Pre-exchange jitters (I hope!)

[christinarossetti]

Need a bit of moral support if anyone is around.

Due to exchange on our house today or tomorrow. Just received a phone call from the estate agent - our vendor was apparently being 'shouty' because he was under the impression that we and our buyers (3 properties in the chain) could complete on 20 June.

No-one had told us that, until our solicitor forwarded a letter from his last week, and I'd responded saying that we aren't able to do that and suggesting some dates in July.

We were originally hoping to move in June, but some things like our surveyor calling the wrong EA for a week and the new mortgage regulations slowed things down. Not dramatically though, as our offer was only accepted 2 months ago.

In the meantime, I now have to go away for work at the end of this month, we need to arrange packers (our vendors are chain free so have cleared their house) and I'm freelance and can't just cancel work I've got booked at short notice.

The electrics of the house that we're buying also need some attention, and we were hoping that we could get an electrician to do an assessment after exchange and before completion so that we could assess whether we need to find somewhere to stay for a few weeks/put our stuff into storage etc. Our vendor hasn't responded to our request for some possible dates for this, but it's not a deal breaker for us, just a bit irritating.

Our vendor was also 'shouty' about the indemnity insurance for work done that our solicitor requested - I'd already told our solicitor that we'd pay for it if they don't want to (my preference would be not to have it as it's a complete racket).

I can appreciate that he's annoyed if he thought the 20th June had been agreed, but this was news to me today.

He's not going to pull out now, is he?

We're in a similar situation. Our solicitor had cleared deposit and all final legal forms signed early May and then there were delays down the bottom of the chain. We're due to be away for five days from tomorrow (been arranged before we even thought about selling, with a friend coming from abroad and meeting us with a large group of us). Said all the way along we couldn't move close to this date. Found out in the week problems have been sorted at bottom on the chain and that we have to complete in the next 12 days, so we said we have a deadline of exchange at 11am tomorrow as there are things we need to sort before leaving at noon.

I don't think he's going to pull out, I think it's just the tension of it. Politely point out no one had told you and ask the agent to relay this to him. As I said we imposed a deadline but it that fails we want to move so will have to come back early.

Thanks madmog. After a morning of phone calls, we have now exchanged with a realistic moving date.

I hope that you don't have to cut your holiday short.

Bloody stressful, isn't it?

Good luck with your move Christina. Tbh it's not for the vendors to have to pay for the insurance, as they won't be the party benefitting from it - we refused to do it on our sale as we'd been very open from the viewing stage about the issue it related to, and we were pretty annoyed when their solicitor tried to make it our problem 3 days before exchange (we suggested they took the £300 out of the £20k we dropped their offer after the survey...). I can completely understand how stressful it is for them, and for you!

Errr, actually it is the vendor who should pay for indemnity insurance. If the vendor cannot supply the requested guarantees/paperwork/permissions etc, then the solicitors acting for the buyer will expect indemnity insurance as a reasonable alternative. Though I wouldn't let it be a deal breaker over a potential cost of £300......! It is a bit of a racket tbh, but nowadays, the solicitors want paperwork for any alterations/work done.

This indemnity insurance is a complete racket - on both our sale and purchase, the work the 'insurance' pertains to dates back to previous owners and is lost in the midst of time.

We agreed to pay it both as vendors and buyers in this sale/purchase, as our vendors 'refused' and I really can't be bothered to haggle over a couple of hundred pounds for houses that are selling for over half a million (London, most definitely not a posh bit part).

Neither us or our buyers have asked for money off following survey etc, so it's all been pretty amicable aside from a bit of vendor-shouting-at-solicitor, but I could imagine that things could have got unpleasant if we'd try to insist that they should pay it.

It's a complete joke though, and I feel a bit resentful that I've contributed to it continuing with other sales by just going along with it.

Just wanted to say that in my experience as a property solicitor for20 years it is the requirements of the lenders that mean all paperwork for consents has to be in place failing which an indemnity policy

Ah, that's interesting, Rangirl.

Our mortgage offer had been confirmed before indemnity insurance was even mentioned, so I don't think that was the case for our move.

christina your mortgage was almost certainly confirmed subject to the conveyancing being completed correctly

Indemnity insurance for our purchase was only mentioned by our solicitor AFTER our mortgage had been confirmed.

The 'insurance' is for 2 rooms being knocked through (and the partition wall subsequently rebuilt) over 20 years ago.

In this instance, 'indemnity insurance' is a complete crock of shite.

What carol decker said

You're both wrong in our instance - there was no mention of indemnity insurance until after our unconditional mortgage offer was issued.

Indemnity insurance is a crock of shite in our case. The likelihood of the council coming round to check if planning permission was obtained for a wall knocked through and rebuilt over 20 years ago is precisely zero.

The ishooos that we have taken indemnity insurance our for our buyers are exactly as they were when we moved in 9 years ago, but the racket that is 'indemnity insurance' wasn't in vogue then, and not a word was mentioned about it to buyers or vendors.

I was not talking specifically about indemnity insurance. The mortgage would have been subject to appropriate paperwork being in place. There are agreed guidelines between the banking associations and the law society about what appropriate means, and this covers planning permission . This guidance now says that indemnity insurance is required.
I agree its bollocks, but is driven by the lenders rather than solicitors.
If you were paying cash for the house, your solicitor would advise you on the issue and the possible consequences, but would still complete the transaction without indemnity insurance if that is what you wanted. However, with a mortgage, the solictors can be sued by the banks, so it is not just your choice.

I'm not disagreeing with you about mortgages being subject to correct paperwork.

My point is that our mortgage offer had been confirmed in writing before 'indemnity insurance' was mentioned by our solicitor. Our lender never mentioned it, either verbally or in writing.

If both us and our vendors had refused to pay, are you saying that our mortgage company would have withdrawn our unconditional mortgage offer on the grounds of a condition that they hadn't previously mentioned?

Yes they can and would - all mortgages are subject to correct completion on the paperwork under the CML handbook . This includes indemnity insurance.

I'm sorry, but I don't think I believe you.

I went through all the written information from our surveyor/lender with fine tooth comb and absolutely nothing was mentioned about our mortgage offer being contingent on indemnity insurance.

Our solicitor didn't cite the lender as the reason for asking for it either.

We began our mortgage application just as the new regs came in and new hoops to jump through kept appearing, but none of them involved indemnity insurance. We received our written mortgage offer before anyone mentioned indemnity insurance - if this was a condition of the loan, this simply wouldn't have happened.