House buying - tell me how it worked out well after it all went pear shaped.

[ItscoldinAlaska]

I am feeling a bit down and deflated. Found a Victorian house with that elusive 4th bedroom that we desperately need. DS1 (17) is sharing with DS2(13) and it is not going well. Put my tiny 3 bed new build house up for sale last week and sold it to the first viewer. Put in an offer of 6k under asking (needed work) last week, rejected, they wanted 2.5k under asking. Offered that. Yesterday told that we had lost out to first time buyers who had offered what we offered.

I didn't love the house (the garden was dark and the upstairs was very old and poky, probably needed new floors and replastering) but feel a bit that we have to start searching again and nothing on the market. Please tell me stories of how things worked out for the best with your house buying after it went wrong. People keep saying 'these things happen for a reason'.

We were all packed signed contracts in hand ready to take to solicitors when our buyer pulled out!! After a lot of crying and swearing (and wine) the house went back on the market and we sold again relativity quickly and for more money too. The seller of our house was a knob though and said we were unreliable and refused to take our house off the market, we moved in with a for sale sign outside.

My brother found a perfect (massive!) house but couldn't sell his quick enough and it sold. A few weeks later he got three offers in one day on his house and then a phone call to say the perfect house had fallen through and were they interested, they are very happy there now.

@Bananacocks OMG that is horrendous. I feel much better now. I would have been crying too if I had packed!

Found a dream plot to buy to build our own home. Found buyers for our house - a difficult sell for a billion reasons. Buyers were in love with our house - told us they had two properties on the market and could commit when one of those had a sale. They sold one, then immediately told us the other would have to sell too. (We should have gone back on the market at that point but for some reason didn't. They were very irritating buyers too - kept wanting to come round to measure up/asking us to put up a fence at the back of the garden/talking about taking down trees in front of us etc etc).

In the meantime a rival buyer for our plot turned up on the owners' doorstep with a carrier bag with £10,000 in cash in an attempt to get her to sell to them. Luckily she refused and stuck to her word but I'm not sure I would have in her case.

Eventually everything went through and we built our dream home.

Never again will I be in a chain. From now on it's sell first, move to rental, then buy as the bottom of a chain

@Purplewithred - that sounds v.stressful.

People keep telling me to sell, move into a holiday let/rental and buy after stamp duty holiday ends but I have moved my DC 7 times since 2014 (fleeing an abusive marriage). I can't do it to them again. I think that is why I feel so wound up.

Sorry to hear this OP. But there will be other houses! I promise!

We’ve had some awful experiences. When we sold our first house, our buyer pulled out the day before exchange. We’d already sold loads of our furniture by that point so it was a nightmare. We ended up selling a few months later to a lovely family. It wasn’t ideal, but it was all ok in the end.

A few years later we were looking to buy and found the perfect house. It was exactly what we wanted. Our offer was accepted, then after a few weeks the vendor pulled out. We were gutted, there were lots of tears, and the very next week we found the house we’re in now! It has an extra bedroom, better location and a bigger driveway. During the process of buying this, the EA for the first house got in touch to say that the vendor now wanted to proceed with the sale! It felt good to turn them down.

My house went on the market in January of 2020. Lots of interest and snapped up - but then long drawn-out selling/buying process which fell through in the end. This happened 4 TIMES! No problem getting buyers, but problem with getting to completion (buyers furloughed, mortgage offers withdrawn, fear of move with virus etc. etc.) Now on my fifth buyer and am awaiting date for exchange, but no word from their solicitors.

In the middle of this saga my OH died.

During this process I lost one house I was buying and have had to go for another.

It is a totally iniquitous system. I am worn out with it.

@Mischance that is truly awful. I am so sorry to hear about your OH. That puts my disappointment about a silly house in perspective. I am so sorry you are having it so tough

After looking for 18 months we had our offer accepted on a beautiful character cottage, right on the edge of a huge green area, across a busy road. The basis of the acceptance was that we go as quickly as we could as the owner wanted to move for her son's schooling. We had a buyer for our flat and were happy to proceed ASAP.

Problem was, the cottage had a cellar and in that cellar is a well. The walls or the cellar were slick with moisture, but we were hoping to convert it, so weren't phased. Our bank were and we couldn't switch mortgages as we were tied in for 3 more years. We had to pay for 2 damp surveys because the bank didn't specify what qualifications they wanted from the survey (despite me asking them) and rejected the first. At the same time we paid for a structural survey due to multiple concerns raised in the homebuyers survey. When we'd told her about these problems, she said that it 'is a lovely house full of character that has stood for 125 years' and that surveys are meant to scare you and shouldn't be taken seriously...
The bank came back and said the only circumstances they would give us a mortgage for the place was if 8k of remedial work was done to the cellar. They also gave us £500 in compensation for how badly they had messed us around for weeks with the damp survey and promising to get in touch and then not doing so/ not giving us any answers.

The seller then asked if we would pay for the work on her house (um.... no) and had already threatened to put it back on the market by this point as we were 'messing her around' and had promised a quick sale. We had spent thousands on her house by this point and literally couldn't have been trying any harder to buy it. Our buyer had asked what the hold up was and got frustrated that we couldn't move until work had been done and certified, which could take a few weeks at least. We warned our seller that our buyer was getting concerned (mistake!) to keep her updated. The next day she put the house back on the market and told us we had messed her around and played with her son's future.

I wished her all the best and sent her the damp reports so that she could look into fixing it so she could sell it better and said I hoped she could find buyers she actually trusted. I kept the super expensive structural report. The house went back on the market and had lots of viewings bit no offers until 5 months later, when it then sold for 13k less than what we had agreed on and 55k less than original asking price.

We found a house the next street along, set back from the main road with an extra bedroom, en suite, private parking, an extra reception room, a door that doesn't open directly from the pavement into the lounge and one where wheelie bins don't have to come through the house because there's no outside access to the garden.

I cried many tears and poured thousands into that cottage but it just wasn't meant to be. Where we are now is so much better for us and our family, I wish I'd known at the time. Admittedly this house had a flea and rat infestation when we moved in, so it definitely wasn't smooth sailing, but we're out the other side now!

@Bumblebee413 ahh that gives me so much hope! I had a lot of reservations about the house we were buying, I wasn't convinced that the attic floor or the main bedroom floor was safe and I was going to have to pay out for a floor survey and a structural survey as the attic room had not been officially 'done'. I am hoping we find somewhere close by but better set up, like you have! I am so glad you are settled now. that is all i want after 7 years of turmoil. Somewhere safe and 'home'.

I don't think I'd fully appreciated how many reservations I had until we had our offer accepted on this one and all I felt was calm and hopeful! No more broken sleep! Wishing you all the best. This is a far better outcome than I appreciated when we were in the middle of it. X

Our story isn’t quite as bad or extreme as PP’s, but after renting for 10+ years and expecting DC3, we were finally in a position to buy.

Found a lovely house, perfect if you will. Offer accepted, solicitors instructed, everything fell through at the last minute. After 3 months or so of our hopes being up.

Again, found another house. Bigger and cheaper than the last, but needed work. We would have money left over to do it. Great.
Again this one fell through. Again after quite a long time.

Third time lucky, our home came up on the market. I booked a viewing that day. The EA said we were the 8th people to view it. Put in an offer the next day. A bit of too-ing and fro-ing with offers, we were accepted. Yay. The next day, phone call from EA - someone had offered more. Quite a bit more. We couldn’t afford to go any higher. Another one lost, or so we thought.

Driving back from a few days away 2 months later, unexpected phone call - the EA saying it had all fallen through with buyer, and were we still interested. Said yes and our previous offer still stood.

Upon a surveyor checking the house, few issues found so I decreased our offer - anyway long story short, the house we are in now is huge compared to the previous two we nearly bought. Needed some work, but it is so much better suited to our needs. Also, from that phone call to us receiving the keys, was 7 weeks! It was through December so I think everyone was happy to rush it through before all the bank holidays. In our case everything really did happen for a reason.

Oh, and with the issues found, we actually had it for £10k less than our original offer. We are in a big house with a lovely big garden, for a bargain price.

Everyone kept telling us “these things happen” etc etc, but I know when you get your heart set on something, especially a home, it’s so hard to take when it goes tits up. But hang on in there, you will get there!

Nothing useful to add except we missed out on a house I never thought we could afford a couple of weeks ago and I'm just gutted. Our offer was rejected in favour of buyers with no chain. So please keep these coming, these stories are giving me hope!

@Stormspass20 - it is a nightmare isn't it? The housing market at the moment is bonkers and part of me is caught between panic that we need to get in there and then the other half of me is like 'Fuck you, I am not playing your game'. It will happen for us. I am in the north (Yorkshire) so I dunno how people who are gambling on 400k houses are coping with it!

@ItscoldinAlaska exactly! It feels like a race with no time to stop and think properly. And with such a big commitment you really shouldn't feel panicked. We're also in Yorkshire (W) in a small town that's seen lots of improvements over the past few years so is now in high demand. I can't stop thinking about the one that got away. Waahh.

ItscoldinAlaska - thank you for your kind thoughts.

Looks as if exchange is about to happen - fingers crossed!

I do think it is such an iniquitous system in England. People can say they are going to buy but do not have to put their money where their mouth is - in the meantime the seller is accumulating solicitor fees for sales that did not complete.

I am having a nightmare currently, I have bought a house before but never bought and sold and I think I was naive to all the game playing and everyone working to their own agenda! Put our house up in October and sold within three days, waS ready to exchange and our buyer pulled out two weeks ago! The people we are buying off gave us a week to sell and luckily we have but we are right at the beginning of the process again and most of my house is in boxes, it’s been a nightmare and I never want to move again!

All these 'pulling out' buyers are the stuff of nightmares. Don't they have a penalty in Scotland, so if you do pull out you have to pay a penalty? It's morally wrong to commit to such a big financial transaction and just walk away.

@ItscoldinAlaska I totally agree! Especially after so many months and when you are just about to exchange, I think it is very morally wrong! Apparantly it is illegal in Scotland but I am not 100% sure.

@gingajewel It should be illegal! All it does it line the pockets of the conveyancers. They don't lose out. They are the only ones who don't!

We lost two houses. The first one, the seller (after a long time) decided not to sell. We've since realised the location of that one would have been more of a problem than we thought.

The second house, something came to light during the survey that we just couldn't afford to deal with. We'd really fallen in love with the house and planned exactly what we'd do to it. On sober reflection, it would have been a total money pit, and we'd have probably been able to afford to do half of what we planned. It was also on a main road (national speed limit) although a bit set back from it. Now we have a child, I'm realising how difficult that would be, particularly in a Welsh lockdown where exercise must start and end at home!!

The house we have now is honestly perfect and in a great location (though still a bit rural for a Welsh lockdown - we're allowed to meet people for exercise but I can't meet people for exercise because I'd have to travel!)

We accepted an offer on our house in Dublin. Our solicitor after a couple of weeks told us that the deeds to the house were missing and the deeds were still showing the previous owners details. We had lived in the house for 10 years at this point.

He eventually tracked them down to our original solicitor who was terminally ill and had handed over his business to another local solicitor. The acting solicitor didn't get his act together. In the end my partner flew to Dublin from England and demanded that the deeds be couriered to the mortgage centre.

The mortgage centre promised to act as soon as possible once they had the deeds. The woman's parting comment was ' i don't see what the big deal is you aren't the only one in this boat'. Sale finally completed our solicitor is amazed as it had been delayed by 12 weeks over the lost deeds.

A month after completing the sale we get a letter from the bank saying that as we had failed to pay our mortgage we would be charged penalties. We rang the bank to be told the mortgage hadn't been paid off and as far as they were concerned we were now in arrears. Eventually after getting the transaction details from our solicitor and being passed around the houses a bank clerk said ' Oh yeah I have that cheque I just haven't processed it yet'

@butterfly990 I hope you sued the solicitors.

We fell in love with a huge house that was unexpectedly in budget when we were selling ours. Of course, someone else snapped it up before we could.

However the house we've bought in the end has lots of things we like about the other house and is in a nicer location. Definitely meant to be!

We had similar happen OP. We put our house in the market for something we had fallen in love with. Got an offer very quickly and made an offer on said house. The EA said she wanted more, so DH asked what she would accept to take it off the market. We offered that sum, and three days later the EA came back and said she thought she might actually want a bit more. Infuriated, DH offered that, and again they said actually she wanted another £1k (the house had been on the market for six months). We decided to walk away, as predicted the whole sale might be a nightmare. There was nothing else around, but within two weeks, a cottage we had always lived came to market. We were first through the door, had an offer accepted very quickly abs have been happy here ever since.

Oh, and the other house eventually sold several months later for significantly less than even our first offer!

1st time buying:
First house, we put an offer in. Turns out we were just being used as bait to encourage the original buyers to move along and pay more. Lost it.
Second house, EA showed us round before they had technically taken ownership from other EA. EAs started arguing about who would get the commission. Pulled out.
Third house, offered, but again being used as bait. EA actually cancelled our mortgage application- do not ask me how, first we knew was when our broker called... Lost it.
Bought 4th house, repo, money pit, previously owned by dodgy builder who'd done midnight flit. Lots of issues but v fond of it.

Second time buying...
First house, agreed sale, progressing, when owners decided to get their dream house they needed more money, so were going to extend the property. Never heard an EA sound so pissed off! Lost it.
Second house, had finally come into our price range. Offered accepted, and I bust a gut going between two towns four times on public transport sorting paperwork. Went quiet for a few days, calls not being returned. EA then told us they'd gone with some FTBs instead. Lost it.

Final house, saw it, son seemed instantly at home, knew exactly where I was going to put my Xmas tree. Offered, accepted, I drove the sale hard. Perfect house, Edwardian terrace, tree lined street, perfect location, great schools, 3 double bedrooms...been here 7 years, never moving and will be carried out in a box! Property stuff in SE seems so much more vicious- all my friends back up on NW had nothing like this.

Good luck OP, it'll sort!