This happened to my wife and I twice, even though the second time the buyer had signed an agreement committing to buy the property. The time and effort involved in pursuing them in court meant we just forgot about it. Very frustrating! We're now buying without selling this time so hopefully it'll work out with Gazumping our only fear now.....!

Unfair as it is; there is not a lot you can do about this, until contracts are exchanged nothing is legally binding.

There is a insurance policy available to protect homebuyers from this event, should you be planning to go through the process again.

Assuming the buyer pulled out before exchange of contracts (and not between exchange and completion) I'm afraid there is nothing you can do except chalk it up to experience. Exchange within a month (or even two) is very quick even for a cash buyer so maybe there would be some scope in getting your solicitors to enquire whether she just needs more time. She will have incurred legal and valuation costs too so it would be in her interests to go through with it (assuming she's got the finance to do it).

A buyer has put offer in on my house and we accepted about a month ago. Everything was going ahead and the contract was due to be signed in a couple of days. But for some reason she has pulled out. We have paid solicitors and had valuation on another house which we have made an offer on, and also paid for storage for all our furniture etc. If the buyer had not wanted to go ahead so quickly with the sale then we would not have arranged for all this extra money to be spent on other things. I guess she has got a right to pull out before the contract signed but it just doesnt seem fair after all the work of packing and arranging childcare to pack and also all the money we have spent so far. Any help with this would be gratefully appreciated.