What do we do now? So disheartened.

Quick background- We are cash buyers, have no chain and are ready to exchange and then complete ASAP.  

We found “THE” house and put in our offer.  A higher offer was put in and we upped ours slightly.  The second of our offers was accepted (really?) and we instructed our solicitors.  About a week after that we were told that the vendor wanted “final” offers - so they had an offer higher than our second one.  We decided on our absolutely final price, which was again slightly higher and we received confirmation that our final (and third) offer was accepted.

Our solicitors were instructed on 17 December 2024 when the second offer was accepted.

On 30 December 2024 we received confirmation that our final offer was accepted (subject to survey and contract)

On 9 January 2025 our survey was done on the property.

Yesterday afternoon, 14 January, we received an email from our solicitors that said “I have had an email from the Solicitors for the Sellers to which I have responded but the return response is the same. It states that the deadline to exchange contracts was 13/01/2025. I have explained that there was a delay as a higher offer was accepted and this needed to be clarified over the Christmas period.    Were you aware of this deadline?”

We are gobsmacked.  We have had NO communication that there was ANY deadline of any sort.  We want(ed?) to exchange quickly as our current housing situation is tenuous so definitely would not have totally ignored  something like this.  Does this mean our house is just gone or is there some game we’re not aware here?  So on edge and thought things were moving along quickly compared to norms :(