Buyer's support thread #5

[scribblegirl]

Sorry for breaking the last one

and for all....

Monday arrives and my frustration with the solicitor returns. I want the lease issue discussed and a resolution to be on the cards. Obviously I can't find a bloody telephone number for our solicitor. This is his last week to start looking productive or we are changing.

My solicitor's response was to (for the third time) ask who my lender is and said he'd 'try' to call me today. His response sent me into a rage. I've told him who our lender is on multiple occasions and it's detailed in the questionnaires we completed for them 2 weeks ago. I've had a bit of a go at him. I don't know if I have high expectations but as a solicitor I just wouldn't behave like he does. Never request things you already have!!

Spoke to the EA about the short lease and he's going to look into it.

houseplants it depends on whether the lender insist on it or not. Our purchase is only ten years old so the lender is doing a (free to us) off site valuation and we are arranging our own homebuyers report via a surveyor we found locally.

kirin your solicitor does sound disorganised or overworked! Hope the EA can get some answers re the lease - you certainly don't want to be paying for it!

I've had a letter (seriously who writes today? Have they not heard of email??) from the lender saying that they have received the application and will make an offer soon but then I've had an email from our advisor this morning to say they want payslips. I have no idea what is going on now!

I have no idea why things have to be in writing. Sure, send a hard copy in the post but email a copy at the same time. If the courts in the UK accept documents by Neal, I see no reason why a bank or solicitor can't.

My solicitor just called - after I told him that we were going somewhere else - and he said that yes there could be a premium to pay to extend the lease but we need to negotiate with the vendor via the EA. no idea what the solicitors job is now tbh.

If the vendor isn't willing to deal with it at his cost, we simply don't have the funds to do it so will have to pull out.

Hooray for estate agents (who would've known I'd ever say that). He's spoken to the vendor and is happy to arrange a lease extension. Phew.

Brilliant news kirin!

Oh can I join, we are listing out house tomorrow (yikes), it's been 12 years since we sold a house so we're a bit rusty

Only ever bought new builds and moved from rented or to rented (twice because of relocation), so never had to deal with the whole chain experience.

New build not an option this time, which I don't mind, older houses have a bit more character.
I may need a bit of handholding or advice from those of you who are more experienced
Haven't read the full thread yet, but looking forward to reading your stories

Oh gosh what a stupidly stressful day. DH and I had started to look at rentals because we need to move by a certain time and we'd begun to think it would be better to move to the area renting and then be able to sit and watch the market for a while. A lovely wee place came up on Sunday so we rang the letting agents... who say they already have three viewings booked for tomorrow (when we aren't able to go view) and that they'll let us know if it's still available the day after but they expect not.

Then, we get a call back from the estate agents on the house we like (to purchase), who, having been unable to contact the vendor for almost two weeks to answer our questions, is saying they now have an offer on the table and if we want to offer we need to do it NOW. Except with our deposit plans for our existing AIP off the table, we need to see if we can get an AIP on a smaller deposit, and the bank we're looking at can't talk to us about it until Wednesday. So I've emailed the agent saying we'll have an answer by Wednesday.

Argh! Crazy renting/buying market. It feels like things are going nowhere and then suddenly everything is happening at 100 mph.

That's great Kirin. You must be relieved.

That sounds very stressful ThereMustBe. It is horrible how nothing happens for ages and then you're expected to do loads immediately with no notice. And then nothing for ages again.

Hi ginger. Good luck with the house selling.

We are still waiting. DH prodded the EA again but they're still waiting for answers to queries and some paperwork from our vendors' solicitor. So DH texted the vendor to see if he can prod his solicitor from his end. I am never doing this buying and selling houses thing again. It's crap.

Calling and emailing my solicitor every day is working. I've been summoned to an appointment on Wednesday am to sign papers etc. His PA said it would then be "a couple of weeks" until completion, to which I laughed. I want it quicker than that!

Thank you, really relieved the lease issue has at least been raised even if it took me threatening to ditch our solicitor and pulling out of the sale to do it. I cannot believe how slow the process is and how much badgering you have to do to get things moving.

I don't care how much of a pain in the arse I become, I'm going to bother my solicitor regularly.

Temporary, are your vendors in a position to complete also?

We are still waiting. It's been over two weeks now since we signed the papers and paid the monies. :(

Definitely, the vendor has moved out and is in a nursing home.

Skitlesss are you waiting to exchange?

That's fab! There's no reason why you can't exchange weds and maybe complete on Friday then? Some people do it on the same day.

Reading. Yes we are. :( we were under the impression our vendors were ready to go, so we signed and paid the money only to be told that they're waiting on a mortgage offer. They'd commissioned searches prior to obtaining a mortgage.

So frustrating! I don't understand people.

Well done on the progress kirin !

That's really frustrating skittlessss - we're STILL waiting on our mortgage offer, the broker told us it was good to go on the 13th and would be through on the 16th. Then it transpired we had to wait for an employer reference, which took a fucking week. They received that on Thurs and we're still waiting for it to be processed, so I have a little bit of sympathy with your vendors as they might have been told their offer was imminent when it wasn't too

I really HATE that it's us holding things up, hopefully I'll get the offer through today, and then we're just waiting on searches.

Hope you're all settled in reading

We are seriously wobbling now. In the last 24 hours the bottom appears to have fallen out of the contract market in DH's sector and this usually means we are heading towards recession. We are sitting on over £100k in the bank and buying this house would mean that we wouldn't have the 6 months of expenditure in the bank that we usually have it would be more like three months. In 2009 DH had no work for over five months so having 6 months money in the bank is prudent.

On the other hand we're highly unlikely to get this house at this price in the future unless the market falls crazily.

I really don't know what to do.

Oh god Cankles that doesn't sound good at all! I'm really worried about what the EU referendum is doing to the economy. There was mention of recession yesterday I think, do you think that it's coming regardless and the government are just going to blame the referendum?

I think for us, recession or no recession, buying is a good idea. Our rental payments are £500 more than the mortgage payments so if the worst happens, we will actually be in a better position to weather the storm.

Best of luck to everyone waiting to exchange / complete!

Feeling slightly sick with all of the uncertainty. DH and I have figured out how much we can offer subject to the AIP application being successful. Feeling a little daunted because this is more of a rush than I'd have liked - would have preferred time to gather more info on potential repairs (a few 2's on the Home Report - we're in Scotland).

If the AIP doesn't come through with the 95% we need then we've got some rental viewings lined up for the following day (which we'll still go for even if we make an offer, in case it isn't accepted). Part of me is hoping the decision is taken out of hands by not getting the AIP as I have a very strong feeling based on the vendor's behaviour so far that the process of buying the house will be verrrrry stressful. But it's such a great place for us that if we can make it work financially then we'd be fools not to go for it.

Moving house is the worst! all round.

My ex employer held up the mortgage offer. No idea why they wanted a reference from them but there you go!

I'm in a dilemma regarding the kitchen. I need a loan to pay for it and the best rates are available to home owners, which I won't be until I complete and move in. But there isn't an oven in the house so I am dreading being without. I have a microwave and a slow cooker and a camping stove I can use outside, but it's really not ideal. Tempted to put the kitchen refurb on hold and just buy a sodding oven and put up with it for a while.

Would it be worth it getting a super-cheap cooker with oven and hotplate, even if only for a couple of months? You could possibly then sell it on and recoup some of the costs. It also depends on what you tend to cook but you could get a plug in hot-plate for peanuts. The latter is probably what I'd do but I do most of my cooking on the stove-top.

We all seem to be waiting and wobbling No news here. As usual. Starting to have bizarre worries about the house like 'it's too big' or 'the garden is the wrong shape' etc. It's just my brain trying to give itself something to do I think!

I think I've wobbled over to delaying kitchen and buying a cooker. aaargh!

We're still just waiting too.

I'd buy a really cheap cooker temporary and live with the kitchen for a short time. That'll give you some time to properly decide what you want to do. You don't want to rush it and make wrong decisions.

I would really like the referendum to be over. Firstly, it's utterly tedious listening to petty squabbling about it on the news (and hiding the million threads about it on here) and secondly, the uncertainty is no good at all. It may not be a recession that's causing the bottom to drop of the contract market. It might just be that everyone is holding off until after the referendum (of course, depending on the result there may then be a recession, but I suspect what's happening here is the equivalent of holding your breath).