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

Lemony get your own independent solicitors ... the vendors' agent is having you on ! And also doing something unlawful (requiring you to use a particular conveyancer). They get a kickback for doing this. It is NOTHING to do with the previous sale falling through. Incidentally why did that sale fall through and at what stage?

On the survey @Lemonylemony I'd get the survey done pronto. Mortgage offers can take quite a.long time to come through. It might make sense to get the mortgage first if you have a large arrangement fee though.

Bank valuation survey is no use to you. You need a building survey as you thought.

If following survey you need to negotiate a reduced price you will need a revised mortgage offer this takes about 5 days to issue.

Honestly though get your own sol. An actual solicitor and not just one of these shite conveyancing mills. Plus, you need to make sure your conveyance is on your lender's panel. Not all are.

The solicitor - meh - well aware agent is getting a kickback don’t worry it’s not hidden - cost was the same to me - it was presented as a condition of accepting the offer, excuse given because the solicitors signed on to the agents panel have an average completion time of whatever shorter time than average, vendors have had 2 buyers fall through (I know reasons & are not issues) and are desperate to get moving - divorce case.

But interesting about legality of requiring a particular solicitor, might look into that. I would have preferred someone local I can actually meet & know who I’m talking to. At the moment have to wait for bank to send out paper statements for DP’s proof of address. Feels like there’ll be a lot of waiting in the next few months. We’re not in a rush though, the vendors are.

Today I’m off work so planning a day of chasing up the mortgage broker (“we’ll be in touch very soon” on Monday), and contacting the direct-only mortgage deals we also had AIPs for to find out more details. We’re aiming for an 85% LTV but one of the AIPs (for a higher amount than we’re spending) was for 90% so want to explore the cost differences there. Would keep more money back now for makeover projects but higher payments etc, need some exact numbers to make our decision.

I doubt many solicitors are doing face to face appointments at the moment and I've never needed to meet one during a sale or purchase. That said, pretty shocking to make a particular one mandatory, that can't be legal surely.

Just curious, so if you're doing your own structural survey does that mean you just go for the cheapest mortgage valuation?

My dream house was posted on Rightmove on Monday, literally perfect for me, nicely within budget. Status changed to "Sold STC" yesterday!!

I split from my husband in January, had offer accepted on a house in February, lockdown happened and I’m STILL waiting for a completion date with no end in sight. I can feel my mental health being affected every day, not getting the new start I’d planned and having to live with my ex still. It’s difficult and hard and soul destroying :-(

The mortgage valuation isn’t for the buyer is it, it’s for the lender - I don’t really mind what they do! Just finished one telephone mortgage advice appointment with a major bank and they’re only doing remote online valuations anyway at the moment.

A local solicitor would make all this certifying identification palaver more straightforward for a start - could just take the docs to the office for them to see themselves, rather than have to get someone else to certify them. Also this distant one has a clause about “we are not local so it’s up to you to tell us what specific searches are necessary for your property” which seems a massive cop out to me, I’m paying them for their legal advice, and it appears to be “we don’t know, you tell us!”. But anyway. Not tied in with them yet. Will see.

Sorry you’re going through that unsure we’re buying from a couple who are divorcing and from a human point of view it does make me mindful of not fannying about with things even though from our point of view there’s no real pressure or rush. What is holding things up for you?

@Lemonylemony it's up to you to pick which of the 3 surveys, it's for you too it's not purely valuation or we'd all get the cheapest one. That's why I'm curious which one people get when theyre doing a private full structural.

Our solicitors certified us electronically, it was really easy using an app!

Maybe different lenders offer different options - Halifax just said that they are only doing remote valuations at the moment, they usually offer an option of a level 2 homebuyers report but not currently due to covid, they do not offer level 3. In any case I want the surveyor to be working for me not the lender

Anyway I’ve worked out the order of 1. Mortgage sorted 2. Independent survey and then 3. All the solicitory stuff, as if 1 or 2 goes tits up then there’s no point in 3!

Lemonylemony thank you, I actually don’t know what’s holding things up to be honest. Both the sellers and I are chasing our solicitors but between them they are blaming each other for the delay and can’t tell us exactly why. Haven’t even got a rough idea of when which would be something to work towards. Every day that I’m here and there’s no news I’m going to slowly lose the plot I think!

@Lemonylemony oh yes maybe, I didn't think of Covid.

Have you instructed your solicitors and paid for searches? You might want to make your sellers aware if you aren't going to start that until after your mortgage offer as it'll really hold things up to delay searches. I wouldn't be happy if our buyer did that as we are in a rush, but it depends how rushed your sellers are. Solicitors are usually actioned alongside mortgage application in my experience. It's incredibly frustrating how much money you have to hand over without certainty of the transaction, it's worth finding out how much your solicitors will charge if the sale falls through. I've had no sale no fee before (barring a small retainer) my current solicitor is searches which is about £300.

Our solicitor is no sale no fee (bar searches) as well. Can’t do anything with the solicitors until they’re happy with ID anyway, which will be late next week waiting for paper stuff from bank & getting it certified around both of our shift patterns. Solicitor was apparently required by the vendor so they can’t complain about that! Mortgage is possibly ready to put full application in a few days, just waiting for a few more options to get back to us to make final decision.

Mortgage advisor recommended searches after mortgage confirmed, the product we’re most likely looking at has a v long expiry date anyway (Feb).

Getting surveyor quotes now to get one lined up for ASAP after the mortgage is agreed. Don’t think the vendor can really complain that I’m delaying anything

@Lemonylemony this has made me go back to our estate agent and find out if searches have been actioned, I will be fuming if not as we should be exchanging in 4 weeks (offer was accepted about 3 weeks ago but he is struggling with info for his mortgage). Very different situation to yours of course!

That's very true in regard to using their recommended one, we are using the unofficially recommended solicitors the developer mentioned (but aren't supposed to....) in the hope any delays with them will have to be swallowed as they mentioned them!

So we have sold ours and had an offer agreed. Our buyers are first timers and our sellers are moving to France, so going to rented. So we have filled in all the paperwork and driven it to the solicitors as the post seems to be very slow! The mortgage broker has agreed a mortgage with us so doing all that stuff. It feels a bit strange now as it’s limbo land..... our sellers would like mid august which would be great for the kids but I am not sure it’s very doable....

@Lemonylemony sorry just spoke to my mum (who knows everything of course ) and she says normally you wouldn't action solicitors until after mortgage offer so I was wrong to say I'd get that started! I do hope our buyers have though because it will really hold us up with his mortgage hold up.

[quote notheragain4]@Lemonylemony sorry just spoke to my mum (who knows everything of course ) and she says normally you wouldn't action solicitors until after mortgage offer so I was wrong to say I'd get that started! I do hope our buyers have though because it will really hold us up with his mortgage hold up.[/quote]
May I respectfully disagree with your Mum!

That would be a rather unusual decision, and would suggest that the buyer in question had serious doubts about being approved for a mortgage, and would set the alarm bells off if I were the seller.

@Mildura well as I say I've actioned my solicitors immediately and I expect my buyer too, my mum was a mortgage advisor so I asked her and she said it was always usual you get the offer first.

I just wanted to apologise to lemony as coming across as a know it all when there's obviously different ways of doing it.

(And I find it unusual too tbh, especially considering mortgage offers have only really started coming through as quickly as they have recently)

I don’t think we’ve got any issues getting a mortgage - We have 3 AIPs/various advisors’ affordability calculators would lend us nearly £100k more than we need, our limitation is the deposit which obviously we have (& the agent has proof of). Like I said mortgage advisor recommended searches after mortgage offer. Given the delay the solicitors have already instigated, we’re talking a matter of days to be honest.

Obviously vendors are at liberty to pull out and go back to market - but we’re very proceedable, flexible and doing our best to get things done, keeping the agent updated at each step so far, their requested solicitors are holding things up, so I think they’d be a bit silly to!

Yes, we have just completed on our sale! Purchase to follow later.
@MissLemon18 I was on the journey with you.

Good luck to others on this thread.

Aw nother don’t worry! There is literally no handbook to this, everyone you ask for advice says something different, the whole process seems to have deliberately inbuilt inefficiency and uncertainty. I’m sure other countries probably do things much more sensibly than this!

For clarification, I have engaged the solicitors - they are demanding very specific ID certified in a specific way before they will do anything, which will take time anyway. In the meantime I’m waiting for mortgage broker to get back to me (submitted info to them the evening the offer was accepted), have progressed the best independent/direct mortgage I can find as far as I can without hard credit searches (if the broker can’t beat it, it’s ready to submit an application), and getting a surveyor lined up. I am hardly the cause of any delay at the moment

@Lemonylemony you sound on the ball, I wish my buyer was!!!

There is something to be said about waiting to get mortgage offer before appointing sol. You wont know whether the sol is on the lender panel otherwise.

The stuff about you having to tell the solicitor what searches to run.... no no no no no. That is all shades of wrong. Some things are optional like chancel liability etc but others.. this is what you're paying them for! Are you sure they are actually solicitors?? It's not... whispers... Countrywide, is it??

@Rhapsodyinpurple - congratulations on your sale!