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!

@Karcheer

Morning all, dropping my cat off at The cattery this morning and arranging for the skip to be picked up. Utter chaos here!

Anyone else hoping to exchange/complete this week?

We are meant to be completing today, overs have been packed and carted all out stuff off. We are currently sat in our cars outside our 'old' house as we are still waiting for money to transfer, mildly freaking out!!

@Karcheer Good luck this week, our last week has been crazy trying to get everything packed.

@lindauk5 I hate that bit, when you’ve no money and no house... good luck!

@Bells3032 I was talking to my estate agent the other day about they fact that when you think of a million pound house you think of “to the manor born” but in reality here you’d get a 2-bed flat 😩

@didicat we spoke to the estate agent of the house we are buying, we’ve had lots of communication with him regarding arranging surveys, our seller trying to sell us random stuff etc...

Seems like a stressful day for many today!

I'm sat in my car ordering face masks in light of the fact they're about to become mandatory everywhere.

So very nearly clicked on "buy all" on Amazon, that would have been painful... there's a £500 coffee machine sat in my basket which I'm lusting after for when we finally get in the new house.

We're three weeks into the "6-8" weeks the EA suggested. And we've heard fuck all from anyone. But the survey is being done tomorrow so hopefully that'll push things to a move.

I haven't updated here as we really haven't moved along that much since the last time.

We accepted an offer on our house last Monday, however, most of the houses we liked had been sold.

The only one left that we offered on seems to be sold by people who actually aren't serious about selling. They were keen to reject all 3 offers (With Purplebricks so all online offers) that were made but after a lot of tooing and froing with them, we decided it was still worth the asking price to us even if we thought we were overpaying so we offered it. It has gone very quiet since then. No response to our offer. Nothing. After a day of no response we decided to pull our offer and walk. It is a probate sale and I think there is an emotional attachment to the place that we can't risk getting into the conveyancing with them only for them to change their minds about selling half way through.

So now back to the search. There is very little coming on the market at the moment in our price range. Either we too fussy or something else. There another place we viewed twice, I liked it but DH is not convinced by it. It needs everything doing. It also only has a downstairs bathroom. If they accepted our offer, we would get architects in as quickly as possible, get planning permission and hopefully complete the work next year for a double storey extension. It is how long we can go on with downstairs loo and bathroom for. The place definitely needs re-wiring, complete new heating system and re-plastering as all walls have woodchip. The separate garage has serious cracks in it so that would need re-buiding too, however, that is not an issue as the extension would entail this area too so work here would be completed at the same time. Let's wait and see what else comes on the market in the next couple of weeks. If nothing then DH might look at this place in a different light.

Ah so had a second viewing of a house today. it's a lovely location and lots of potential. talking about what we could do with it. we'd have about £150k to refurbish everything including smashing through walls and fitting bifold doors. I love the location although not perfect for schools - it's great for everything else inc the station, my family, the shops, the park etc.

I am just so confused whether to take it and hope i love it when my vision is completed or wait for something in the slightly less nice area but slightly nearer schools etc.

We'd probably still get a good school just not as convenient.

Our offer has been rejected so we have given them our best offer. They have told us what they would like for it but I think it's over priced.

So the next few days will be viewing other properties and seeing if we like them better. I hate this process.

[quote Karcheer]@lindauk5 I hate that bit, when you’ve no money and no house... good luck![/quote]
Thanks! We are in, a little overwhelmed at quite how much we have to do and rather unimpressed at how dirty everything has been left. Husband has said not to open the fridge as it will make me gag not envy!

I put in an offer today and was told straight away I was the highest, now it’s best and finals for Thursday. Are the sellers just trying to get everyone to up their offers (obviously!). It’s like buying a house on eBay. We love it but how poor are we willing to be ?

House buying and selling in this country is wank.

That is all I have to say this evening.

@notheragain4 I couldn't agree more!

Our buyer has their mortgage valuation on Weds which makes me very nervous. There are no other houses the same to compare it to, and the price is held up by the area. Really worried they will down value! Experiences anyone?

Notheragin4 - I have to agree with you. We are set to exchange/complete tomorrow and neither of us can relax tonight because we've been here before and they've pulled out! I can only hope things will go through but it's going to be a long night!

Karcheer - I also have a fancy coffee machine in my amazon basket and I've told DH it has my name on it and I'm getting it on Friday - house or not!

I'm supposed to be sorting sky/BT etc. and they all have at least a 2 week delay so we're going to be uncontactable and bored in our new house!

Aargh this whole thing is driving me mad. Certain that EA advised us badly in the first place, and we have had to reduce our price.
A house on our road which is almost identical went on with the same EA a week later and went U/O almost straight alway. £50k difference in asking! We have had a good number of viewings and one utterly ridiculous offer (no houses in our street have ever sold that low). I want to just get rid of the EA and go with another. Meanwhile there are barely any houses where we want to buy so really worried that it just won't ever happen.

Aargh this whole thing is driving me mad. Certain that EA advised us badly in the first place, and we have had to reduce our price.
A house on our road which is almost identical went on with the same EA a week later and went U/O almost straight alway. £50k difference in asking! We have had a good number of viewings and one utterly ridiculous offer (no houses in our street have ever sold that low). I want to just get rid of the EA and go with another. Meanwhile there are barely any houses where we want to buy so really worried that it just won't ever happen.

Fuming!
Do you remember our seller asking if we wanted to buy various things he can't be arsed to move ?

Well he has now said if we don't pay £3k for them he'll delay the completion date until he can have them moved.

Cheeky burger!

Ive said im not paying for them and if he does move the completion date he can have the house covid cleaned as his excuse for not doing that was exch/comp on the same day.

@Karcheer - he really is taking the P! Our sellers moved out today and are camping outside their new house tonight (it's 5 hours away!) I popped by today to measure for a skip and they've left so much stuff in the house and all their old appliances are in the 'bonfire' heap! I'm going to need to arrange someone to clear before we can start with builders and decorating.

Wow, busy on this thread over the last couple of days - good and bad! Congrats to all those with offers accepted, sympathy to you guys having trouble. Especially @notheragain4 (can’t believe your buyers/solicitors have done nothing in 8 weeks, that’s shocking! And more so that no one told you!) & @Didicat - what a huge stress for you. Hoping for you that it all works out even better in the end, one way or another.

@Comps83 we do all our printing - our conveyancers have an online portal so everything gets uploaded to there, we read/print/sign then scan back in/ re-upload completed forms. I love it, it’s so straightforward and easy, but I have the facilities for printing so it’s a bit different! I usually just print off the relevant pages so eg in a 15 page document I’ll just print the 2 that need a signature and then upload them rather than doing the whole lot for no reason.

Nothing happening here - radio silence! Guess no one in the chain has anything to say to each other yet still v anxious waiting for mortgage offer, have got a right bee in my bonnet about it. Stuff only went off on Friday, broker said anything from 2 days to 4 weeks to hear back - keeping everything crossed it’s on the shorter end of the timeframe. Read an article that said lenders were deliberately delaying mortgage offers which has also given me wobbles even though it was probably bollocks.

On the topic of cheeky buyers/sellers - super outing but my all time best ‘cheeky fucker’ story: the guy who bought our last house was an investor, buying to rent it out. He wanted to exchange before anyone else in the chain was ready - & the solicitors actually tried to charge us market rent for the time difference between his proposed completion date and the actual planned one. It did eventually transpire that the solicitors had taken it upon themselves to do this without involving the buyer and he didn’t actually know about it, but I was FURIOUS. Lots of ranting about the wanker trying to charge me rent to live in my own house

@FourForYouGlenCoco when my dad was looking for a property he found a lovely flat and the woman living there was meant to be moving into a home but they hadn't got a space there yet. They wanted:

1. An open completion

Or

1. Her to live with him until she moved into the home (bear in mind whilst this was two bed they had knocked through the wall and turned the second room into a walk in wardrobe
2. Not have her pay any bills during this period

Or

1. Have him complete but not live there and still pay the bills and her to live there rent free

5.give his deposit to their solicitor. They still had a mortgage on the flat so if they defaulted the bank could repossess the flat and the deposit.

He noped out of there.

@Comps83 I think most solicitory things are done via online portal things now, ours are the same (they’re nowhere near us, we’re in London they’re in Leeds) and we print what we need to at home or at work. Otherwise you’d be constantly waiting on the post? You can get a cheap WiFi printer for home for around £30-40, just think of it as another of those random miscellaneous house costs, and print things straight from your phone. For sending things back if I’m at work I use the office scanner or at home just take a photo of the document with my phone and send that, and they seem happy.

Nothing happening here.

Waiting for responses to my questions from vendor - I sent that to my solicitors 2 weeks ago, and I know the vendors got it 10 days ago.

Waiting for mortgage to get sorted.

Waiting for EICR report, actually haven’t heard from the estate agent if that’s been booked in yet (I directed electrician to the agent), that’s something I could chase.

So no idea right now when moving might happen.

@GherkinsOnToast did your vendors agree in any documents that they would remove everything incl rubbish from the property? If so can you not charge the costs of removal to them?

The perfect house has come up today, I don’t want to get into another bunfight but equally don’t want to start the estate agents down that path by offering over asking the day it goes on. I know I won’t be the only phone call about it either this morning.

Spent all weekend packing + painting our "old" house in order to hand the keys back.

Still so much to do + so little time.

We are due to complete on Monday so i have taken Tues-Fri off as annual leave next week, didn't bother with the Monday as no idea if / when we will be able to pick the keys up.

Booked Sky / broadband - got a very good deal so worth giving them a call.
Also done gas / tv license / redirected the mail + water yesterday.

The electric was a pain in the arse, need to call them.

Van booked for Tuesday morning to officially move the big stuff.

We are due to complete on Monday so i have taken Tues-Fri off as annual leave next week, didn't bother with the Monday as no idea if / when we will be able to pick the keys up.

Oh that’s a good idea. I don’t know what we’ll do about taking time off, neither of us have jobs where you can book annual leave at short notice, and we’ve no idea when we might actually move. Luckily the estate agents/new house is only a few minutes walk from where I work so we’ll probably just pick up keys and move stuff in the evenings/weekends, not have any annual leave during actual completion week and only move big stuff (that requires strong people & van) a few weeks later when we can get some time.

I guess this would be a reason for time between exchange and completion, to allow for time to book AL!

Good luck Swaying!. Have a figure in your head, go see if anything at the viewing changes that, and just offer what you think it’s worth.

No house is the perfect house, by the way. There’ll always be something!