Anyone gone through a part-exchange with homes?

[cal79]

Should have known from the outset it was too good to be true but anyway.

We are part-exchanging our current house with a well-known builder for a new build and are starting to come up against a few niggles. Does anyone have any experience of this process. Would really appreciate any tips and advice you can give. Current niggles are - they want a £500 deposit which they will refund 10 days after we move out of current house upon a satisfactory inspection (?!?) What does the £500 cover - if there is a slight chip in the paintwork will they bill us for it etc. Also, they originally said we could obtain some sort of license to enable us to have access to both properties for a weekend to help the move process. Now however, they're saying we probably won't be able to have this as the people buying our current house will want to move in on the same weekend (what about that so-called inspection?!).

Like I said, any tips would be a huge help. I've already said that dreaded statement "we're never moving again"!

Thanks ladies.

Hmmm, we part exchanged our house 5 years ago and had a week to move out of our old house (they didn't manage to sell it for a couple of months).
No inspection, nothing, no deposit.

I'd start being firm, they won't want to hold things up, they want to sell that house to you.

The £500/inspection thing sounds bonkers, what happens normally in a sale? Kick up a fuss.

We part exchanged 10 years ago so might be abit out of date now. We had paid a deposit to secure the plt £100 I think and got it back on completiong but wasn't conditional on state of our flat. We also had a few days to hand in keys, think it was Friday to Monday.
People are still desperate to sell houses so I'd say you're not happy and reconsidering.

I'm not drunk or a nutter just a rubbish typist.

We did it four years ago. I recall paying a deposit on the new house, but there were no conditions attached with regard to state of old house and deposit (£1,000 I think) was knocked off the price of the new one.

The builder gave us the keys on trust about a week before the move, so we could go in, measure up, put our curtains up, move in breakables etc.

Mind you, this was a local builder, not a big national company.

we found it pretty much trauma free and it was lovely not having to pay an estate agent or having people trooping round at an hour's notice.

Would definitely recommend it.

We bought from Barratt a few years ago part exchanging my house. They did withhold a £500 deposit but it was more to make sure that the house was clean and tidy all rubbish removed etc.

I'd ask them to specify the conditions of the £500 withholding so both parties can be clear what it's for (I've had recent experience of a housebuilder going back on their (verbal) agreement).