Repossessed house experience?

[smudgedlipstick]

I have put an offer in on a repossessed house 🙈 it would be perfect, but have been told numerous times by estate agents and mortgage companies that they can drop you with a click of their fingers if a better offer is made up until the day you exchange keys. I am freaking out slightly about the risk we are taking, so any good experience stories of purchasing your dream repossessed home? If not I will settle for any sort of experience buying repossessed houses please!

[JoJoSM2]

Business is business. If your offer is good, or you’re willing to up it in case of serious competition + you’ll move swiftly, you’ll be ok :)

[Bluntness100]

How long till exchange and how long has it been on the market?

[smudgedlipstick]

It’s been on the market just over one week. They have had no other serious viewers and no other offers. We have gone in quite low to be honest. Apparently with corporate they want it to be turned around in 28 days which we are capable of doing, we are in a very good position as first time buyers with everything in place and no notice need to be given where we live now. The only problem is we could be put offered very easily I think. 😭

[smudgedlipstick]

Jojo I know business is business but it’s the perfect house 😂😂 it needs work but we have the time to make it what we want it to be, hopefully other people can’t see past the prison like grates ok the windows and doors!

[JoJoSM2]

Your potential gazumpers are more likely to be investors rather than anyone in a chain.

I think you’d need to really do a LOT of chasing to get anywhere in 28 days. Banks and solicitors can take a lot longer. Even 2 months is considered good pace.

[mrsnoon]

Similar position as we bought from an asset management company as part of an estate so were warned that it wouldn't be taken off the market until exchange. Ours was the only offer and we were first time buyers so in a really good position to move quickly, mortgage already sorted etc. In the end they agreed to stop further viewings once our searches came back.

[queenthequeen]

Maybe less of the 😂 faces given the circumstances.

[QuiteLikely5]

This can happen with any property. Surely they have put a sold subject to co tract notice up?

Just get a move on.

The bank usually doesn't care as long as they are getting their money back.

So if the client owes them 60k and the home is worth 100k and you offer 70k they will accept it.

They do have to return the remaining funds to the owners.

[sukitea]

My db bought a repossession after a very long and stressful bidding war. It is positive that there have been no other viewers but slightly alarming on the other hand! IME repossessions are in demand and attract a lot of attention as they are often sold below market value.

[FlopIsMyParentingGuru]

I guess it depends how much they want to sell? We bought our house off a company that had it because of an employee relocation package. We just made our offer subject to the house being taken off the market. They were hesitant and asked for more money to do that. It was nerve wracking but we held our ground for 24 hours saying we weren't interested and they ended up agreeing.

There's a point where they aren't going to want to lose a buyer because they will have to start the process all over again

[butterfly86]

We bought a repossessed house and it was a bit stressful knowing someone could put in a higher offer right until the last minute, we were lucky nobody did outbid us so it all went smoothly. They do like to get you completed in 28 days but it took 6 weeks for us and that was with no hold ups we were first time buyers so no chain etc. I breathed a huge sigh of relief the day we signed for the keys! Good luck!

[smudgedlipstick]

Some slightly reassuring stories here, thanks all, the corporate lady who called baffled me a little bit, I am very new to the process and what I can and can’t do, I need to be a bit harder when I next speak to them I think, we are in a good position and are currently there only offer so we are in a better position then i feel we are. There is nothing wrong with the house at all, I can’t believe they haven’t had people all over to be honest. It’s too perfect for us not take the risk really, we have to at least try what we can.
Queenthequeen, not quite sure what circumstances you are referring to🤔

[YokoReturns]

OP I think queen means that the house has been repossessed, someone’s livelihood has possibly been destroyed, so it might be bad taste to have ‘crying laughing’ faces whilst discussing it

[queenthequeen]

Repossessions are awful. They really are end of the line, nowhere else to go, set of circumstances.

Obviously that shouldn't stop anyone buying one: apart from anything else, if no one bought them it would only hinder the predicament of the person who originally owned the house. But 😂😂 and 🙈🙈 just seem in really poor taste.

[sukitea]

Queen when my mum found out db was interested in a reposs property she kept saying how immoral it was and that he was destroying someone's dream. She wouldn't have considered it apparently. It would've been most appropriate to board up the house and let it stand derelict so that the owner could drive past every day and see that it was still their house. Db bought the house and it is now amazing

[smudgedlipstick]

Completely hadn’t considered the person who used to live there if I’m honest, sorry if I caused any offence. This is obviously a very exciting time for my family and just wanted to hear any experience of it going well for people.

[queenthequeen]

Well that's a pretty awesome reply and good luck to your family

[sukitea]

Hope you get it OP, let us know.

[Racmactac]

We bought a repossession for really cheap price , it was complete in 28 days. I’m a solicitor so colleagues did conveyancing for me and I was able to push them and sign everything immediately.

However we were due to exchange on Monday and complete on the Thursday. We got to the Friday before and bank went quiet. Monday morning they refuse to exchange stating they had another higher offer. We had had a survey on property which showed a few issues, this other offer was higher than what survey said it was worth. I got into the person dealing with the bank and hassled then every single day, told them that they may accept this offer but when they went through the same process of survey we did they would reduce the offer. We were ready to go mortgage was in hand etc etc.
The estate agent did the same thing. We stopped packing and were so pissed off thinking it wouldn’t go ahead.
We were due to move on the Thursday, woke up thinking it wouldn’t happen and all of a sudden I get a phone call at midday saying do you still want to proceed? We exchanged and completed later that day. The removal van got to us at 6 pm and we unpacked at new place by 10pm. Thankfully people buying old place weren’t actually moving into it and were family friends so not bothered about timescales.

So yes we did it, was very very stressful but we are still in house 4 years later having made a very healthy profit

[smudgedlipstick]

Racmactac oh my goodness, this is why I am worried about, you sound like you was more than aware of the process and how it works, this is my worry that we may be taken advantage of because I don’t know what we can and can’t do. I will try and steel myself for these things to happen.

[Ttbb]

This is true with most properties.

[YokoReturns]

Good luck op

[Canoo]

We bought a repossession with no problems. Took longer than 28 days but we weren’t any more worried than we would have been buying from an owner. Good luck

[Cantthinkofagood1]

We bought a repossessed house. It already had an offer on it and we offered significantly more - but they turned us down as the other person was apparently close to completing. So it's not always true that they will take a better offer upto the last day (not in our experience). However the sale then fell through as the buyer couldn't actually get the funds so we put in a much lower offer and it went through in about 8 weeks I think.

[smudgedlipstick]

Thanks all for your reassurance and experiences, I think it’s just a scary daunting experience regardless of if it’s a repossession or not, hopefully things will move quickly and we will have no problems! Thanks for all your best wishe