The decluttering, cleaning, vacating, pandering, nailbiting antics of the stressed out house sellers

[Spirael]

Starting a new thread, since our old one was almost full!

Anyone suffering the stresses of trying to sell a house is welcome to join us; anyone here to tell us our houses are crap and/or overpriced is not.

Hurray for Spirael!

I spent the morning doing more unpacking & now sorting out the most important address changes. Still shattered & bone-tired but feeling better than yesterday, when I had to go back to bed in the middle of the day as I was so tired!

DH just returned from fetching more of his furniture out of storage - more stuff to find room for, somewhere!

Spirael!! Are you in?

Well, would you believe it? We have a viewing on Saturday! Ah well, it'll make us clean up now.

We are in. Technically we were in yesterday but I've been busy running around attempting to resolve one nightmare after another.

Will rant the details once I have a proper keyboard but the main issue is that we spent the first night with no gas supply, so no central heating, hot water or cooking. Bloody freezing it was. Finally resolved late this afternoon.

Good luck with your viewing, Cuddy!! Will keep everything crossed.

They like it - they have viewed before. They have two houses one of which is sold. So they are looking at perhaps renting out the other property as they are struggling to sell it. They also viewed the competition house but hated which is good but bad for the owner as her partner has upped and left her without warning! Bad timing or what?

Hope you have warmth (and maybe flooring) Spirael.

Have you found a rental yet Toomuchtea?

Had plenty of over the past few days. Once we got the heating up, the house actually went to the other extreme and we woke up to a tropical 25 degrees! Bit of a change from the 5 degrees the day before. Been juggling thermostats since then and I've got it to settle at a reasonable temperature now, at least.

Basically, the problem was that the bank hadn't been paying the gas bills for the house (so there's going to be a whole lot of fun with debt collectors going forward I fear as they will try and make us pay the bill!) so the supplier had been out and switched the meter to a pre-pay one. Problem is, water had gotten into the card reader so it had broken, so we couldn't top it up to get any gas supply.

We'd contacted the supplier who had agreed to send an engineer out within four hours, but the appointment was then cancelled and we weren't informed. By the time it reached the end of the time the engineer was meant to have visited in, it was 10pm and the phonelines were closed. So we spent a very, very cold night with toddler DD and my disabled OAP father in the house!

Needless to say, there was a lot of grovelling done the following day by the supplier and an engineer was hastily sent out and the meter replaced. Though I did still have to shout at a few people to make it happen. Unfortunately they can't change us from a pre-pay meter until mid-January (but have agreed to do it for free, thank goodness), so we're paying through the nose for gas until then. But hey, at least we have gas/heating/cooking/hot water for Christmas!

Loads of other niggly problems too, for example finding the cabling for the aerial points so we could get the TVs working, but I've managed to get that sorted. No floors, earliest they can install is mid-Jan (grr) so we're living on concrete, but we have plenty of rugs down now.

But, we're in and we're starting to unpack and get settled. Initial niggles aside, the house is everything we were hoping. It's fantastic to wake up in a big bedroom, use the ensuite and then get dressed looking out over beautiful views before sauntering downstairs to make breakfast in the enormous kitchen and then sit in the big lounge.

Sounds good from your viewers, Cuddy! Any sniff of a good offer from them?

Good luck finding a nice rental, Toomuchtea! Hopefully lots of lovely new places will appear once Christmas is over and done.

Glad you're getting settled - niggles aside Spirael. No offers yet - apparently they're speaking to a mortgage person so we'll see.

Happy Christmas everyone! - and best of luck to those of you hoping for a buyer in 2013.

Spirael, we've had struggles with the heating too, we spent the first few days boiling hot until we worked out the thermostat. Now much more under control but the house overall is so warm we sleep with the bedroom window open (in December!)

The boiler is almost as old as I am - from 1977 - so replacing that is first priority next year.

Happy new year everyone! Spriael glad you're finally sorted! We have finally got an offer we're happy with!

A couple looking to invest came on Sunday, put in offer of 130k few hours later (we wanted 135), we said we wanted more, then this morning they came back with 132,500 which we're going to accept! So exciting/terrifying! First steps are to ring mortgage company to confirm, then we'll ring them to accept, then we need to put the offer in on new one I think...

We want to get gasman/electrician/builder in to get quotes, does anyone know if you can do this before putting offer in? Or does it depend on seller/estate agent?

Well done Pootles! How exciting.

Our local couple are still very interested but now need to sell their second house and are going to reduce their asking price. So we shall see what happens. As far as we know the Nottingham people are interested too.

Ooh - interesting Toomuchtea!! Don't ask, don't get. I'd like to avoid renting if possible as I am thinking about getting another pug this year and I know people aren't keen on pets, especially puppies when renting.

We've done the same toomuchtea with the notes through doors just after Christmas. Think we maybe did 60-80 houses and we're got 3 replies so far - have seen 2 and both possibilities, seeing the other at the weekend. Pretty good for the cost of some ink and envelopes and I think it's the right time of year to do it with people thinking about plans for the coming year.
Just seen they want you out by the end of Jan! eek!!

Cuddy it is illegal for a landlord to state 'no kids' or 'no pet's or even 'no smokers'. The legal precedent is that when you rent a place it is your home and that you are legally entitled to do anything that would be considered normal in a home. The landlord might prefer no pets but m'eh if it's just for a short time don't tell them?

That's not quite right in England & Wales YellowWellies (and definitely not good advice!) - the only "illegal" things are those covered by discriminatory legislation (so landlord's cannot discriminate on grounds of age, sex, race).

Landlord's can specify that they won't rent to smokers/those with pets on HB and can include it as an Special Condition (so it is deemed agreed between the parties)

Good luck with the house selling/ new houses

I would always declare the pets when renting and invite the landlord/agent to see my existing home to see that I don't live in a fleapit :). My teenagers would cause far more damage then my animals!

Landlords can specify it as a special condition but so far as any activity specified as such is deemed something that would be expected in quiet enjoyment of a property - such conditions have been found to be unfair contract terms in the law courts.

Just offer an additional pet deposit - I've never met a landlord yet averse to taking more money off a tenant and it gives them reassurance that should your pet go postal and trash the place there is more money for refurb. I've never had a penny taken out of pet deposits in the past - so most landlords really don't object to responsible owners in practice.

That's good Toomuchtea - are you taking the chickens too?