Count What Survived

A collapsed sale is one where the offer to purchase lapses because a suspensive condition, most often the buyer's bond, was not met in time, and the house goes back on the market. The first list anyone makes afterwards is the list of losses: the cancelled removal company, the weeks gone, the plans that were built around a date.

A more useful list is what survived. The electrical inspection was done, and an electrical certificate describes the installation as it was inspected, so if nothing has changed since, that work is behind the seller. The electric fence may have its certificate now as well. A string of viewings has told the seller which rooms people liked and what they thought of the price, and the conveyancer already holds many of the documents the next deal will need.

None of that disappears because one buyer's finance failed. Most of it is the slow and fiddly part of selling a house, and it is finished. The next buyer walks into a sale that is further along than the first buyer ever saw.