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!

@Maybenexttime08 good luck for the survey result. I know the butterfly feeling, I'm feeling it already and survey not even been booked. In fact we are right at the start of the process. We bought current house in need of modernisation and didn't get round to doing everything (e.g rewire) so think it's going to bite us when survey comes back. I'm hoping some of it would've been obvious upon viewing but not everything will be. Have kept some savings back in case need to negotiate with buyer. Worst thing that would happen would be for them to pull out.

This process is all-consuming. I only accepted buy and sell offers a week ago and I can't imagine going through this for months upon months feeling like this!

@Happydaysandhappysmiles, I agree with @Lemonylemony, even if you accepted an offer today that is an incredibly optimistic timeline you're working towards. I moved to another part of the country and couldn't sell in time so had to rent my flat out and subsequently rented in the new location. It worked out financially but it's a bit miserable to be honest not being in your own home. My vacant place that I own has been under offer since 4 June. He is a FTB with 50% deposit. You'd think we'd be done by now, but still no exchange date.

Sorry I've just read that back, sounds like I have multiple properties, I don't. It's just taken me 8 years to pull my finger out and sell the only one I own but haven't lived in since 2012.

Our buyers Survey has come back fine - I'm more than relieved - phew! Shocked!

Ah great news @Maybenexttime08 - what a relief!

@Maybenexttime08 Congrats that's exciting move forward.

@Happydaysandhappysmiles I have to agree with PPs. Early Sept is a very optimistic timeline. I bought a completely chain free flat and it took 10 weeks and that was before Covid. I have no idea why it takes so long. it's irritating. I had my mortgage in place within a week and the rest was waiting for lawyers etc.

So Sale of my flat (currently tenanted) is going very slowly. it should be straight forward but the purchasers are first time buyers and I don't think they realise how much time the lawyers take and the lawyers haven't even started reviewing it 5 weeks after offer accepted. Getting annoyed as I accepted slightly lower on the hopes they would be fast. It's in their interest to be quick as theyre buying with tenants in situ so each week they are losing rental income and getting closer to the lease running out.

We have had our offer on a house accepted. We can just about purchase it without the sale of my flat except the additional stamp duty. After a discussion with my in laws yesterday they offered to loan us some additional funds if we need it if my flat hasn't sold. It's a private sale and the sellers are buying a chain free house so should be straight forward. They are keen not to lose the house and accepted a slightly lower offer from us cos we are chain free. They have sent us their lawyer details, official acceptance of our offer and made a what's app group with us in case we had any additional questions

It's all a go go here

Made a what's app group with us in case we had any additional questions

Did you do this in UK?

Anyone else in UK done this?

I found out today that my mortgage offer just rests on tomorrow’s valuation now- they’re happy with my finances so yay! I’ve not heard anything from my solicitors for a little while, is there anything they should be doing atm?

Our purchase is progressing but very slowly. We are doing everything we can as quickly as we can, but the seller's solicitors are taking forever to do anything. Had a cynical laugh at their website which says they can complete on a house sale within 3 weeks. It took them over 4 weeks to send the first bits of paperwork.

@kerrymucklowe2020 I don't think it's standard. We just happen to be buying a private sale so no estate agents from a friend of a friend kind of thing.

Im close to exchanging on.my property sale..ehich is good as ive just reserved a david wilson Cornell home. The 21ft lounge did it for me !! I complete in.october...cant wait. Hopefully the sale of my house will go smoothly x

@Chickaletta16 fingers cross for you, how long has it taken you to get to exchange? We have reserved with Barratt (who also own David Wilson) and are 2 weeks behind schedule and praying they give us another extension

@Chickaletta16 ahhh exciting!!! I don't know what David Cornwell is but love a beautiful lounge.

Got our mortgage suggestion from our broker this eve. Oh my those ERCs are making me nervous. We are locking in for five years as interests are so low but that feels like an awful long time to me!!! I hadn't even met my now husband 3 years ago let alone 5.

@notheragain4 initially i reserved a barrat home the radleigh..but its built next to a large flood plain..and wont be ready for a year..so we changed to a different site.

We accepted our offer at the beginnkng of june..so about 8 weeks till exchange x

David Wilson are very nice, I wish they were doing DWH in our areas, we've reserved the alnmouth. Did you reserve weeks after already selling? So nervous about meeting our deadline :( especially as they are giving us the stamp duty.

parvoreal and everyone else, thank you.
We know it is tight but driven by term start date, plan B is to ask for an extension to the start of the school place (mid year entry) or if we get closer then take ours off the market and stay put 😓. DH won't 'rent
And rent'. We now have two offers so fingers crossed we negotiate something acceptable with one of them

Ugh so frustrated at the slowness of everything!

Broker on Friday emailed to say the lender wants to clarify one thing. I replied immediately saying ok, what proof/document do they need (might need to ask my solicitor for it). No reply. She’s updated the online tracker/portal for me to upload another document “confirmation of X” but not explained what this means or what I need to provide for this! Emailed her again now. And also emailed my solicitor explaining & asking to forward any relevant documentation to me or direct to the broker.

And solicitor hasn’t yet sent on any update following the vendors’ response to our queries, I know they had that last Wednesday and when she phoned me on Saturday she said she’d email me her summary yesterday. Nada.

I don’t mind things taking time if I know how much time things will take and if people actually respond so I can do what I need to. It’s the uncertainty and inconsistency that is SO FRUSTRATING!!!

On the upside I’ve done a lot of learning about electrics over the past few days and now very prepared for planning & arranging the rewire asap after completion!

@Happydaysandhappysmiles you're lucky you've been allowed to apply, I'm not allowed to apply for my kids' spaces until a month before we move. I hope things move quickly for you, we were supposed to exchange within 6 weeks for our developer but it took our buyer 7 weeks to get a mortgage and only then did he instruct solicitors the conveyancing is actually going really quickly, she was instructed last week and searches are out and enquiries completed. My fingers are crossed for you.

@Happydaysandhappysmiles your DH is right - if you can avoid "rent and rent" then you should do so. The administration, the awful tenants (2 out of 5 were bad - trashed the place and left it filthy) and now Capital Gains Tax even though it's the only place I own. Now I'm breaking the "rent and rent" cycle I'm in debt due to it being empty for so long. I wish you luck whatever happens!
@Lemonylemony sounds like we are in the same position. I have no idea why we are not exchanging. I'm the same as you, if I knew the length of time I'd be OK but it's now been 3 weeks of "you might exchange this week" from the EA and the solicitor sends me a one line email saying "he has everything he needs".
When do you get sight of things on the fixtures and fittings list? The EA on the place we are buying tells me the seller sent them to their solicitor mid June. Is that something I can chase? Seems trivial to be wondering about curtains when I'm spending so much on an actual house.

Come here for a rant. Offered accepted a month ago. ZERO progress. Seller's solicitor drafted the contracts but hasn't sent it to our solicitor. Meanwhile - our solicitor wasn't aware that there wasn't enough fund to carry out searches and only notified us yesterday. Money paid and they better get on with it.

Mortgage broker - we provided all the requested documents two weeks ago and was told they only submitted the application last Thursday and currently haven't got a date booked in. The reference letter they requested from my employer was supposed to be addressed to the lender which I wasn't made aware of and so now I have gone and made another reference request.

So yes - no progress made for a whole month

@Lemonylemony that is one frustrating process you are going through. We haven't got to that point yet so I'm dreading it.

With regards to electrics, our buyer is sending and electrician round to check them. I hope it is all fine. We had spot lights installed in our dining room last year and they checked the electrics then to ensure the system was fine. A plumber is coming round to check the water and gas tonight. They will also conduct a 2nd viewing over the weekend as they offered after 1st viewing. We are leaving some items so they are also checking that they are fine to be left.

I think once these 3 things are done, I will relax a bit and know that on the selling side all is progressing well for now. I can then concentrate on stressing about our mortgage application and the house we are buying. We have paid for the searches but I don't actually know when they will be requested or once our solicitor gets the payment they assume we want it done. What have you all done? Have you instructed searches even if you haven't had the valuation survey yet, let alone a mortgage offer? How long are your searches taking?

Flood risk....so it has come to our attention that the house we are buying is in the 'high risk' category for surface water flooding. We have spoken to our solicitor who has advised us to wait and see what the standard searches come back with and then we can apply for a more in depth flood report if we want more information. We know the area well, so we are really surprised with this categorisation. The flood map suggests it's the road in front of the house rather than the house/garden which is at risk. And people who live on the same road have told us they have never had any problems. We've also checked insurance quotes and they've come back all fine. Has anyone got any advice or suggestions?

@houseofrabbits we had this with the house we've just moved into, we had high risk for surface water and rivers/sea.
I think you just have to make a call, we went with it, after doing some research and talking to neighbours, our solicitor was most worried if we were unable to get insurance (we could).
I think most of the UK is fairly high with service water as the drains aren't maintained and everyone dug up their front gardens :/

I know that the gov.uk flood risk webpage said you could request flood history on any property by email, I did on one we viewed that was high risk and never heard anything back though, that was months ago.

As long as it doesn’t affect insurance and is surface only I don’t think I’d worry - on my flood search report there was a section about insurability but I don’t have it to hand to look at