To pull out of house sale 😒

[Brooksey5]

Several people have told me that we should avoid exchanging contracts on the house we’re buying. In case the markets crash and we end up in megastore equity. We’re first time buyers and it took us ages to find a house we like in the area that we want.

Our Mortgage is for 60% of the property value so it’s seems really unlikely to me that the value will go below what we have the mortgage for. (Not that it would be great to to loose that much cash)

But we just want to get on with life, stop renting and have somewhere we can call our own. I accept that we probably won’t be able to move for a few months. But is it so bad to still want to proceed with this house?

We were due to complete after mid April and it's all going quite slow just now, I am also confused

@StarryEyed88 I am in Scotland, what does it mean the Land Registry is closed, when did this happen? I've tried googling it and I cannot find anything? Thank you

AleenaM, you mean you have exchanged but not completed? That means you have a legal obligation to complete.

The OP's situation is different: they haven't exchanged yet, so they can still walk away with no penalties.

Just be careful OP. My friend is supposed to move next week and her removal company has now pulled out. They can't get anyone to help but if they don't move by the allotted day next week then their buyers can (and probably will because they're twats) sue them. They're in a horrendous situation.

We are about to complete on our house. Still going ahead (have no choice as we have exchanged). I wouldn't want to wait for the market to crash anyway. We have waited long enough. Have no plans to move until we are retired so I'm not going to worry about it.

@SouthLondonDaddy we have not exchanged yet as still waiting for some documentation from the seller, needed for the mortgage lender too. Which is another source of stress as I was meant to give 28days notice to the landlord and we're now less than 28days away

As @HopeYouStepOnALego said, it might be so difficult to actually move too, we are (hopefully) renting a van, but a lot of renting places are already closed/not taking bookings for the date I need!

@AleenaM if you google Registers of Scotland, click on their website then on the Covid-19 update. It’s aimed at Solicitors but basically no property sale can complete at the moment. Basically they have closed and like a lot of legal work, it’s all paper based. They are working on a digital solution and hope to update by the end of the week. Your Solicitor will be able to update you, as each firm will have a different approach.

Have you got your mortgage offer?

There is an item in the news that Michael Gove has said to pause the process and not exchange. I imagine this is for health reasons rather than financial.

I imagine your whole chain will pause. These things happen. It took us nearly a year to complete a house sale and purchase during the Iraq war. We still ended up buying the same house that we had offered on originally. The prices had gone down over that time and we had to accept a lower offer on our house from first time buyers but we just adjusted our purchase accordingly and I imagine the rest of the chain did the same.

www.theguardian.com/business/2020/mar/26/housing-market-frozen-by-government-during-coronavirus-lockdown

The market isn’t going to crash, it didn’t in 2008

Maybe not in your area! I bought in 2007 and sold for a 10k loss in 2017. That’s how much that crisis hit prices here