please help - what should we do about this <blank> house?

[serenequeen]

here is the situation.

some of you may know that we have been attempting to move house for quite a while (previously discussed on mumsnet, but i can't find the thread now).

we told the estate agents and our solicitors some while ago that if we hadn't exchanged contracts by 4th June we would have to postpone our move until October (due to the fact that i'm currently nearly 33wks pg - baby due at end july) - wanting to allow 4 wks between exchange and completion to make sure the stress on us (we have a toddler as well) was minimised.

our buyers have had trouble with their buyers and to cut a long story short are now running behind schedule. last week we reluctantly agreed to move our deadline to this friday 11th june. have just been told by the estate agent that they will not be able to exchange contracts this friday, but will "definitely" be able to do it by next friday, leaving us 2 wks between exchange and completion. of course there is no guarantee whatsoever that we would be able to exchange next week either.

needless to say i'm getting a lot of pressure from the estate agent to agree to this - e.g. it's very usual (he says) to have only this amount of time between exchange and completion. i'm getting irritated by the hard sell, by the lack of understanding of our situation (most people aren't in an advanced state of pg with difficulty walking some days) and by the fact that we are getting this grief even though we have been consistent right from the outset about what our needs were in terms of timing. that's the sale of our house.

on the purchase side, we are ready to exchange subject to agreement on the fixtures and fittings (also discussed before on mumsnet - can't find that one either) and to consideration for items highlighted from the building survey needing immediate attention.

the seller has been quite adamant from the outset that they are taking most things with them (including the bath from the second bathroom) and what they are leaving they are charging hefty prices for. so far they have refused to consider lowering the price of the house in consideration for a breached damp course and woodworm infestation (house not already priced to reflect that this type of work might need to be done).

dh and i have estimated the costs of not coming to agreement on either of these things and think the additional cost to us would be in the region of £15,000. since we also have my maternity leave to fund for 3m, i'm very reluctant to raid our savings for this much money, especially as we had earmarked it for improvements of our own, not for just making the place habitable, iyswim.

so wise mumsnetters, should i give them the extra week, pull out now, or stick to our plan b of potentially moving in october? (of course our buyer and seller might call the whole thing off if we don't move till october).

thanks in advance

ps - has anyone else noticed they can't find things on search atm?

If it is really necessary you can even exchange and complete on the same day.If your solicitor has everything in place.We did this last time we moved as things were dragging on a bit HTH

We've always exchanged and completed on the same day, didn't actually realise it was normal to have a gap and not sure why you need one? that said the situation with the place you're buying would have me panicking. sellers sound like idiots.

noddy, i'm sorry but if we leave it till then i will be 36wks pg - perhaps there are people out there who could stand to be at that stage of pg not knowing if they are going to move or not before the baby is born but i am not one of them.

It depends partly on how keen you are to move - and how disappointed you would be if you lost the house you are trying to buy, for instance. I personally in your position would at least drop very serious hints about the deal being delayed until Oct or even being off altogether to see if this makes anyone get off their backsides. It is more the situation with the house you are buying that would concern me rather than with the sale of yours - as noddy said, exchange and completion can happen on the same day if necessary, but the people you are buying from seem to be being unreasonable and I would try and hold out on that one.

Re the search facility, have you been searching current and archived messages? Threads are being archived fairly promptly so you may need to try both. I haven't been having any trouble as long as I remember to try the archive.

HTH.

i have had it in mind that we need a gap to book the removal co, reorganise the utilities etc. i suppose we could still book the removal co (hoping we didn't lose a deposit if we cancelled late in the day) but i don't see how we could sort the utilities out without at least a week's grace. i would love to be wrong about this - but would still have the issue of it being very late in the day before we knew for certain if we were moving prior to baby's arrival.

gingernut, yes i have tried both archived and current, maybe it is just me!

yes we have stated our position on the timing (including the october plan b) very clearly all along - which is why i'm a bit pissed off it is suddenly an "issue" - to be fair everyone is moving as fast as they can, these things can just take ages.

SQ I know exactly what you mean about the 'not' knowing bit. Our sale went exactly the same and we were only told days before exchange that we would be completing the following week. It was a nightmare. We were nmoving over 200 miles and I just found it soooooooo stressful. I would be adament and put your foot down that you want a set date NOW. We never got one until we said look we want 21st April to complete and put our foot down. many sympathies from me, moving when that preganant must be hard.

As for your damp and timber problems. Are you sure it will cost THAT much? I only ask because we are having damp and timber treatment and the whole basement waterproofing fdor 4k on a victorian house. Obviously if you have a HUGe house the price will be different! but shop around. Our seller never dropped the price either

I'm with SQ on this one - I have never wanted to book removal cos etc until the exchange is done - too much risk that they would pull out at the last minute. I have done 2 weeks between exchange and completion though and provided you have all the removers etc set to go then it was ok.

SQ - re your purchase I'm not sure what to advise - it all depends on whether you want the house enough. We had a £30k estimate of all the work to be done when we bought our current house and they only agreed to a £5k drop in price. We just had to swallow very hard because we loved the house.

I booked and cancelled my removals twice, I think they do have this happen alot

Booking removals close to date could be a problem, but utilities shouldn't be. Assuming the property already has electricity/gas, you can change them over after you move in.

I guess if it were me, given the various hassle factors, I'd say that 25th June is last viable exchange date, with completion a week later. That would give a week to cancel removals if needed, and I would think you wouldn't get charged if you cancelled with one week's notice.

If it's any consolation...we may be in a similar position come July... We want to exchange by 30 June & are hoping to complete 29 July. In our case because DS starts school in September and we are buying in a town different from where we are living now. If the whole thing gets too far delayed, we'll have to rent in that town instead if we don't want DS to switch schools only weeks after starting -- that means a 6 months rental contract... when the house we're buying isn't even our dream property? We are leaning all over the seller and soliciters to make the end June exchange possible.

oh thank you for all these comments. this has all been so stressful!

dino - yes our current place is survivable.

we really, really like the house we're going for. it has the space we want, the type of house is v. unusual for the area (i.e. hardly any available like this), don't have to change the schools ds is down for, is much nearer a lovely park and despite the fact we can survive quite easily for a limited time with our current space, i just thought it would have been easier to do it now than later with a small baby - not to mention prices keep going up.

however, it is not our perfect dream house. it will need work doing on one of the bathrooms and the kitchen will need to be redone. it backs on to a council estate and is not far from a red light area (we knew about these things - obviously they contribute to the fact this house is within our price range - nevertheless they make us nervous!). the security of the house needs improving.

so we are trying to weigh up the good and bad points in the light of the behaviour of the sellers.

the 15k is not just for the damp course and the beetles, it's also to replace the basic fixtures and fittings that the buyers are taking, including replacing the bath in the second bathroom, and also covers the redecorating which will be needed after the damp course etc has been done. in addition, we are trying to make a provision for extra work which could be needed to replaced decayed timber (full inspection not possible). there are also other small items which arose from the survey which we have also included. we haven't specified a figure to the buyers for all of this.

Dinosaur, we
did exchange and completion on the same day as part of a chain of 12. All went fine. Didn't think we had especialy great communication between all parties either.

forgot to mention - due a previous subsidence claim on the house, our proposed insurers will not give us buildings insurance without a £5k excess (normally £1k). of course this could also impact our ability to sell the house on in future. vendors don't want to negotiate on this point either. this makes me nervous for a number of reasons - considering the fees associated with the txn will be £25k, £15k worth of work to be done in the next few months, my maternity leave to fund, i have to face the possibility we might not actually have £5k to spare if we get subsidence in the next few months!

btw - alternative title i considered for this thread "gut feel v. cold feet - should i go ahead with this house or run a mile!"

Sounds like you know what you want to do, really, SQ. Given this chance to think it over, you don't want to buy this particular house!
What happens if you give up on buying this house completely, then?

think you know you should run as that is what your instinct is teeling you

hmmmm i think everyone gets cold feet though, I certainly did. I posted threads on dropping out of ours, I remember

thanks!

i'm really not sure what my instinct is telling me tbh - i think it would be perfectly normal to have jitters before a big life changing event like a move! don't forget it is also the perfect projection space for fears about a second child to manifest themselves as well!

please keep the comments coming they are very useful - dh and i are just going round and round on this

sqbk, here is your thread about fixtures and fittings!

(Seems to be the date part that isn't working - if you don't put one in it finds things OK!)

thanks, janh i've just had no luck with the searches recently... must be doing something daft.

I have to say the more I read the more I loathe these people you're buying from. They sound most intractable. My gut reaction would be to tell them to bugger off. The costs seem to be mounting as well as the work that needs doing. And what a pain it would be to do all this work with a tiny baby & a toddler in the house.
And you did say it wasn't your dream house.
Run away!

My gut feeling would be to give this house a miss. You've already flagged up a lot of stuff that will need doing. Most people find other stuff once they move in. Would your savings stretch to anything more?

We were in the process of buying a house just over 2 years ago. Everything seemed fine and then problems kept emerging. We were already getting rather jittery and had infact decided to pull out because of these problems (problems which the vendors kept dismissing as not serious - well, they were to us!), when our current house came on the market. It is a wonderful house which I absolutely love (apart from the cleaning ) and I think it was meant to be.

If you are feeling uncertain about this house (and there already seem to be a number of issues about the area), either pull out or get really assertive with the buyers.