Buyer's support thread #5

[scribblegirl]

Sorry for breaking the last one

and for all....

We told our solicitor to get on with the searches. We'd been told our mortgage had been approved subject to valuation. The searches only cost £230 and we are prepared to risk that money to move things on. Our valuation was originally pencilled in for the day after we made our mortgage application but because we wanted a survey it got delayed (by several weeks which was annoying). Something pretty horrific will have to come up in the survey for us to pull out.

It's the valuation I'm worried about.

I've emailed sol asking if there will be a further delay for searches after the mortgage valuation has been done, I don't know whether Im pushing my luck but I did say I needed to assess my situation as I was told there was no chain when I offered.

Guys, I set up this thread nearly 2 months ago and still haven't exchanged, let alone completed!

I am now in touch with our EA's sale progresser but I swear to god if we don't exchange next week I will maim our seller.

Good luck to all. I'm so pleased we bought a 2 bed - the idea of ever moving again makes me want to cry!!

Its been 3 months since I offered and still non the wiser and I thought there was no chain involved!! I've had chains that completed in 10 weeks!

Need - I think the EA is your best route to complain sometimes. When I found out the flat we are buying has a short lease I went through the EA to try and get it sorted. My solicitor told me he'd have nothing to do with it!

Thing is it Purplebricks - the sol has confirmed she will seek answers to my queries re searches. Why cant they just move out to family like they stated and carry on with their related purchase?!

My broker has said the valuation came back okay so now...we wait for the offer. Eeeeek!

Scribble - we haven't exchanged either. Still frigging waiting for our vendors to get a mortgage offer. They reckon that's all that's outstanding now, but I think something else will crop up given that they led us to believe they didn't even need to get a mortgage in the first place!!! It's been 12 weeks. We are FTB and they're buying an empty property/no chain.

to all!!!

Oh Skitless - I'm pleased not to be the only one still waiting although sorry you're in this position too!! Do you think there may be problems with your vendor getting a mortgage or are they just lazy bastards a bit slack?

We chased last week and they suggested exchanging today (obviously not going to happen). We responded that exchange on the 3rd would be lovely, but they'd need to reply to our solicitor's letter of 28 April (!!!) before we could. Sigh.

I've been dealing with the EA's sales progressor and she and I reckon vendor just doesn't give a crap and CBA. DP on the other hand is a suspicious type and wonders if there's some scheming going on. Ridiculous!

What are people's opinions on timeframes you should be willing to accept?

We had our offer accepted on 4 weeks ago and appointed our solicitor the next day. So far all that has happened on the legal side is the fixtures and fitting forms received and reviewed and (very standard) pre- contract enquiries made. We never get updates so I don't know whether there's been a response. Is that a reasonable timeframe or should we expect more? Oh and we've paid for searches.

Kirin our offer was accepted six and a half weeks ago and all that's happened is we've had the draft contract so don't fret too much. Your purchase seems to be going really quickly to me! It's all relative I guess. Oh, our valuation was done of course and our formal mortgage offer came through too.

Oh. It feels like it's taking ages! I'm pretty impatient but how hard can a chain free purchase really be when everyone is hoping to exchange in August?

My dislike of our solicitor is probably clouding my view.

I've been waiting for my survey report...chased them up yesterday and they said they'd chase up the surveyor but nothing received 24 hours later. Time to get back on the phone!

Kirin mine is chain free too and our vendors claim to have already built another house to move into AND YET. Until there is an overhaul of this ridiculous, antiquated system, this will keep happening.

Poor you hey

Just found out that despite paying our solicitor over a week ago for searches, he's only drafted the bloody request for them today.

Arggghh.

Im going to have to stick with mine however long it takes, a couple of houses in my area have come up and they are at least £10 - 15K more! I think its because of the shortage of houses atm, so basically if this doesn't go through Im priced out of my area

Also my deposit money is now sitting in my solicitors account - Im annoyed as I took it out of my ISA early and got penalized and lost interest money, now my solicitor is accruing interest on my money?!

Need - that money should be sat in their client account. I'd tell them you want the interest. SRA rules generally require monies in client account to be moved v quickly.

Yes sorry it is in their client account but if its sat there another 2 months - that's my interest surely?

Yeah it should be. Google SRA accounts - rule 22. They should've sent you something explaining what would happen with interest but if they've got a large chunk of money sitting in client account and it isn't going to be used for a while, I'd argue you are entitled to it. It won't be attracting the same rate you'd be getting in an ISA though.

Is it your full deposit? There's no way I'd be giving them our full deposit until we absolutely needed to - it's over £70k!

See this is why the current system won't change - too much money being made off all that £££ sloshing about between stages!

kirin - with reference to your survey-related delay. That's why we skipped the survey. There's not much that would make me pull out and I can't afford the delay with the clock on our tenancy. You do seem to be going quite quickly compared to others. I'm not going quickly enough for my liking! Queries and searches back, with sol to review, I prompted her today (offer accepted 6 weeks ago, 6 weeks until we're homeless!). Then we're basically beholden to our vendors purchase(no onward chain and apparently they can move in with fam). Well done on mortgage heyhey - every step counts!

That's the thing about "moving in with family". I think everyone says it (or the EAs extract it from you "if push came to shove, do you have temp accom?") and then it's bandied about, but even if it's strictly a possibility nobody actually wants to do it. (With apologies to whoever it is on the thread who is stuck between homes!).

need - you should definitely get interest from your solicitor. But it's not the point is it, you don't want interest, you want a house!

Well I only transferred mine because we were meant to be exchanging & completing today. Its no where near as much as 70K tho

If I had known they were selling inlaws house at the same time as selling there own for an onward purchase at least I could have been prepared but I feel like they have decided this in recent weeks hence why buyers only just getting a valuation.
Why don't they just move in with inlaws (like they initially said), let me have their house and then get on with onward selling/purchase grrrr!!

Seems like everyone is stuck in a really frustrating stage right now.

I've just had news from my mortgage advisor. The bloody mortgage company have come back with questions but no more document requests. The annoying part is that we've already answered all the bloody questions at least 3 times! On the bright side our case is now being sent to the senior underwriter and our mortgage advisor is confident that the offer will be made very soon, hopefully next week. Fingers crossed as this is the only thing holding up our purchase.

On the buying side, the stupid housing association who own 50% of my property are still dragging their heels. I just hope they can catch up as we still want to move end of July.