Sellers/Buyers roll call part 3. Who is still on this treadmill?

[MovingNextYearHopefully]

A slight name change for me, as I'm clearly not moving this year. Well, I am, but not into the house I'm buying.

Went to the development today, had a chat with the girls in the office & updated them. Hopefully we will be exchanging contracts next week should all go to plan. We found a nice house to rent, but its so bloody expensive I'm petrified! As long as we complete within our 6 month rental contract then all will be well, but if we don't then things will get ridiculously expensive!

@LookingOptimistic in cue with your username ! That's amazing progress. It's taken us 3 months to get anywhere near exchange with a single chain free buyer and a vacant property ...

As predicted the house we like has gone to best and final offers. Could afford and justify adding £10k to our offer but don't know how comfortable I feel with that. I hate best and final.

@TiddleTaddleTat Well if you are happy to up it and want the house you dont have anything to lose.

Can't believe in parts its still so hard to get an offer accepted.

@LookingOptimistic indeed, it's blimmin' crazy! We've offered on 5 houses over the past 4 months, many of them at AP and haven't yet had an offer accepted! Fingers crossed for this one

@TiddleTaddleTat Well house we are buying now was the 4th house we offered on in the space of a month, it was crazy down here - unless you were a cash buyer and had more than the price the house was listed at, you just didnt have a chance back in Aug/ Sept.

OMG Tiddle. I will keep everything crossed that you get the house. One trick to use is to offer an uneven figure, so instead of being the round extra 10k add another £13, £21, £34 or another random figure. Most people won't do that. It could give you the edge by a few pounds if others offer an exact figure.

4 days to go here! Did our mail redirect today. Really pissed off that they charged me twice because the DC & I have a different surname to DH. In better news, we got our house number & road name sign come through today. It is lovely! Every time I look at it I can't stop smiling!

@MovingThisYearDefinitely So exciting i hope its everything you hoped for!

When i looked a redirection with royal mail i worked out i would have to pay 3 times; one for my name, one for my partner and one for our business as it usually comes through in the company name. Quite expensive for 6 months!

@TiddleTaddleTat - fingers crossed for you. Here in London there definitely aren't any bidding wars.

@MovingThisYearDefinitely - another day closer to moving in. Have you got your 'new home' pack organised yet? Champagne, glasses, tea and biscuits 😉

Things going well here still. We have received the draft contracts today and have been through everything very carefully. There is a slightly odd covenant (dating from the 1930s when the house we want to buy was built) which we need to check out but nothing too tricky.

Our buyers appear to not be planning a homebuyers survey and are just getting a valuation.They have their mortgage offer. I'm a bit surprised but quite pleased we may not have to deal with survey quibbles.

Still waiting for our HB survey to come back. Will chase tomorrow but I think we are getting close to exchange- pretty good progress for only 3 weeks I think.

They really rob you don't they optimistic? It came up as wanting to charge us 3 times as well to start with because I double barrel my name with DH's sometimes too. I took that one off & hopefully anything with that surname on will still arrive. If not the new owners will text us hopefully. I only have 1 or 2 places use that name for me so I'm not bothered enough to spend another £66.99.

Glad to hear things are going well so far for you sandy. Long may it continue. I'm all in a spin at the moment as time is going so fast. Hadn't thought of a moving home pack yet. The main thing I am focussing on is getting the flat we've been staying at cleaned up as much as I can so hopefully we can return the keys Saturday afternoon rather than Sunday morning. Then we can hit the pub for dinner afterwards, or more likely relax with a takeaway & a few beers at home. We have bought champagne, beers, rum, chocs etc for all the lovely people who have helped us along the way. Our brilliant estate agent, the wonderful sales office staff at our development & the site manager & his team. Pays to keep them all on side incase we need anything fixing in future, which no doubt we will!

And we are in! Though i actually write this from the night feed at my mum's as we haven't built our beds yet so staying here! Moving day was very emotional and a bit stressful, it took until 2.40 for them to get all our stuff out and they needed to send for an extra van I was very sad to be leaving my beautiful house in its perfect village and ended up crying several times including at my 90 yo neighbour and while driving to the new place.
Much much unpacking and reorganising still to do, not least sort some new furniture as a lot of ours is too tall (we've gone back in time from Victorian to 18th c), hoping to properly get in tomorrow before it starts to snow!

Congrats @RangerLady !! Enjoy your first evening in your new home! Fingers crossed it doesn’t snow till you are settled in with a takeaway.

🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨

At the start of week 25 there has been progress, our garage paperwork has arrived! We're really, almost there with the sale and the purchase of dream house 3.0 is also ticking along nicely!

There's just a little glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel! We've only been waiting since August!!!

Fantastic news Tokyo! I hope things start moving fast for you now

Congratulations @RangerLady !

@MovingThisYearDefinitely not long now for you. That's a good idea to get gifts for the site lads, although work on our phase will end with completion of our house - the next phase will start soon so will keep them on side.

I haven't posted last my last post moaning about how long this is taking. Their solicitor left out so many basic things out of the pack for our solicitor and apparently were still waiting two weeks later for all the answers. All were being told is March for completion which is no help, we've got a house to pack up and clean ready for our buyer. I can imagine she's getting as frustrated as we are by not having a date yet. We've moved forward somewhat though as 9 days ago we didn't have a kitchen, we went over on Saturday and we now have a full kitchen! Was good to see our choices all put together.

DH is calling developers head office today and pushing for a clearer date. We REALLY don't want to go past 8th March.

Phew @TokyoSushi nearly there! What a journey!

@hartof How frustrating. Solicitors get paid so much for what often is slow and shoddy work. Hope things progress quickly from now on.

@RangerLady - amazing news! Well done. We moved last time when DS1 was just 3 months old and I remember being quite dazed by the process. It's quite different this time round with 3 teenagers. I'm hoping they might be helpful with packing etc but their main concerns are proximity to transport links and friends and size of their bedrooms.

@TokyoSushi - you can see the finish line. So close now!

Our HB Survey came back yesterday. OK I think but lots of surveyor caveats as you'd expect. The house was built in the 1930s and is pretty sound. The only slightly worrying thing is a warning that an outhouse/shed might have asbestos. Surveyor says it's fine and shows no sign of damage but if we wanted to remove it it might be 'costly'. We don't particularly want to remove it at the moment but I'm wondering what scale 'costly' us. Maybe £2k. We can investigate but so long as it's not more than £2k I'm not too worried. Anyone have any insight?

If it's just the roof , it is probably low risk . If it's the type of concrete sectional building then you could get a price from the companies that build them. They will dismantle them .

@Chickencellar - it's just the roof. Sounds like not a huge concern then.

sandybayley that's standard constructions on most sheds/garages built at the time. It's not that costly - but you need to get the material disposed of carefully -London councils collect for free I think . We have one - a lot of neighbours have removed their garages though so it's easily done. If it's not damaged then it can stay unless you wish to take it down but it's nothing to worry about or haggle about.

We've had more offers from non proceedable buyers- but they are definitely creeping up - we've had some that are half decent first bids! Although after last night's vote who knows what will happen now!

Seems a lot of exciting news - fingers crossed for everyone nearing the finish line!

sandybayley we had the same regarding asbestos in Artex ceilings, I was panicked and then everyone on the internet and MN basically assured me it is safest to actually plaster over the old ceiling rather than remove - hope this helps a bit, much cheaper too.

My update is that two months after our offer being accepted, we are FINALLY in the stage of searches. Now the next round of worries and wondering when it will be done!

sandybaley I wouldn't be too worried about asbestos. As long as it's not disturbed ie; drilled into etc then it's fine. You do need specialist removers/demolishes but I'm sure 2K would easily cover it.

the other thing is also that in garages it's low grade I believe. I did a ton of research into this when our buyers tried to knock the price down and sent the surveyor round twice to check it! I should have realised then that they were going to be a problem! Can you speak to your surveyor - that would reassure you, I've always had a good chat with mine as they can say a lot more 'off the record" as it were.

I love Mumsnet. Reassurance gratefully received!

Woo! Congratulations RangerLady. Hope you manage to get in before the snow.

At last Toyko. I bet you were beginning to think it was never going to happen! Hopefully won't be too much longer now. 🤞

Definitely pays to keep site staff on side hartof. That's the trouble with new builds, they won't tell you for sure until they're at the point of giving you notice to complete. They hold all the cards pretty much. Our house was 90% ready a couple of months ago. The delay has been waiting until houses opposite were at a stage where they could safely allow us to pass by. It's frustrating when there seems no obvious reason for delay & you're getting no definitive answers, but there is very little you can do but wait. Your buyers are being very patient. No way would we have kept ours waiting until now to complete lol. Hope you get some news today. 🤞

I agree with everyone re the asbestos roof sandy. You really don't need to be concerned. The garage at our old place was asbestos. Very common for the era it was built.

Have i missed/forgotten something ErikBroch? Why are searches only being done 2 months in? They're normally instigated straight away to save time because they can take 4 weeks to come through. Apologies if you already explained the reason for delay. Hope they come through quickly.

2 days to go till we move & discovered last night that the cat has fleas so spending today treating her & getting as much washing & hoovering done as possible to minimise the chances of bringing the little buggers with us!

Wow so many people moved/getting ready to move. Seems like suddenly solicitors etc have sprung into action!

Update on ours.. all searches are back and solicitor about to send enquiries off to sellers solicitors. Our buyers want to complete in 3 weeks but can't see that happening at the moment!

When would you all advise thinking about starting to pack? I'm thinking not until we've exchanged but now worried my buyers will want to do a simultaneous exchange/complete...aarrgghh!

Oooh progress is happening for a few here!!

Thanks to me and my buyer pushing our solicitors we have slight movement too!

All enquiries from my buyer are now with my solicitor.
My solicitor has chased my vendor as they have still not responded to the enquiries we sent through a few weeks ago!

Feeling a bit more positive that atleast my sale is moving along a bit more