Advice on house buying as a single mum

[mumyes]

I'm buying a house, have legal advice etc but he is just sending me huge long survey reports / search reports and I don't really know where to start. It feels as if he's just covering his area with sending me long reports but not really highlighting anything / putting anything into lain English.

I feel as if he's giving no real 'advice' & just feel a bit clueless!!

Can anyone conveyancers help make any helpful suggestions - what to ask solicitor, what to look for, etc.

Thanks

Generally you just read through the reports, and if you notice anything about the house that's very different to what you thought when you put an offer in (e.g. needs a new roof, or has a covenant meaning you can't build a proper fence in your garden) you might want to revise your offer price or rethink if you want to buy the house. Most of what they find is trivial but you have to trawl through it to find any bigger issues.

Sorry, but I have to start with being a single mum is irrelevant.

I agree that buying a house means a lot of paperwork. But that's why your solicitor is there. Ring them up and ask them to summarise what each document says and what implications there are for you.

If you've had the house survey done, and you didn't just go for a valuation survey, it's written up in sections regarding the area of the house (roof, brickwork etc) and each area is rag rated. Reds are things that need sorting (and you could go back to the seller to negotiate a price reduction if these things are significant cost to fix). Amber's and greens are mostly fine.

Solicitors will do the bare minimum wherever they can. You're paying them, so ask them all your questions.

Good luck with the purchase.

solicitors may do the bare minimum because they are working on a fixed fee. The less you pay the more they pare their service to the bone.

I do see what you mean re first point but it kinda is relevant- no one to share the load / give a second opinion. But definitely not 'oh I can't do this!!'

Anyway, thanks!

Your solicitor is a) likely on a fixed fee so it’s in his interests to do as little work as possible whilst still getting the job done and b) probably has a huuuuge caseload to manage BUT that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have a duty to ensure that you are fully informed before proceeding with the purchase.

His reports are likely to be based on templates where he just fills in the blanks - I would ask him to summarise each paragraph, in plain English and to highlight any action points. If anything it’ll ensure that he is fully aware of any concerns.

I’m a solicitor and it baffles me that we continue to use such antiquated terminology!

This is relevant, I've done both, bought as a single mum and bought whist married, it's a huge difference to have someone else involved in the decision making and to share the mental load and the worry with.
The only advice I can give us to try to spend a few interrupted hours going through report and highlighting every area of concern, mine was pages and pages long but there was really minor stuff listed (loose fence panels, cracked patio slabs etc) when I got down to the bones of it there was nothing major that was wrong.

Not anyone's problem that the solicitor is doing the bare minimum.
We ask for their service and then we pay them their required fee.
Nobody is bartering here.
regardless of the fee the job still should be done to a high standard.

That wasn't very clear sorry.
what I mean is it is not the clients fault that the price is the price.
The required service should be to a high standard regardless.

No. You should always expect it to be done without negligence but it is always going to be a case of “here, read this” rather than someone spend an hour dumbing it down.

It’s like a car. You always want it to work, but a mini isn’t a rolls Royce.

do you know any builder / someone in the construction industry that can look over the survey report, I would get some family members also to have a read over it.

I bought on my own and didn’t find the solicitors very helpful at all but had a wonderful really helpful mortgage advisor who was very helpful when it came to asking advice ( I didn’t ask them to look at the survey though as that would be beyond their remit). There is no harm in asking Questions even if they are not able to reply.
Also get someone else to view the property with you.
On my survey it noted that there was signs of woodworm in the attic so I was able to get a couple of thousand off the asking price to cover the treatment and replacement of attic insulation.

if there is furniture in the house ask your solicitor what is included

There is also a lot of info online

Good luck!

This is relevant, I've done both, bought as a single mum and bought whist married, it's a huge difference to have someone else involved in the decision making and to share the mental load and the worry with.

I hope this post doesn't derail the thread, but
I've done both too @Creamteasandbumblebees

I found it made no difference at all, in fact a purchase as a single mum was easier than being married. I guess it's because my XH left it all to me, so I just got on with it and did all the work to buy every house we owned singlehandedly. 5 times I did it alone, despite being married.

Every decision that should have been made as a couple was a drag, as I had to explain to him what I understood from the document, gave him all the options I thought were options, told him what the solicitor said about the document, try and discuss it, only for him to turn around and say "I don't know. I trust your judgement" He wouldn't even read the documents. But I felt I had to do it every time, as it was our purchase, not my purchase.

He didn't even have finance to contribute to the first or second house, and was counted as a dependent on my salary.

Buying my own house post divorce as a single mum was such a breeze. Easiest house purchase I ever made.

Posting this has resulted in the second time today that I thanked God I'm now divorced. I've seen yet another benefit I hadn't seen before. 3 years on and I'm still spotting new ones!

Single mum home owner here. Just read over the report a few times, make a note or anything you don't understand, google it. If you're still confused, email your solicitor for clarification.

You are no less capable a human being because you're a woman or single.

I can only tell you what we’ve had to do and we have both been clueless together. Yes it is much easier to have someone to bounce questions, thoughts and ideas off, even if that other person doesn’t know!

Ask about indemnity insurances (to protect against existing covenants, building works without permission, the windows, tithes owed to churches etc.)

In the survey you need to read it a few times and I would have a pen and paper to not down what you don’t understand (or a highlighter). Then you can go back to your solicitor or surveyor with specific questions - has the surveyor talked you through their report yet?

Is there movement in the house (subsidence, upheave etc)? Is the roof sound or leaking? Are the windows in a good state of repair or leaking? If they’ve been replaced have the lintels been removed or kept (we found this issue on a 1930’s property) Any rights of way or covenants on the land? Did you check the toilets flush and the shower works? When we went back for a second viewing we found a very large crack that went fully from inside to out above a drain, below a window - that was a ‘no’ for us.

is it freehold or lease hold?

What sort of house is it?

I tend to find a useful question in these sorts of situations is: if you were me, what would you be be concerned about/asking for more information on?

Having 2 clueless people is worse and besides, many ask friends and family for their input. Not just their OH.
You need to:
a) Get an understanding of WHAT each report is
https://www.theadvisory.co.uk/conveyancing/conveyancing-searches/
A lot of these will come up clean so you don't even need to read them and the sol should highlight any issues
b) Go through to double check and ask the solicitor specifically whether there are any issues

The property survey has nothing to do with your solicitor and isn't legally required so I'm guessing you're not asking about those, rather the standard searches?

I’ve bought as a single mum and as a couple. It was easier buying as a single mum as I only had myself to worry about.

to be honest I doubt any run of the mill conveyancer is going to write you an extensive summary of all the documents you don’t understand. Focus on any areas of concern and ask him if he has any.

I do agree- it is a weird thing that some women still think having a penis is relevant for conveyancing knowledge

If you pay for them to do the bare minimum, you should not expect them to do more for free. There are conveyancers that will explain every little thing to op - they will cost thousands and thousands. If she pays for a basic service she can’t expect to get something else

My lawyer always gives a summary of the reports and highlights anything she wants me to be aware of. I'm not a lawyer, and there are things that need pointing out, regardless of your sex or whether you have kids!
If yours isn't doing this I'd ask 'anything out of the ordinary or you think I need to be aware of'? Still read through the reports - they are pretty straightforward. Be aware of: rights of way, covenants, disputes, proposed building works etc.

You don't need every single thing explained, rather a quick summary.
I.e mine said:
here is the mining survey - to check for any history of mining in the area. No problem here.
here is abc report - checks for xyz problems. No issues .
And so on.

Was a middling priced solicitor and my case handler was actually a paralegal but she did a fabulous job. No complaints.

I found that helpful, although TBF I did not find any of the reports particularly long and double checked myself anyway. But then, I'm used to reading paragraphs of technical standards and documentation with no headings. None of these came even close.

I think being sent a pile of official looking things with no context would be intimidating if you're not used to it.