area would be helpful - especially one who is experienced with old buildings and also with people who are interested in taking an active role part in the design and build process.

Cheers,
Chris

1945, built on a slope....before you invest any time on this, have it inspected.

We have a surveyor surveying this property next week, which he expects to take two hours to complete. The vendor suggested a selling price of 800K, but the bank's initial idea was that 'it's worth far less than that'. The surveyor's rough opinion was around 600K, but we will find out the precise value next week. The bank will base their estimate on what the surveyor says.

He will do the full survey and give us the concise version, suitable for negotiation with the vendor and assessment of the structure. If we then go ahead, he'll do the full report. This way, if it all collapses with the vendor on price (or because the report is giving off 'run a mile' vibes), we won't be left having to pay the full survey cost, which I guess would be farily expensive.

Just noticed that the last house we very nearly got (in Oberrohrdorf) is now officially sold. Still hurts a bit!

So, we ran a mile quicker than Bannister..

The house - nice that it is - is only worth 450K (in stark comparison to the 800K the owner wanted). Also, in the 90's, the neighbours nextdoor built their house and exceeded the ausnutzungsziffer (coefficient of utilisation). So, the current owners of the house that we were interested in had agreed to 'donate' 260m2 of their 640m2 of land to compensate for the exceeded ausnutzungsziffer nextdoor. This was done in exchange for the free rent of two of the same neighbour's garage places.

The free garage rent scenario collapses if the house is sold, and the 260m2 of land that is locked up will only be relinquished if the gemeinde increases the overall W2 ausnutzungsziffer..

I don't know why they didn't tell us this at first. There are written contracts, but none of this is in the grundbuch and the person living nextdoor who signed the contracts is dead.

The surveyor was excellent though - professional, honest and very realistic - he did his survey for an hour and then took us for a coffee afterwards to discuss it all and answer all our questions. The only viable solution for this place is full demolition and rebuild with some nice concrete boxes..

So, back to square one again. Learning a hell of a lot in the process, though.

Cheers!