In a chain support thread Sept 2017

[Gizlotsmum]

Hope it's ok to start another one! So we have a week of waiting for surveys etc...

Thanks Ness! We honestly thought it was the end of it and were okay with starting again in spring, even though we knew we'd get a lot less for our house when we re-marketed it because of the way the market is going. So yes, it was a brilliant tactic that wasn't planned that way!

Oh muss what a nightmare. Have you heard anything further from your EA today? It's totally outrageous if they didn't do their due diligence. I hope that either it gets straightened out quickly with the elderly buyers or that you get another offer quickly

I tend to agree with OliviaPope - they might not be totally ruled out. Hope you get some clarity today.

That's good progress Nessa fingers crossed for you.

Lazy, Pulling, Giz for you all about the ongoing delays. I hope you all get your exchanges first thing on Monday.

Olivia - good for you! Your buyer was taking the piss and you called him/her on it. I'm so glad it's worked out for you. Fingers crossed there is no more messing about for you and you can exchange and complete quickly.

We've had no feedback from our viewing the other day and there are none set up for the weekend. I really think the EA is talking out of his bottom about there actually being buyers ready to proceed out there . I so don't want to let our vendor down but we can't move without the equity in the current house so have no choice but to sell. I am so tempted to tell their EA that in all good conscience they should put their place back on the market and that we will offer again if we ever sell and if it's still available.

I've still got my little RM database and I checked this morning and NOTHING in our area/size/type of property has sold this week. We still have about 6 weeks on our single agent contract and lots could happen but it's almost November and who wants to buy a house with Christmas fast approaching?

Thanks Yoga! I'm trying not to get carried away but our removals are booked so it feels positive and very real!

Sorry to hear you're struggling to sell. Is it worth a price drop to keep the house you want to buy?

it is very real Olivia I also think Olivia Pope would have done what you did and she couldn't have got a better result

We've just dropped again as our vendor offered a 5% drop so that we could afford to drop our price. Honestly, our house now sticks out like a sore thumb on RM as it's at least 50 sq metres, detached and one bedroom & bathroom bigger than anything else in the same price range! We can only wait and see now.

Ness - great that you have some dates agreed!

Pulling there isn't a cranberry juice emoticon but hope you feel better soon

Olivia what a fantastic result!! Really pleased that it has come good for you.

Yoga I am rooting for you. Surely someone must be out there? My EA says it's busy right up until the middle of November so there's hope yet.

Hi everyone. Had to stay away for a bit as I was getting really fed up with feeling like nothing was moving and was wanting to try and think about other stuff.. didn't work though.

So glad to be back to see some of you have made such great progress. Yay for Nessa's date! And Olivia's progress too. Sorry there's been setbacks for Lazy and others though. It is such a frustrating and a slow process..

Our chain was supposed to be so simple and fast. Yet here we are, 12 weeks after accepting our offer and having ours accepted and it just feels like it's moving so slowly. Our sellers amazing ea has been saying we should be ready to exchange any day for the last three weeks. I've stopped listening now. Our solicitor never updates us on anything. She's told me she's waiting to hear a couple of last responses from the sellers solicitor on queries on searches . The sellers solicitor happens to also be our buyers solicitor has told the ea he had these replies ready to be sent on Thursday but obviously nobody tells me whether this has happened or not. Nobody knows if searches on our house raised any issues. Our buyer has told me she's told her landlady she's moving out 4.11 so I'm trying to put pressure on solicitor by having told her this. Also suggested we'd exchange and complete on the same day in a week and a half to speed things up but wouldn't be surprised if she replied saying that's weeks and weeks off yet.

Our solicitor said once she gets replies for the queries based on searches she'll have us round to sign the legal stuff in preparation for the exchange. What do you think she means by this legal stuff? I thought the time we go to sign stuff is to sign the contract but to me it sounds like it's nowhere near ready yet. It frustrates me to pay her so much and for her to be so slow. Or am I just being unreasonable and impatient?

Legal stuff sounds to me like it is the contracts. But she won't call you in to sign anything until she's happy that all queries have been answered. As much as it pains me to acknowledge it, she's right to do so because ensuring all queries are checked out is for your protection as well as the lender.

I absolutely hear you about the chain allegedly being fast and simple! Our vendor's EA is no longer communicating with us after DH sent them a strongly worded email, calling them out on the fact that they'd told us it was fast and simple - and actually it's anything but. Who knew that they'd be so sensitive about being caught out in a lie?

Keep on keeping on - it's all you can do at this stage...

Morning all - just spotted this on the BBC website. I said to DH that the timing is just brilliant; where was this a year ago!!!

Housing market review announced

This is interesting news!

New Housebuying Rules Will Clampdown On Gazumping

About bloody time!

Ha! X-post there Lazy! Well that's the BBC and Guardian perspectives!

I heard this on the radio this morning and thought of all of us immediately! About time.

I saw that too We could give their review some decent, practical advice!

1. Minimum due diligence requirements on buyers - a requirement to prove your deposit, mortgage in principle or evidence of fully liquid funds if you are a cash buyer.

1. A cooling off period of 14 days from the date of making your offer, where either party can pull out with no reason necessary. After than 14 days the offer to sell and buy should become binding for both sides. From that point onwards cancellation should only be allowable in certain circumstances (redundancy, bereavement, illness and so on). If either party does pull out they should be liable for 10% of the agreed sale price of the property.

1. Full details of the chain, once it is complete, should be published to every single person in the chain - complete with contact details for the sales progression consultant at each EA and the name of the solicitor and firm completing the conveyancing for each party.

1. Creation of a common online communication platform where each conveyancing firm updates its individual status and provides brief details of work still outstanding/ongoing and the date the file was last actioned.

1. Vendors to provide a Homebuyers survey for the property they are selling, completed by one of a panel of surveyors that all major and high street lenders have approved. This ensures complete transparency around the market value of properties - to avoid situations where under-valuations lead to buyers having to pull out because they can't get the mortgage loan to value that they need. Likewise it also provides transparency about any structural or maintenance issues from the outset, meaning that the market price of the property already takes these into account and there can be no "negotiation" for price adjustments for rectification of these works. Buyers will be free to pay for an enhances and full structural survey should they wish.

As per usual, @LazyDailyMailJournos has nailed it. How do we get you on the review panel?!

Re: point 2, rather than a timescale, perhaps some sort of cancellation waiver/insurance could be introduced to compensate for people pulling out?

Well done Dragon glad somebody has some good news! Hopefully better news for the rest of us this coming week.

We found out this week that our sellers lied to us about the parking situation. On the property details it clearly states that in addition to the garage & parking space in front of it on the drive, there were also 2 additional parking spaces that go with the house. Turns out that these parking spaces are not allocated to the house. According to their solicitor "there appears to be some confusion" err no, it clearly states it on the details.. " nonetheless there is plenty of parking space" as if to imply "what are you moaning about?" We were kind of expecting this so will proceed, but it does mean we only have one guaranteed parking space & 2 cars, so would of preferred to of had at least one more guaranteed space.

In other news, our buyers buyer has still not had their survey done! They were turned down by a mainstream lender so are using Kensington, who deal with higher risk clients & seem to be very slow.. Anyone have experience of them? They are up to date with other enquiries apparently, but until they have a mortgage offer I will be concerned that the rug will be pulled out under us!

No experience of Kensington Pixie but I would be re-negotiating the sale price in view of the parking situation. 2 spaces is a lot to lose, especially if you are a 2 car family and this leaves you with only 1 guaranteed space. The vendors have been very cheeky there and I would be looking very carefully at the remaining parking provision and adjusting my offer based on that.

I am all for 'the offer is the offer '- but that only applies on the basis of vendors being honest about what you get in return for your money. If they've 'accidentally' misrepresented the parking, then it's entirely reasonable for you to want to review your offer if you now stand to get less!

Ness you can already get a buyer's protection insurance which pays out to cover legal fees in certain circumstances (such as redundancy). I think it would be an excellent idea to extend that to include payment of the deposit - and each side would be responsible for the cost of the insurance premium to cover them. As I have said before, I think it's a miracle that anyone in this country actually ends up moving!!

Hi all! I'm totally on board with this review of the process, just reading this thread makes you realise how broken the whole thing is. I've already had my say! The link to the survey is here: www.gov.uk/government/consultations/improving-the-home-buying-and-selling-process-call-for-evidence

Loved Lazys ideas. Especially the online platform where everyone knows what's going on. If only!!!

Pixie how cheeky!!! I'd be tempted to renegotiate the price too when you've clearly been lied to. Our house doesn't come with any parking space. I was careful not to even say it's not a problem because it is! I just said everybody parks wherever they can find a free space. I'd be so annoyed if I'd been lied to though.!!

Done!! I am expecting my call first thing on Monday morning, to appoint me Minister for Fixing the Stupid Fucking Buying & Selling System

I follow Kirsty Allsopp on twitter and she's very passionate about this subject and tweeted the consultation link I filled it in too! I also look forward to my call up to Government

Thanks for the link yoomoo - I shall complete it too.

Love your ideas Lazy and good luck in your new role Transparency is absolutely critical to the process and the need to know and understand the needs and issues of the rest of the chain would possibly alleviate so many of the misunderstanding and delays. I would add a point to your list around the conveyancers being subject to KPIs around dealing with enquiries and not allowing thing to sit and stagnate.

Yep - agree. An online platform would completely shed light on who is doing what, wouldn't it? You could have some pre-set fields all of which are date and time stamped - for example: Queries raised / queries responded to / searches requested / contracts sent for signature / file complete - exchange date awaited

The queries bit is the part that appeals to me. If one solicitor has their status set to queries sent and you can see that was over a week ago, then you know that you need to get the pressure on the other solicitors to find out why they aren't responding.

The parking won't be an issue thankfully Lazy because its 6 houses in a gated development & only homeowners & their visitors can go in there. I kind of guessed this may be the case when we looked & im still a bit peeved as it could cause issues with future resale perhaps? Not that I plan on ever doing this again. The house is second to end one at the back of the private drive which has 2 spaces opposite. I assumed one was for our house & the other for the end house. The only way it would be an issue would be if we had some total a*holes move in to the last house who have lots of cars. In reality, it would be silly to move in with more cars than can clearly be parked, plus my husband is 6ft 2 & well built so nobody would argue with him. If we hadn't already squeezed them down to 27k below their original asking price then id be looking to renegotiate. Divorcing couple, so need a certain amount. I have sympathy for the situation, just hope theres nothing else pop up.

I've started a separate thread to draw attention to the housing survey - eight weeks is not long to get people giving their opinions!
I had no idea you could get insurance for that Lazy - I'm amazed my EAs don't try to flog it to people 
That's a bugger about the parking situation @Pixiedust1973 but it does at least sound like you'll have ample space... bloody cheeky of vendors / EAs to fib on description. You should surely be able to complain about the agents - aren't there rules about descriptions being accurate??

Sigh It's Monday. Let's see if all the solicitors stay in the office long enough to exchange shall we?