Sellers/Buyers Roll Call 7

[MrBobLobLaw]

Stressed vendors and buyers alike: assemble here to moan about bloody solicitors!

Feel free to join at any point

Our offer was accepted!!! Just debating on a survey as it needs work doing so we can see what’s wrong with it. The house is empty and our buyers are living with family so a really small chain hoping for no problems and a quick exchange

I am debating a survey too. The house is a 1930s semi, but hasn't been extended at all. It has a new roof, and we are planning to rewire and do an extension to open up kitchen diner. No obvious damp or subsidence. Not sure if it's worth spending £1000 on a structural survey. My only question mark is that the vendor has fitted really cheap laminate everywhere, ground floor and first floor, so we cant see the floor boards. But then neither could the surveyor?

Is it normal to not hear from the buyers solicitor? Ours has been trying to get hold of them all week but no calls have been returned. Thus far no reason to worry, we know they’ve had their mortgage offer, searches and survey have been done etc. But we are trying to pin down an exchange date and we haven’t heard from them in over a week since we answered all the queries they sent over.

Our sellers and buyers are using the same firm, but different branches, so our solicitor is going to ask the sellers guys to chase their other office tomorrow but I’m getting antsy.

@AGreatUsername try the estate agent. They might be able to push contact.

Congratulations @BluebellsAndBees and @AndWhat! Sorry I went AWOL on this thread for a while as the house we were buying came back with a nightmare survey and Structural Engineer report strongly advised against buying so had to pull out of purchase.

Our buyers were lovely and gave us a few weeks to find a different house but we had a sh*t run of luck that involved being outbid on a house by a cash buyer and nothing else suitable coming on to market.

Have now had offer accepted on a beauuuuutiful house in Leek, which is an hour away from my parents and feeling emotional about the distance but excited at the total area change.

Valuation is tomorrow and survey on Saturday. Keeping everything crossed that this one gets over the line.

We are on to our 4th buyer and 3rd purchase during our time trying to move. We have our mortgage offer, just heard buyer's has been issued and vendor has survey arranged so fingers crossed we reach exchange this time.

Can I join this thread... we’ve just made an offer That has been accepted! We’re first time buyers so this is all very new and overwhelming and we haven’t told anyone in real life yet.

So, we are viewing two other houses on Saturday. We are then going to look at “our” house so we can compare. I’m hoping it’s just last minute nerves...

Anyone else getting jitters?

@Karcheer think it's normal to have jitters. A few weeks ago, we put in an offer of 230k on a 250k character cottage with beams and charm about 10 mins away from where we live now. It was a bit of a cheeky offer but the cottage next door was on last year at 245k and sold at 233k and was in much better condition, so we thought it was worth a try.

The vendors thought about it for a few days but decided to hold out for an offer of 240k from someone who wasn't yet proceedable.

The day after we had our offer accepted on the house we're buying, had a phone call about the other house - vendors now wanted to accept our offer of 230k.

This totally gave me the jitters as I love both houses. The other house is 10k more expensive and smaller but backs on to countryside, and is only 15 mins away from my parents but have lived in area for 14 years and it's going downhill. This house would be the smaller but safer option, close to friends and family.

The house we're buying is a quirky double fronted 4 bed Victorian town house with sashes, original door, tiled entrance and a double attic bedroom, it's a perfect example of its type. It's 10k cheaper and has bags of space. It's in Leek which is an hour away from my parents which I'm gutted and guilty about, but Leek is a much nicer area than where we live now. This house offers a lifestyle change but that's a scary prospect too - feels like a big deal.

The other house now being back in the game really gave me the jitters and we seriously considered it for a couple of days but decided to stick with the house we're buying. Still nervous about it all but my word for the year is gutsy, and this feels like a gutsy choice.

Long story short you already have a secret preference - which one makes your heart race?

We’ve had an email today asking us to go in and sign the contracts next week 🥳 All our purchase stuff is now done, buyers have all their searches being reported to them today and they are keen to set a completion date. We’ve decided to just suck up the cost of the major wall repairs as it’ll be too long between now and the report coming back and we are a) desperate to make some forward progress and b) there is literally nothing else we even want to view, let alone start again with.

We are FTBs, had out offer accepted a month ago on a probate property (to the day), have got our mortgage approved following our lender valuation earlier this week, however nothing is moving on the sellers end!!
Our solicitor has been chasing theirs for 2 weeks, and to top it all off they still need to submit their grant for probate...
We are really worried that our purchase could take month and months and the sellers just aren't committed .....what to do!? we love the house but just need to be realistic....

@LakeDistrictLover we bought a probate property 10 years ago. Offer accepted in Sept and completed end of Feb so nearly 6 months for everything to be sorted.
We also accepted an offer on current house last Feb and sadly one of the couple passed away. Took 8 months for probate to be granted but sadly sale fell through anyway.

Mortgage offer was issued for us today! How long do searches take?

Looks like our buyer wants to exchange on the 16th and complete 19th April, I’d like to complete the week before so we will discuss this, if we do it on the Thursday that’ll give us the whole bh to faff!

We viewed the two other houses yesterday, one was so! Noisy. The other one was really, really lovely but my DH didn’t like it at all, so we are sticking with the original house.

@needmorecoffeeandcake it depends on your council. Both times all ours have been done in 2 weeks except the council drainage plan. Separate councils, and both took about 4 weeks.

We are going in tomorrow to sign contracts on sale and purchase so I’m really hoping we’ll exchange ASAP. I’m hoping to complete either the first or second week of April. I don’t know if that’s unrealistic?!

@AGreatUsername as long as everything is ready on both sides that doesn’t sound unrealistic. If you’re ready to exchange you could complete within days.

Our house is now under offer. Pressure is on to find somewhere but there is currently nothing on Rightmove that looks suitable. I’m going to call the local agents tomorrow in the hope they have seen ones coming on soon that fit the brief. I’m also going to go and view the best of the ones I don’t think are right just to confirm. Here’s hoping lots of good new houses get listed this week!

Despite the madness of CV, I have gone ahead and instructed searches and a survey on our purchase. We figure worst case we will delay completion, but hopefully it can all go ahead smoothly.

We've just had an offer accepted!! First-time buyers, been saving for 4 years, so this has been a long time coming 0 parental handouts and no dead rich grandparents, I am quite proud of us.

I was wondering - how long will it take for today's interest rate cut to reflect in mortgage deals? The estate agents said we should get a mortgage within 2 weeks, but I want to get the benefits of the low-interest rate!

Can I join, please?

We live in tied accommodation, but own our own house which we have been letting. It’s not where we want to live when we retire.

As part of planning for retirement, we approached the tenant and they agreed to buy it from us. Then we went looking ‘just in case’ and found a house which has a lot of plusses to it. Long story short, we are now buying as well as selling, though we won’t actually move in for more than a year.

Buyer was expecting mortgage offer a week ago, but haven’t heard confirmation.

Working hard to comply with AML requirements to evidence the source of our funds for the purchase. NB it is all completely legit, but has been accumulated from various sources over a long period and we haven’t kept every single piece of paper.

We’ve exchanged! Completion is next Thursday, a good 2/3 weeks sooner than we had expected, so it’s a crazy rush now to finalise school places and pack a whole house!

@BeijingBikini my broker emailed after the budget today to say they were expecting lenders to announce any interest rate changes (if they choose to make any) in the next few days.

Congratulations @AGreatUsername!

Well it's been 18 weeks since my offer was accepted and I'm thoroughly hack off with the whole thing.

It should be fairly easy I'm a FTB and they're buying a vacant property but for some reason I just keep getting told the sellers "arent in a position to discuss exchange dates yet".

What can I do to hurry them along?

@Mama12345678, bloody hell, when I checked MoneySupermarket yesterday the best mortgage rate we could get was 1.43%. Just checked again and it's 1.14%!!!!

I wonder how many other banks will slash their rates by the time we see the mortgage advisor on Monday.....

We accepted an offer 4 weeks ago. I'm hoping that Covid doesn't upset the chain as we have had two sales fall through already for really random reasons.

Seems like longer than 4 weeks. We have had an offer accepted on a house, but we don't need to tie the sales together, we can move out and live elsewhere for a short while.

Congratulations @AGreatUsername! 🎉

We finally have some good news! Bank valuation came back OK and structural survey came back okish. Some repair and maintenance work needed, but nothing too awful. Just in process of getting quotes to go back to vendors and searches have been applied for. 👍