Sellers/Buyers Roll Call 8 and still going

[Fern204]

Hope it's ok to start a new thread.
Bottom of our chain should exchange on Monday and then the top will hopefully exchange a week later. I dont quite understand, something to do with a charge on our buyers house which needs to be released first.
Aiming to complete on 15th July, so hopefully not much longer.
I will never move again, and definitely not in a chain of 10!

Oh Fern, whats a big chain, how long has it been there for you? Fingers crossed for it to end soon!
We are moving in Southwest London, only 1km away from our current beloved home of more than 10 years. I am selling my home and buying a semi run down house only slightly bigger than our current home. We are only a chain of 4 so not as bad still it has been 8 months and our seller is only having his survey to be done on Monday. This is definitely our last move as the stress and cost(stamp duty of close to £100k not mentioning EA fee for selling our home)is too much. I think because it has been dragging for too long then now I would do whatever it take to get to the complete line overlooking all issues with the buying house.

I think we're giving up for the time being. We've been left hanging for over a month now on our offer on a 2 bed flat in London.

Completed today. Phew.

@PurBal congratulations!

It's been in place since beginning of March, and I know lock down hasnt helped. We had been on the market since May last year so it feels like a never ending journey.

So today was our exchange day. Heard nothing from solicitor all morning. Called at 2 and she said they were just about to contact buyers solicitor and she would call us back to update us.
At 4, we received a text message from our mortgage provider (nationwide) confirming completion date and when funds would be transferred.
But we've heard nothing back from the solicitors and no response when we tried to call. So we don't know if we've actually exchanged.
The text from Nationwide implies we have, as their website states they send that text after exchange, but we don't know for sure.

Is it normal for the solicitor to not confirm that exchange has actually happened, and only make contact if there is an issue?

It's no bloody wonder moving house is right up there with death and divorce as one of the most stressful life events. It's impossible to avoid arseholes and incompetents - the only problem is that you never know when one is about to knock on your door.

Our buyers have commissioned their survey so fingers crossed we will start to see some progress soon. It's such a long-drawn-out business and it seems that every day brings a new worry to think about.

Congratulations @PurBal !

After a week of radio silence our solicitor sent us a large amount of documents yesterday 😳 we stayed up until mid night to read them through and all looked ok. Seems that we have some outstanding enquires and those could take days or months... hope for the former!

Sympathies with all either buying or selling!
We accepted an offer on our house during the first weekend viewing restrictions ended.
First time buyers, with finance in place, great offer (more than we expected).
Now, the buyers have had their mortgage valuation survey done, and the surveyors have said my house is unmortgageable! This is bollocks - I have a mortgage on it!
Something to do with the fact that they think the house isn’t a typical bricks and mortar build - clearly rubbish.
It’s gone to appeal, but I’m super stressed that these buyers will fall through!

Hi all checking in. We've had a good day with our buyer's mortgage being accepted subject to valuation. Allowed myself to look at photos of our new house for the first time in a couple weeks

Good luck to everyone in big chains. Thankfully ours is just two, buyer is first time buyer and we are moving into new build. But the developer is being INTENSE wanting to exchange within 6 weeks and we have a lot of incentives which we are scared we will lose if we don't meet the deadline, especially as they are selling the houses at an incredible rate atm, and buyer is having some difficulty keeping up.

I guess it's rarely straight forward!

@tigerbear - what it your house made of? Gingerbread?

Checking in!

We’ve received more documents from the solicitors, the fixtures & fittings and the vendors house questionairre forms. There’s a few questions about access, boundary responsibilities and improvements made to the property that don’t match between what we can see/what the title register states & what the owner has written on their questionairre. So the solicitor is getting to work on that. In the meantime DP and I need to get to work on finalising the decisions for the declaration of trust, as we’re not married and putting in different amounts of deposit. That’s our job for the weekend.

Exciting news for those that have (maybe?) exchanged & completed; sympathies to those for whom things are not
going to plan. This process is.....just bizarre, quite frankly, as someone new to it! So bitty, so vulnerable to people being inefficient and poor at their jobs.

@DeeplyMovingExperience it’s bricks and mortar, but covered by tiles!

What kind of survey came up with it being non-standard construction then?

@Lemonylemony - not a clue, it was supposed to be a standard mortgage valuation survey. The estate agent thinks that the lender may be trying to find reasons not to lend to our buyers, as they have a relatively low deposit.

Did they do a site visit though or just a desktop/kerbside valuation

I'll join, getting a divorce so waiting game to come off one mortgage and house title so I can go ahead with the house I have made and offer on, and had accepted.

Luckily they are buying a probate property that's empty so we should have some flexibility.. I hope.

Already making plans for extending it, can't wait to move in.

Checking in.

CCTV survey of waste/sewage pipes arranged for Thursday...

Karcheer was that something the building surveyor suggested - what sort of issues are they expecting to find? When you mentioned that on the other thread I assumed you meant you were going to do the drain survey after you completed. Is there a potential deal breaker in the drains?

@Lemonylemony they visited my house, took photos, had a good look around. I’ve provided the agent with my original survey (this was done only 3 years ago) for the appeal, and they reckon there’s a good chance of it being overturned.
All of the houses on my street are of the same construction, and most of us have mortgages, so I don’t know what the surveyor was thinking!

Joining..

Offer accepted in Jan into May + our seller pulled out due to redundancy.

Offer accepted on another house at the start of June. Our mortgage offer is now into the 3rd week of being processed however the bank have stated we can now only have a shorter term than previously approved. - fine, accepted + valuation completed so now back with the underwriter to sign off.

We are in rented so nothing to sell our end + so again we wait, wait some more + then wait again..

@fern204 that's is a massive chain, I hope it all goes smoothly for you.

We FINALLY exchanged yesterday, now just need to wait the two weeks until completion. Has been a very long time coming (we offered and sold in January!) Sooooooo happy that it's finally done. Exchange was slightly anti-climatic though.

Anyone know what "standard construction" means? I was hoping to find out if the house was timber frame or breeze blocks but was only told standard construction.

@Lemonylemony yes it was. We are just being careful to be honest. There is a pipe that runs under the side of our new garden from about 8 cottages on the other side of the road to a shared septic tank processing unit right behind our garden. I’m not overly keen on having any issues with that 💩

Eww “shared septic tank processing unit” sounds delightful doesn’t it! I can absolutely see why you’d want some reassurance on that one!

Just looking through our vendors property information questionairre. They’ve provided minimal information on the boiler - just stated the brand, not any other information on type/model/age (although a later question asks whether any gas installation since 2002(?) and do they have CORGI cert which they’ve answered yes); also says last serviced 18 months ago. I would have thought an annual service would be considered standard, so am thinking to ask the solicitor to enquire as to any gas safety cert that is still valid now otherwise we would require the boiler to be serviced & gas safety check carried out before exchange. Does that sound reasonable?