Rejecting settlement delay?

Hi everyone,

Recently my husband and I bought a house and settlement was supposed to be this month. About 2-3 weeks ago we were contacted by the vendor (through their agent) asking for a delay in the settlement date until December.
I'm just wondering if legally we could have simply refused this request for a delay and just had settlement occur on the original date we'd agreed upon?

My dad said when he was buying our house 12 years ago the same thing happened to him and he says he simply refused the delay in settlement date and the settlement happened on the date it was supposed to.

In both cases (ours and my dad's) the vendor is building a house and the builder was/is not able to finish the house in time and the vendor's mortgage broker won't let them release the title of the house because it's a security or something? (I don't understand this whole not being able to release the title thing).

Just really stressed out atm!

I think 'tough'. You (the vendors!) agreed on a settlement date, stick with it. We had stuffing around when we bought our place. It is so stressful! I feel your pain!

But legally can we just refuse and have settlement at the originally agreed date? Like if we had refused to delay settlement would the vendors have had any choice but to just go with what we wanted (I.e. not delaying)? Or can they legally refuse to do settlement on the original date of agreement?

You can say no if its inconvenient, when we bought here they wanted to move settlement until January but it would have left us homeless with a baby.

Legally they can't do anything if you don't agree.

If their bank won't discharge their mortgage and release the title, settlement won't be able to happen. It sounds to me like they're using their current house (the one you're buying) to secure their debt for the current house and the one they're building. They don't want to release security over the current established house and be left with an unfinished property securing the debt, as if the worst were to happen and they default it's harder for the bank to sell.

You can say no, but if their bank simply doesn't discharge their mortgage settlement just won't happen. I'd talk to your conveyancer about if you can charge them anything. If the purchaser delays settlement many vendors charge interest for each day that it's delayed.

Yes that's what they've told us exactly that their bank won't release the title and the house we're buying is the security for their house being built.

We've told them they have to cover our reapplication fees and that if our mortgage broker doesn't give us the same loan again we have to default and get our deposit back and they agreed.

Pretty crappy situation they've put you in though :(

I'm due in November. Was hoping to have the baby room and the house set up in time for the birth, I guess like everything that appears to go downhill I'll just look for the hidden blessings in it. So far because dh will be able to save more money until December the pressure I felt before of neding to continue work for longer is lifted and I let work know I'm leaving next week! Hoping other blessings will become apparent as we go along.