Waiting for completion date and getting increasingly stressed.

[queenrollo]

I've charted the imcompetence of our solicitor in another thread.
Saga continues. We were assured that completing on the 27th July would be fine. We have failed repeatedly to get our sol. to understand that our tenancy ends on 1st August and we need to know what's going on. Last Thursday we phoned our sol. to discover she was on holiday until Tuesday. would have been nice to have been told that. So DP mailed her first thing Tuesday morning (she responded immediately, when usually it's a couple of days and a phone call to get a response) and stated she is no longer handling our case, it has been passed to a colleague. The deposit was transferred monday, DP mailed to check it had been received and asked for them to contact him to arrange completion date. He got an email that said 'i will speak to those concerned'
DP didn't get this mail until last night when he got in from work as he cannot access his e-mail at work. They have been asked to CC me on all mails so i can contact DP if we need to phone them. They have failed to do so on almost every occasion.

We're on holiday next week (was planned before house buying commenced) and so we need to know by the end of this week what day we can move as we are in rented and need the house empty for cleaning before our final inspection by the letting agent (who in themselves annoyed me yesterday by trying to persuade me to leave the keys for an unattended inspection when DP told them categorically we would not do that.)

We shouldn't have to keep moving things along by speaking to supervisors and on two occasions the complaints dept. Or phoning the Estate agent to find that sellers sol. have already done things which our sol. claims they are waiting for.

I'm just offloading here because i am so frustrated by our solicitors inability to understand the urgency we now feel at setting a date.

[WomanInTheMoon]

I know how you feel! - so incredibly frustrating. it seems so mysterious sometimes what they are up to.

In the end we had to doorstep the solicitor get things done, it felt like practically all we could do but it worked and were able to physically get the other contract, bring it to our solicitors and get everything signed.

It felt pushy but we were desperate to have it resolved!

[LIZS]

Have you spoken to the partner responsible for conveyancing to gee it along? If the deposit has transferred it should n't be far off to exchange (have you signed the contracts and got mortgage confirmed?) but you can stress you need to know this week to be able to get organised in time for completion this month. Have you given notice on your rental or could you roll it another month ?

[queenrollo]

we have spoken to the supervisor, the partner responsible for conveyancing and the complaints dept. They knew right from the beginning we had to complete by the end of July, though the woman dealing with our case expressed surprise at this when it was reiterated in a phone call. We are sick of repeating ourselves.
We have given notice on this place as we were assured that a completion before the end of July would happen. The vendor has stated in the paperwork he can complete at any time, there are no restrictions on there part.

Everything is in place for this to go ahead which why we are confused and frustrated as to why this last thing is taking so long. I've never had this with a house sale before (last one was empty 4 weeks before completion and we knew the vendor personally)surely they just need to agree with the vendor a date? I think we're going to have to ring the estate again, their offices are round the corner from the vendor's solcitor and they just go round in person and ask what's going on.

[mummygogo]

You need to get a categoric response on what precisely is the reason for the hold-up.

If they can tell you in no uncertain terms what is holding things up you can then perhaps help in getting it resolved (even though it might be their responsibility - but it will get you in) or you will be able to identify where the delay lies

best of luck

[Fimbo]

Have you actually exchanged?

[CMOTdibbler]

On our last move, we had all sorts of issues with our chain - what got it all sorted in the end was the estate agents we were buying through calling all the sols down the chain to find out what the issue was and telling them that it needed to be sorted out by x date.

[Fimbo]

The only way our last house sale progressed at all, was the fact we had the buyers telephone number, we kept in contact all the time and in the end, my dh wrote an email on behalf of the four of us (with our buyers permission of course) to all solictors concerned that we were to exchange on a certain day and completion was to be x day as they were dragging their heels and faffing around (especially the buyers solicitor).

[queenrollo]

i wrote a long reply and my computer had a fit and i lost it all......

all the paperwork was signed and sent back a couple of weeks ago so it is already with our solicitor just waiting for the next step.

It appears from emails DP has forwarded that our new case handler has been waiting for us to send conformation of receipt of a TPO and liability for a possible boundary issue. He didn't tell us he required this assuming we knew, and we didn't know he was waiting because this has already been confirmed, both to the supervisor (via phone) and to our original case handler by email.
It seems the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. DP had informed them we would be away and therefore this all needed to be settled by this Friday so we can make necessary arrangements. DP's meeting finishes at 2.30 and he's hoping to have a response to his latest mail then or he will phone them.

Their complaints dept admitted we had been treated badly when we last spoke them, and after that call there was a flurry of activity (when it became obvious that we were waiting for things that had in fact already been done, we hadn't been informed so we could move to the next step)....we will be making a written complaint after this is all finished.

[Fimbo]

Have they told you then you have exchanged?

[queenrollo]

no. we cannot get a straight bloody answer out of them. this is why i am so frustrated. we asked about exchange and completion and just keep being told they are talking to the other side's sols.

Hopefully we will hear something from them this afternoon. If not then i will phone the EA and ask them to find out from the vendor what is happening at their end.

[Fimbo]

Yes that is a good idea. Could you try talking to the vendor yourself?

[queenrollo]

we haven't contacted the vendor directly at any point because the girl we speak to at the EA has been an absolute diamond. If she can't get a response/answer straight away then she phones back to tell us and always contacts us as soon as she does find out. It's seemed easier to deal with her, she will walk round to their sols offices (it's round the corner from her office) and see the sol face to face for an answer. I don't suppose it's her job to do that but she is obviously keen to get the sale completed.

[Fimbo]

It's good when they are like that. My EA only contacted us on the day we exchanged (which we already knew about). I did most of their job for them, including negotiating the price of our house directly with our buyer!

Good luck, hope you hear something soon.

[thehairybabysmum]

Can you actually go to the solicitors office and refuse to leavve until it is resolved.

We have previously completed and moved on the same day if that helps.

[queenrollo]

i can't go to the office as we aren't using a local firm.

hopefully DP will get some sense out of them this afternoon!

i am never moving again!!

[TwoJobsOneManOneBump]

Long Post Alert!

ooh, I sympathise. I'm a buyer of a house which I wanted to be in by now. My offer was accepted on the 24th April and we both had a time imperative to get to completion as fast as poss. She's only just keeping up with repayments and I'm about to have first baby.

So I set a challenging timescale of 8 weeks to exchange and everyone understood that if there was a possible hitch it should be raised early so that we could deal with it. I effectively said there is nothing that will make me walk away from this house, I just need somewhere to live. Seller needed to offload this debt and move on.

The sale was all but exchanged (we'd even drawn down my mortgage funds) and then my solicitor said he was just waiting for the others to confirm that the three (!) different mortgagees with a registered charge on the property (as per the Land Registry) would be paid off by the purchase price, ie that the seller's mortgage debts were cleared by the sale. It turns out that the first mortgage is clear, the second is partially paid but the third is (a) with a bottom-feeding debt consolidation company and (b) started life as a CCJ. In total there's probably 40k more debt on top of the value of this sub-stamp-duty 2-bed maisonette...

So, as this happened literally on the day I'd thought we would have COMPLETED, I was well on the way to having packed up our belongings from the rented flat we were in, and it was 10 days from end of lease/notice period. We're now staying in a friend's spare room waiting for baby to arrive (it's an ok distance for DH to travel to work) and after baby arrives we'll be in my parents spare room (not commuting range). After 2 weeks paternity leave, who knows.

It all feels very Mary and Joseph. Sorry, none of this is helpful but just to say, you're not the only one.

I've been advised to keep track of all the times I've phoned to chase up etc etc and think about claiming against the seller's solicitors after it's all over but tbh it has only cost me muchos inconvenience (storing belongings) and stress (because of imminent baby) rather than financial hardship. The seller should be hopping mad because she's the one with the debt problems, and she moved into rented accom at the same time as we thought completion was supposed to happen, because she's not very clever about financial things and her solicitors had failed to point out to her all the hoops that needed to be jumped in order to get the debts de-registered from the property title.

ho-hum...

[queenrollo]

blimey - you have it much worse than me!! i really hope you can get it resolved soon.

well i've phoned our new case handler 10 mins ago. What a breath of fresh air after the last one. He was clear about what is happening and gave me a full explanation rather than the standard 'we're waiting for a response'......so, the sellers sol. is trying to contact the sols further up in the chain to establish exchanges etc so that we can exchange. He was waiting to hear back from them this afternoon, but hadn't yet. If he hasn't had a response by end of day he will chase them up first thing tomorrow. I explained DP's difficulty with contact during the day and so he has agreed to phone me at home as soon as he has news, and if i've heard nothing i am to phone him early afternoon to chase him up.
I fee much better now and confident that we have a pushy case handler who is actually chasing this and not waiting for it to happen.

[queenrollo]

i just remembered something so got our paperwork out.

our seller was asked on this form if the sale was dependant on him buying another property and he said no, but if we're in a chain and can't exchange until he does then that's not strictly true is it?

[queenrollo]

grrrr

still waiting for movement further along the chain. We have been misled by our solicitors and are not happy. Unfortunately the relevant piece of information was given over the phone and i'm not sure we have it in writing, so won't be able to prove it.

I'm beginning to think that we're going to have to put our stuff in storage and find somewhere else to stay for a short while. I hope not, but i need to put some plans in place, just in case.

[LIZS]

I don't think it is that uncommon to answer no to that q, such as if he were thinking of moving itno rented if he couldn't find soemwhere else suitable in time or may have changed his mind during the process.

[queenrollo]

i understand that LIZ....

i'm just frustrated that in 3 whole months, and when they knew from the beginning we had to complete by the 27th no-one has mentioned we are in a chain and therefore some of this may be beyond their control. I'm currently having a circular argument about this with my case handler.

And the fact that we handed in our notice here after specifically asking (on two occassions, once by DP and once myself) if we could definitely complete and move on the 27th. We were told we would, there would be no problem with that.

Of course that was on the phone. Not sure we have it in writing so can't prove it. DP going to check his e-mail when he gets in just in case.

[queenrollo]

we have now had an admission that they only found out about the chain yesterday. er.....is that not a question they are supposed to ask at some point? or am i missing the point of paying them a lot of money to do this for me.

We also have had 'while my colleague may have said there was a possibility of completing by end of July'.....no she didn't. She stated when asked outright if we could that yes we could. Now i understand she may have said that because she was under the impression there was no chain to hold us up, but that is not my fault.

If we've not got any definite answers by tomorrow then we are going to have to arrange to put our stuff in storage and figure out what the hell we're going to do in the meantime. I am incredibly lucky that my son is with his dad three and half days a week, so i can probably stay at my mum's the days i have him (he'll think that's great, fortunately).

our solicitors have been completely useless all the way through this. we made a bad choice.

[LIZS]

I wonder if the vendor's solicitor has been as straightforward as he/she might have been . Also your EA should have been aware as it is their role to smooth the wheels. No less frustarting for you though.

[queenrollo]

i may phone the EA tomorrow to ask if she was aware of the forward chain.

[queenrollo]

still no news.

we can only get one removal firm to take a provisional booking(or any booking for that matter) for next week and they want £600 so we're having to do it the way we really didn't want to and hire a van and get friends to help. We've had to hunt round for storage that isn't a 40 mile drive from the new house.

The stress has triggered two ailments that haven't troubled me for years and i feel awful.

i'm waiting for ds's dad to come and collect him and then we're going away for a few days and having to take all the paperwork and relevant numbers with us so we can we arrange things while we're away.
My solicitor keeps saying 'any day now' and i really feel he's just fobbing me off now and is laying all the blame on the seller and his solicitor for not declaring the chain.

I am never moving again.