Home Buyers Support Thread Part 3

[juneybean]

Part 2 here -> www.mumsnet.com/Talk/property/a1905904-Buyers-support-thread-part-2?msgid=48420379#48420379

Hope it's okay that I made the next thread :)

Hurdle one jumped... our mortgage has been approved PHEW! Was a bit worried because of the MMR rules but Natwest got back to us in just 24 hours! Another plus is that we dont have to pay another arrangement fee, they will use the fee from the previous application (pulled out of previous house due to problems with chain).

So paid for the survey today - fingers crossed that will be okay. Also paid for searches yesterday too.

Aiming to exchange and complete in November... fingers and toes crossed!!

OK, another hurdle cleared now. Mortgage lender has approved us, just now having to appoint a survey. Which they'll do by c.o.b Monday.

Still taking too long and we're still fretting about getting gazzumped, but ticking along.

Oh small things like the house at the bottom of the chain currently being unmortgageable... . Ours will go back on the market next week. We shall see what happens.

Our sellers came back to say 22nd oct didn't suit them (wtf? They chose that date!) and so we've settled on 24th oct. Trying to book movers now.
Eek LittleBear. That's not good.
Pedant, things are moving quickly then :).
Gemma, that brilliant news. Hoping for a speedy exchange.

Feel like I can properly join this thread now, as we've had to pull out of our purchase. Our survey found extensive damp and some structural movement, and the vendor wasn't willing to budge. In fact he was so unwilling to budge or listen to advice the EA told him they couldn't represent him anymore, and told us our revised offer was perfectly fair and rational. Which is some consolation.

So we've still got our buyer, but we were hoping to exchange in a month, and now we're not. Obviously.

Sorry to here about your purchase difficulties LizLemon. Sounds like EA has washed their hands of them!

Our survey should be done later this week - a bit worried as the current owners have had some work done to open up the kitchen and dinning room - looks gorgeous as an open space but just hoping all done properly!

Our solicitor got in touch today to say she is chasing our sellers solicitors for the draft contract. Am I being unreasonable to think this should have been sent in by now? It's been three weeks...

Just coming on (I hope not annoyingly smugly) to say, I have exchanged!

What a saga this has been. Saw a house in Nov last year, had offer accepted, had ££ survey done and discovered house was unsafe in places, and horrible (brilliant surveyor included everything in report, even that a "large, unaccompanied dog next door had barked throughout the inspection"). I was on Rightmove dithering, in December, almost ready to pull out, when clicked back button and a new PERFECT house had appeared out of nowhere.

Saw it, loved it, had offer accepted. Pulled out of first house. I'm a FTB so no chain. Then my sellers got messed around by a total arse, who pulled out of the chain after SIX MONTHS. My mortgage offer expired. My seller then put the price up by 10% cos prices here (SE) had gone bananas and I flounced off.

Saw another house, had offer accepted, was then gazumped. Then saw a million other houses, none of which was anywhere near as nice as the 10% one. I refused to even think about that house and desperately wanted to find something better. Couldn't.

The 10% came back on market. My fiancé went to see them. Made offer. They accepted. There was a bit more unluckiness and hassle but now... Finally... TEN MONTHS later, we've exchanged! Completion date 24 Oct. literally counting the days.

On day of exchange, my fiancé and I went round to the house and got absolutely shit-faced on wine with the sellers. We're all so relieved. They did screw us over by the 10% (which is annoying as the mortgage payments are almost twice as much as they would've been), but I still LOVE the house. Perfect location, size and everything. I cried in the sitting room!

Cannot wait.

Hang in there everyone. It's a long, complicated, horrible process but worth it. Bit like pregnancy...

Congratulations WhatsGoingOnEh ! It sounds like an epic saga.

All the best for your survey Gemma77 I have been lurking on the thread and it sounds like you're definitely due a break with this process.

Estate agent has got in touch today to say we're getting there, and that we should be in a position to talk exchange/completion dates by the end of the week. Hurrah, but I won't believe it till I see it...this thread and the woes of two people in my team who have had theirs fall through during my purchase process have taught me that much.

That's very encouraging whatsgoingoneh! Congratulations!

Gemma77 - fingers crossed for the survey being ok.

We have now agreed to buy a house from our neighbours. It's private, so they save on agency fees and we could offer slightly less, and we're all very excited, as they can now offer on the house they lost earlier in the year. it feels very different from the last house, and we are crossing everything that it all goes through ok.

WhatsGoingOn - I remember reading your posts way back and hoping that both our chains would finally get to the end! So pleased you have exchanged - it must be such a relief after all these months. Congratulations

Hello again

whatsgoingoneh I read the bit about the wine and almost cried - love that you did that and it gave me hope! Gemma77 I've been following your saga too and fingers crossed.

Poor LittleBearPad - if it could possibly cheer you up a little I posted on here a few weeks ago that our buyers had pulled out on DAY OF EXCHANGE after 6 months in the chain and we were back on the market - 2 weeks back on the market and we had 2 much lower offers which we refused, not to be greedy but we just wanted to either get back in our chain or give up for now, but after 3 weeks we had an offer, £4000 less than the previous one but that is manageable so we are back in the running! Our solicitor has been amazing and despite the fact that our ex-buyers were refusing to talk to anyone involved, he has arranged for their solicitor to sell the searches to the new one - only hurdle now is that we already had to extend our mortage offer for one month and that runs out on the 23rd, which is very soon, so we're now waiting to hear on Friday whether the underwriters will agree to extend it again. I don't think we're very high risk but then I wouldn't would I?!

Has anyone ever sent this chain to David Cameron as an incentive to sort out this uber-shite system we have here?

Good luck everyone xxxx

Hello fellow house buyers

So it seems I can FINALLY join this thread. DH and I have put an offer in on a house and it's been accepted and taken off the market. Hallelujah.

HOWEVER - the house is shared ownership (due to my dire financial history and DH's glowing one) and he is doing the mortgage in his name only. The paperwork has been sent to the mortgage advisor who was recommended to us in the HA pack (it's 50/50 ownership, half with HA) so now it's down to them to assign us the property.

Does anyone else have experience in how long this will take? I've been led to believe it may be up to six months :-(

Gemma77 - I've followed this thread over the last few weeks since we started looking and I'm so happy things have turned around for you. FX for your extension and hoping for a much smoother ride for you this time!

Gemma, fingers crossed for survey. You are due continued good luck, I reckon.
60sname, hope you exchange and complete soon.
Juststir, sorry I've no idea about shared ownership. Hope it's quicker than 6m though.
Sellers signing contracts tomorrow and completion agreed for 24th oct. Can't wait, am so fed up of four of us living out of a rucksack at a relatives house.

Yay draft contract now received by my solicitor so she's looking at enquiries and ordering searches.

No news on survey yet but emailed EA this evening to ask if they have heard from the surveyors yet.

Bah, my solicitor has requested a consent to build letter from the leaseholder at the 11th hour. Couldn't have done it weeks ago, no that would've been too sensible. So contract not exchanged. Estate agent v v pissed off (not with us though) and noone can do much about it until mon.
Fuckity fuckity fuck fuck fuck. Where is the gin?
How's everyone else?

Had 10 minutes of hell today that I don't ever want to go through again!

Found out this morning that our survey was done on Wednesday (haven't received the report yet but EA told us it was done). So hubby emailed our solicitor to let her know.

She then replied to say that she had just found out that there is another buyer for the same house and that we were in a contract race! So whoever gets to exchange point first gets the house!

We were livid - we pulled out of a previous house purchase for this house because the sellers wanted some reassurance that we were not going to mess her around!

Hubby call EA and demanded to know what sellers playing at.... only for our solicitor to then email again to say 'really sorry - there is no contract race, misunderstanding!!'

Turns out our solicitor has another client with the same surname as us and they are the ones now in a contract race!

Phew Gemma. Glad that got cleared up. Gin? ??

Can I join in? First time buyer here, almost 8 weeks since we had our offer accepted. Was so excited as everything had gone smoothly up until now, they accepted our first offer, mortgage accepted and survey done. The buyers were not meant to be in a chain as they'd offered on a vacant property. However their plans have changed so they've pulled out of their purchase and are back to square 1. Eight weeks in! They refuse to agree a completion date as they aren't willing to consider renting if they dont find anything. So I've booked a viewing at another house next week! Gutted though :(

I'm joining this thread to have a quick rant!

Our mortage broker is probably the most incompetent human to have ever walked this planet. Because of him and his incompetence we were declined the first mortgage we applied for, and we have just found out his incompetence is the reason things have moved nowhere in the last month. You'd think, when he requested certain documents from us for the mortgage lenders a month ago, that when we sent them to him he would actually open the attachments and send them on to the lender wouldn't you? Well, he couldn't manage that, the imbecile.

We would have been better off cutting out the middle man and sorting out a mortgage ourselves.

Our solicitor is not much better, the most cold heartless woman I have ever come in contact with, who doesn't offer the friendly service her firm advertise, and who cannot even reply to emails in sentences, just a splattering of words.

Good luck everyone else.

Can I join this thread?
We accepted an offer on our house 9 days ago, saw 7 houses that weekend, 2nd viewed one on Tuesday, offered and got it accepted on wed, got mortgage agreed in principle on Thurs and instructed solicitors on Friday! so not just a mass of forms to fill in, documents to send off etc. I am so worried our mortgage will be declined for some reason! fingers crossed all will be well.
both our buyer and seller are chain free and no mortgages needed - so its just us in the middle delaying things!
Good luck to everyone else!

Hi Ditsygal - sounds like your move could go through fairly smoothly! Best of luck!

Overmydeadbody - mortgage broker sounds awful! We went direct to natwest and I have been very impressed with their service. Hope things get better soon!

Natwest phoned me Monday morning to say survey was fine so mortgage offer all agreed and being sent out to us and solicitor by first class post. Big relief

Hopefully our copy of the survey will arrive today. Was worried about structural work but whatever it says the mortgage people obviously didn't think it was a problem.

Solicitor also ordered searches today and is checking through the draft contract.

So far going through all okay but I know from our experience over the past 10 months that the tricky and delayed stage of solicitor enquiries is yet to come!

Gemma sounds good. We've been trying to go hold of our mortgage broker and failing, it's so frustrating. There shouldn't be any problem- we had a mortgage agreed in June for our purchase which fell through and this house isn't quite as expensive but you just never know. We've signed draft contract, searches/enquiries are going on but its nerve wracking and I just want to be out of this horrid rental and in our new home!

Well apparently the valuation survey has been done and has been sent to the underwriter but the broker doesn't know what it says! Hopefully it's all good!

I've got to say my mortgage broker has been fantastic and it's free of charge, which I didn't realise, thought there would be a fee!

How long would you all wait around for your seller to find somewhere? Luckily our landlord has agreed that we can do a rolling tenancy so technically we can wait a while, but I don't want to wait too long!