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 :)

Chains are just horrendous. My friend has been in one since jan this year, they all finally got ready to proceed in August, chain broke in November just before exchange so they're still waiting to move. Hoping for jan now.
I saw a house with potential (needs ripping apart top to bottom!) so viewing again Saturday - we'd need to rent while it's made habitable though.

I'm dreading this chain lark! Last time we were FTB and this house was empty so no problems. This time we are in a chain of 4 with our buyers being FTB and the people we are buying from buying an empty house. Tell me that sounds like an easy straightforward chain! Although secretly I'm hoping for a small hiccup as we don't really want to move until April.

chica that sounds horrendous.

Our chain was quite small. I say 'was', because it all fell apart today. Our buyer can't get a big enough mortgage so has had to pull out. I imagine that we will now lose the house that we want, and if that happens then we probably won't move at all.

Oh no cant that's awful. Why do you think your vendors will pull out? Do you think you can find another buyer quickly?

It took us 10 months to find this buyer bauer. The only other person who has wanted our house still can't sell their own. Our house is lovely, but it is very remote, so only appeals to a very niche market. So no, I don't think we'll find another buyer quickly, and our vendor claimed at the start of this week that they had another buyer lined up through a different agent (still not sure if that was a bluff or not, as they didn't want to drop price following survey).

This thread is like a place where people with a fear of flying go to read stories about air disasters!

Sorry to hear the bad news cant. Maybe the buyers can try again with another lender?

Well nothing else can be done now this year. Buyers are still waiting for mortgage. Happy Christmas everyone, see you in the new year when the rollercoaster starts again .

Hi everyone, I'm typing this from my amazing new home! We moved in on Thursday, it's chaos as we are still moving bits across from the rented house plus storage unit, goodness knows what Christmas will be like but all that hassle getting to this point was so worth it! I feel like I'm in heaven
Merry Christmas to you all, fingers crossed for good news for everyone in the New Year!

Congratulations Dotty. Hope you have a lovely Christmas in your new house.

Happy New Year all. I felt I needed to howl in a supportive place.

Landlord gave us notice to quit for mid Feb just before Christmas. And now our chain, which was hopefully to complete end Feb has collapsed. I have just ordered 1000 postcards with a hopefully enticing message, and am about to enthuse our teenagers with the joys of joining me on a leaflet drop to potential houses this weekend. But in our area there is nothing on the market, and short term lets are so, so, so expensive and I'm really anxious about getting stuck there as another chain diddles on and on.

And breathe. Hope the rest of you have better progress to report?

Hopefully we are getting there slowly. Our sale completed yesterday, yay!

On our purchase we are still sorting out the mortgage. Changed lender just before Christmas after being given the run around by our long standing lender who seemed to do everything they could to delay our application so that we couldn't sell and purchase on the same day which was needed in order for us to be able to port our original mortgage product.

As soon as it became impossible for us to meet that target they miraculously agreed what we wanted to do! Still wanted to drag it out until the New Year though so we thought we would see if we could get a better deal elsewhere.

Telephone appointment today with new prospective lender went well and they reckon about four weeks to sort out.

We are in a tatty rented property which is doing the job but we are all looking forward to moving to our new home.

Oh hello, this is the place for me! Been lying awake since 5 this morning, bathing in a soup of stress about potential collapse of chain! Having read some of the stories on here I do feel slightly calmer, it appears that no-one is having much fun, which is horrible but also reassuring.

We are in the middle of a very short chain with buyers very keen to move in (understandably) but vendors being a pain. Three weeks before agreed completion date they sent the fixtures and fittings form and have excluded the integrated appliances (which were advertised as included), fitted carpets and fireplace. I know they are within their rights to do this (even the appliances that they advertised as it turns out) but it has been a shock and an unexpected expense. When we dared to query it we received a very aggressive response - they have left us in no doubt that they will remove everything on principle if we don't come to an agreement. We have offered to increase our original offer but they haven't responded and I feel that they are using this issue to delay the completion date further - they certainly don't appear to be in a hurry. Which means our buyer will start kicking off again any day now . They threatened to back out before xmas because of the length of time everything was taking and demanded that we give them £2000 (they didn't have any costs, they live at home, they were just pissed off). Anyway, we didn't give them the cash as we don't have it but we have chucked in some fittings like a washing machine and fridge freezer...because we thought we had integrated appliances included in the new house. Arghhh!!!!

I realise this is probably not on the scale of some of the problems/chains that people face but, wow, isn't it stressful?! Just the not knowing and all the different people involved and everyone so cross at each other! So I shall be popping back and sympathising with you all and maybe sharing a celebratory or with you when we manage to resolve our house traumas - this too shall pass!

P.s. how much do you think it would cost to carpet a 3 bed house?!

I feel for you Sarah, we had that the last time we moved ten years ago. Left our carpets and curtain poles etc as we were told our vendors would leave theirs. Then they did their forms after we had done ours and decided to take them after all.

Added to that the selling agents took the key to the wrong office on the day of completion leading to a huge delay in getting in. We had someone ready to put up poles on the afternoon of the move so that the children had curtains but he was still doing that at ten pm.

I'm hoping it will go more smoothly this time.

If they advertised the fixtures with the place i.e. its on paper and the appliances are listed then you have a case against them - if you wish.

I'm not sure why your buyers want 2K for.

Can I join you all? We have accepted an offer on our house. We have offered on another that has been accepted. We are in a relatively short chain of 3. All the contracts have been drawn up and we were waiting to exchange but our buyer has been told her mortgage funds cannot be released without a damp and timber survey. This is annoying as it could have been arranged over christmas but they have only just told her. I do not expect any issues with this report but I am getting nervous.

Sarah We got a great carpet, real wool and lovely underlay. It cost £880 5 years ago. It still looks like new.

Hi - I am having an on-going rant re my situation on another thread so I hopefully won't bore you all too much on here but thank you for your kind words.

TengoSueno - that is good to know, thank you . Good luck with the report! Horrible how it all gets dragged out.

Hereandtherex - the buyers said they would never have paid us so much if they had known they would have to wait so long. They were only in a position to complete at the beginning of December so it hasn't been the longest wait and we already gave them £5K off the asking price!

TruffletheWuffle - what a pain! Are you in the middle of moving again now?

What I wouldn't give to go back to the days of faffing over £80 for the shed...

We're still waiting to exchange. Just before we were due to, our buyer's solicitor asked for both ours and our co-freeholders' leases to be amended due to a typo, and the guy next door to the house we're buying claimed there was subsidence. There isn't (he has a problem with our vendors), but we had to have an extra specific survey done to say so. Our lender is now happy, and we are moving in next door to a loon. Meanwhile the legal wrangling over the lease continue, and our co-freeholders have just got themselves a solicitor at our expense. We expected to complete at the end of November! We're very lucky that everyone has been pretty level headed (bar the people at the top, but they are dealing with cancer so can be excused).

sarahlouboo- your buyers are being a touch ridiculous, as are your vendors, tbh. Why threaten the most expensive sale/purchase of their lives over a dishwasher? Just leave the bloody dishwasher! It's a few hundred quid. (Mind you, I'm taking my washing machine because it's a miele, less than a year old, but I never said I was leaving it...)

Lizlemon - that sounds bloody awful and stressful. Hope it all gets resolved soon and hope the neighbouring loon is not too loony. Perhaps he will like you!

Yes we have been stuck between two sets of fairly inflexible people - a short chain but a massive PITA!

and so to the next installment. Our buyers have now got everything in place and want to complete next Friday (16th). Brilliant, except they can't exchange until that day either as their re-mortgage is covering their deposit for our house . Anyone ever exchanged and completed on the same day? Is it as risky as it sounds? Help .

Hi Marymoocow, I don't know but I am interested in this as we were told by our solicitor there has to be five working days between exchange and completion and then our estate agent said about 1 in every 6 sales exchanges and completes on the same day. Looking at this hoa.org.uk/advice/guides-for-homeowners/i-am-buying/how-do-i-exchange-contracts/ it says you are vulnerable to last minute demands by the seller so I would be reluctant as our sellers have already proved themselves to be unreasonable and greedy! But I am not sure what it would mean for you in terms of risks as the vendor. Are you in a chain?

sarahlou I read your thread yesterday with interest. As soon as I got to the end I got an email from the people we are buying from wanting money for integrated appliances and a few free standing bits. We've done the fixtures and fittings agreement and agreed to buy a few random things like curtains (town centre flat, odd size windows and I want privacy!) but they have completely changed the ball park and may take the integrated stuff with them if we don't pay. The chain has been in place for months, we are about to exchange and this curve ball arrives... Sigh! I hate moving.

ConceptionZilla - I feel your pain! Greedy and nasty, there is no other explanation. My DH is still fuming that we have effectively been blackmailed into giving them more money (as am I), but we need to get in. I wish that we were in a stronger position so we could call their bluff. Are they asking for a lot? Are you bothered about the freestanding furniture?

Finally re-joining this thread after the longest wait in history. Made an offer on shared ownership house in September. Offer accepted and mountain of paperwork sent off to Housing Association to be formally allocated the house. House allocated to us end of October and applied for mortgage through broker, with Nationwide three days later.

NINE WEEKS after we applied for the mortgage, after sending additional paperwork every month and after them reducing what they were prepared to lend us by £1,200, they declined us.

Vendor pissed off, EA pissed off, we were devastated and as FTB's, had no idea what to do next. Contacted independent FA recommended by EA and they advised us to move our application to Santander.

This was done on Monday. Thursday they proceeded to valuation and survey was done yesterday. The difference between Nationwide and Santander is staggering.

Still waiting for the formal mortgage offer to be given, but at least we're a step closer. Fuck me, this moving lark is stressful.

sarahlou yeah after all this time our position is weak. The freestanding furniture could be useful (annoyingly), I think we buy it. DH isn't keen.

Last time the guy I bought off tried similar, he tried to charge me a fortune for stuff like £600 for a shed, then I called his bluff and it was fine. These guys I am less certain of.

Yes it is very hard to gauge people. £600 for a second hand shed! Next time I move (Which DH says is never) I am going to be much more pushy about them clarifying F & F early on but that still doesn't guarantee they won't piss about at the last minute. We'll get there, if some of the furniture is useful then at least that is something.