Hi, we moved from WA last year back to SA to be closer to family and for work related reasons so we put or home of 9 years on the Market in July. We had a number of unreasonable offers that we did not accept until November when we had an offer close to what we wanted so we accepted.

The Contract was subject to finance, building and pest inspection - all reasonable and acceptable. The buyer also wanted to move in prior to settlement which we accepted (follishly in hindsight). The contract was signed on the 14th of November, they moved in on the 17th of December and settlement was due on the 14th of January. To date we have not been paid, the Real Estate Agent in this case has been next to useless and seems to have all but washed his hands of the deal. The buyers have re-scheduled the settlement 6 times now and several times they have been uncontactable for days on end and left our conveyancer re-scheduling based on hope and nothing else.

We have heard all sorts of stories and reasons for the delay including failed sale of a business for the required deposit, waiting on funds from a brother in law, a colleague and the lastest as of last week an overdraft from a different bank. The bank funds have been approved it's just the deposit they cannot get together. e exerciosed out rights after the 14th of January and started the penalty process of 9% which equates to $192 per day! This has not sped them up, they have also owed us rent from the 14th of December and we have also not seen any of that.

The lastest settlement date was yesterday, I have not heard from the Real Estate agent at all (which is nothing unusual for this guy!) and decided to have my conveyancer arrange a default notice. The deposit amount accepted by the Agent was a pathetic 1k for an 800k property so this offers little comfort.

I still have unanswered questions such as;

How do we get them out of the house at the end of the default period?

How can we guarantee payment of therent and penalties?

How much can we legally sue these people for?

Can I claim the additional costs of travel, repairs etc if I need to go back to WA?

They have anothe property listed as security, can we lay claim to this in any way to get what we are owed?

I think that we are probably in for a long, drawn out legal battle with these people and we now really don't think that they intended to pay us at all and have played us all along, we have also only just discovered yesterday that they previously defaulted on another purchase last year.

Any advice is appreciated as I am not getting much from anyone else and being interstate from where it is all going on makes things even more difficult.