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

Hello! Thought I’d sign in as we are just starting the process and are officially potential buyers now! We got our decision in principle yesterday and have put in requests to view 5 properties. We’re looking in 2 different areas, one closer to family, and one closer to work (where you get more for your money).

Can’t wait to get viewing now. Bit worried we’re at a disadvantage with viewings though as we’re both still working (very) full time so are limited as to when we are both available.

Gherkin all sound v frustrating. Will you push for exchange with delayed completion (& Covid clauses I guess?).

Argh pressed send too soon - meant to add - OR is this emergency surgery quite serious stuff so you feel more like you need to give them time/space?

FTB, viewing a flat that looks great tomorrow. We went for a poke round the building today and it's lovely, really well maintained and quiet (we currently rent in a block where the management company are a joke so are looking very carefully at that!).

Any tips on dealing with estate agents? What should we be looking to offer? It's been on the market for over 6 months and reduced once already. And obviously we need to find out how long the lease is...

I'd be looking to find out why it has been on the market for 6+ months. Lease length? High service charge? Weed smoking neighbour? Huge sinking fund deficit? Or just weird layout/ overpriced...??

Got a feeling it will be lease length related. All will be revealed tomorrow...

ground rent,storage,

Eeek exciting times! Removals company are here loading everything up. Fingers crossed for move day tomorrow!

We're due to complete on Friday after an arduous 6-month process with no chain and buying an empty property. Our solicitors were great at first, then the woman dealing with our purchase was furloughed. From there, it was only the senior partners of the firm actually working and they continued to take on new business, despite not having enough staff to cope with their initial workload. .

At one stage, it was taking an average of two weeks to get them to respond to phone calls and emails. This was all despite being informed that, of their list of priorities, our case rated as a no. 3.

Being faced with deathly silence from your legal representatives when trying to purchase a house is unnerving!

I ended up sending a pointed email saying that telling us we rank third in a list of eight priorities, then ignoring all communication for a fortnight at a time didn't fill me with confidence that we'd hit our completion date.

I'd give our initial conveyancer a great review, but the constant lack of communication from the senior partners - not even simply to say 'No news, but we're chasing the other side', has caused me needless stress and anxiety.

Fingers crossed, it's all still on for this Friday.

Our buyers pulled out last week. Back to square one. We accepted the offer two weeks before lockdown and were waiting for more properties to come onto the market so knew there was a good chance things would fall apart. Frustrating though.

Good luck @MissLemon18. It feels like we have been in this together for a while. Hope your moves goes smoothly.
Ours has been postponed again!

Back from viewing. Lease is fine, plenty of time on it. Ground rent and service charge very cheap. Place will need lots of cosmetic work which is the type of thing we've been looking for (self employed husband is currently very bored and is very handy, has worked as a painter/decorator). Getting everything ready to put an offer in!

I think we are going to pull out of the house that we were about to exchange on pre lock down, it’s a new build so no emotions on their side (don’t feel like I’m upsetting anyone).
Being lockdown has made us realise we will really miss a slightly larger garden, the new build garden is very small.
We viewed one house on Saturday (going to do a second viewing on this) and are viewing two more on Friday.
Our buyers want to exchange in two weeks, but they also want a discount :/

Pulled out from a purchase before covid and back viewing houses - we want bigger house further from London now.

Offered one for about 10% under asking - I think the asking price was fair before lockdown. EA got back saying vendor wants very close to asking price and confident they will get it based on how many viewings they had last weekend. We refused to increase our offer and will look at a couple more in coming days.

I have a long list of properties saved in my Rightmove account and none seem to have sold since Lockdown lifted yet. A few previously SSTC are back to market. A few popped up as rental. I am keeping a close eye on the development there!

@Adjeoebfwh we are looking further out of london too. One of the houses I really like on paper has another viewing after us, pre lockdown was so quiet where we were looking but it is making me nervous about what to offer if we get to that stage, as the out of london market does seem quite buoyant...

Does anyone know if banks are still offering the mortgage offer extension? Think we're all going to need one soon , but that's yet another worry - that someone in the chain won't be able to get one! 🤯

@Karcheer I would still offer under for those but maybe a bit closer to asking, say 5-8% under instead of 10%. I think they may fare a bit better in the upcoming crash as there is less of a premium of being “convenient” built in their price. And being convenient and close to everything is the factor quickly losing appeal here.

However the limited supply of credit/ lending will have an effect across the board for all kind of houses.

I am also interested to know how valuation post lockdown is going... are mortgage providers giving similar valuations as before? Another uncertainty in getting a mortgage!

Booked in our first two viewings for Saturday, and requested a few more.

Another property came on the market today. Our comfortable price is £500k and we’re looking at properties listed £450-550 considering that there may be wiggle room for many at the moment (our AIP takes us way over £550k but don’t want to cripple ourselves with mortgage payments, ideally looking at £500k top unless exceptional). House that came on today ticks almost all boxes and is on at £525k, however they only bought it 4 years ago for £505k. There isn’t going to be much wiggle room there is there? They haven’t done much, new bathroom & put in a downstairs loo by making a reception room smaller.

@Lemonylemony well you can always try! 500 offer on 525 asking price is reasonable and worst case they say no but at least you tried?

Yeah worst case they can just say no. Other fish in the sea. Would just need to figure whether strategy would be to go in 10% under and be bargained up or just go in straight at 500k best and final for quick sale.

That’s if we like it. Have asked to view.

We had someone request a viewing but they haven’t got an offer on their house yet so we said no. I don’t know how I feel about viewings when we are still limited in having visitors etc. I feel so sick and sad about it all. We should have been living in our new house now. I still can’t believe our buyer has pulled out when we were so close to the end!

Is it totally weird to download a copy of the title register ahead of a viewing? I’m putting together a pack for each of the properties we’re viewing, with tailored question & check lists, summary of market information/intel we can glean, any information we can find online like flood risk and local crime stats etc. Keep all the pertinent info together to help with our decision making. The title register is only £3, and would have any info about covenants and access rights etc. I know you wouldn’t usually get that until the solicitor got it as part of the searches. But it’s only £3.

Am I going completely bonkers already this early in the buying process?

@Lemonylemony I did the same for a few properties I was interested so you are not the only one! I think your solicitor will be most impressed when you send that pack over :) I have for example found restrictive covenants in the title deed which means I dropped the interest on the house before I viewed it - imagine finding out that only after you paid for surveyors and searches it will be a massive waste of time and money.

@Lemonylemony I always looked at title for any restrictive covenants and rights of way before offering - can sometimes give you leverage. 👍

We're in! Still can't bloody believe we managed to get over the line, did simultaneous exchange/complete and we had keys by 13.15!

Keeping everything crossed for you @Rhapsodyinpurple!