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!

Hi @Lemonylemony. I completely understand how you feel. Mortgages are such a pain at the moment and it feels like you don't want to progress anything else in case you're wasting money but on the other hand you can't afford to hang around for them to get the offer out.

We had our home buyers survey done yesterday lunch time, Nationwide confirmed it was with them this morning but the average time it's taking them to look at them is 6 days. 6 days to confirm that one number isn't higher than another! It's absolute madness.

Also our buyers have gone from being all over us pushing for info to being silent so that's also making me worry (probably just nothing to be done but the whole process makes you paranoid!)

3 weeks after I accepted offer on mine and my surveyer has emailed to say will be contacting my vendors. I rang vendors EA to ask couple of questions and to ask if I could go back to see boiler working ( was switched off when I viewed ). Also found out the property my vendor is buying is vacant so end of chain - phew! My buyers surveyer also rang to arrange appointment.

We got our vendors’ f&f form along with a ‘property information questionairre’ a few weeks in to the solicitoring process. Threw up as many questions as it answered though

@Karcheer and @Lemonylemony thank you your comments are reassuring. I think we will just have to see what the searches flag up and ask for a more in depth report if we feel it's necessary. Although we aren't first time buyers it's our first time not buying a new build so we feel like there is a lot of extra stuff we haven't had to think about before. Or perhaps we are just getting older and less ignorant!

So our buyer has got a mortgage, we've answered enquiries and their searches will hopefully come back next week, when searches are back, if it doesn't lead to anymore enquiries, is that when we should be able to discuss dates and be on the cusp of exchange?

Re searches - would it be seen as rude to ask ( after the buyers surveyer has finished ) to ask if he found anything? Is he allowed to or do I just have to wait ?

duh! I just have to wait- my survey is paid for by me and it's confidential so ditto buyers survey.

Just want to day the Thankyou for the sympathies team!

Still no response from the broker on what she needs for clarification, the solicitor at least sent me the documentation that we have relating to the query, so I sent that on to the broker anyway. That’s 3 emails in a row to the broker with no response. Grr.

In other news solicitor seems to be doing stuff, so that’s good!

Lemonylemony
( So sorry if I've missed it ) but can't you ring them or mark the email as urgent? This must be SO bloody stressful for you

We pulled out of the house we were meant to be buying today and I feel ok, I expected to be heartbroken/ crying as I love the house. The structural survey was not great and they wouldn’t/couldn’t negotiate on the price to allow us to fix the exterior of the building.

Still going to go through with our sell, and need to get a wiggle on and find a rental that will allow cats and children.

notheragain4 we were allowed to apply because it was six school weeks before the start of term (holidays aren't included). Of course now we are less than 6 wks before the start of term.

Quick Q - now our buyer is through survey and on to searches, does our buyer's solicitor, the EA, or us bring up the E-word (possible dates for exchange?), and when?

@SollaSollew We have the same issue, valuation was done last Monday but they only submitted the report yesterday and we're being told 8-10 days for them to officially confirm all is okay. How can it possibly take that long to check 2 numbers numbers match? We're now into week 6 but this could out us back into week 8 for exchange.

I could ring although it can be difficult to make phone calls from work & I work long hours (little bit of messing with phone is acceptable for emails and quick MNing in toilet breaks lol!) but also I am just not great on the phone and prefer emails for clarity and being on the record as well.

So I’ve read through my solicitor’s response - and it is not to my list of questions which they have only just put to the vendors’ solicitor despite having had them for 4 weeks I hadn’t quite realised that. My solicitor had put their own list of questions to the vendors’ solicitor before they received mine, and those responses are what they got last week and sent to me yesterday. Some of which align with my questions, some of which I was not worried about in the slightest but they’ve made up questions of their own based off maps/searches/agent’s particulars etc.

So in reality we are actually where I thought we were 4 weeks ago. Sigh. Still need clarity on the legality of an access issue.

I’m not on any timescale or deadline, apart from just wanting to not live in limbo and get on with things in case of a second lockdown etc. At least the vendors can’t complain about “us” holding them up - they requested we use the estate agent’s recommended solicitors, so we did. They chose these slowcoaches!

@Cluckycluck @SollaSollew the vendors’ estate agent mentioned to me that valuers have quite a short deadline (I think she said 2/3 days?) to submit their report to the lender, I don’t know how standard that is though or what other checking goes on after the lender has it, and it’s just what one estate agent said.

@Lemonylemony That's interesting to know as it's certainly not our experience with our lender. I vaguely remember this part happening very quickly and early on in the buying process previously.

You must be feeling very frustrated with your solicitors but as you say at least the vendors can't complain as its their choice of solicitor.
I'd definitely begin harassing them via phone as well as email, I am pretty relentless when it comes to things like this to get them done.

@Didicat Sorry that you've had to pull out. Fingers crossed you find a rental and a new house to purchase soon.

@Cluckycluck it’s not going to be the easiest as we have two cats, guinea pigs and children and need to be in the are by September 1st hoping for a miracle.

All the different banks seem to be taking such varied amounts of time between valuation and offer fingers crossed for you.

@Didicat missed your post so sorry to hear that! But head over heart, and more fool them tbh, if they really want to sell, as any other (sensible) purchaser will find the same issues at survey.

@Happydaysandhappysmiles ah that's interesting thanks for that, we won't be moving until the second half of autumn term but will look if I can submit in September. We aren't expecting to get first choices so need time to mentally prepare, assuming we won't be able to look around schools with Covid around

Sorry to hear that @Didicat hope you find something soon, it'll be easier to break the chain as annoying as rented is, we're going into rented too.

@Lemonylemony it was ridiculous in the end they were only offering us 2% off the listed price and the works were 5%. I came to the conclusion the issues with the property are not my issues, they are theirs. We could have done it but it would be beans on toast and no holidays for a few years. Head came into play and that’s that.

I’m sure there will be others, just need to get a rental for the short term

Just had confirmation that it has been approved and they have said official offer will be issued to our legal adviser within 3 days. Absolutely everything else is ready for exchange so we have been told if the offer is sent through quickly enough we could exchange Friday although it is unlikely. At least we've finally got somewhere!

Getting so frustrated with my buyers at the moment. I am trying to tell myself it's because they are first time buyers and don't know how it all works. But 5 weeks and their lawyer has done sod all. Not even reviewed the pack yet. They had their mortgage survey 10 days ago and were verbally told it's all fine.

It's being sold as tenant in situ so i don't want to put it back on the market and make my tenants anxious and I am trying to push them to move a bit quicker. i don't get why they aren't moving faster - every week is income lost for them. Just want it sold for my own peace of mind.

This how system is completely screwed up. Wish i lived in Scotland

@Bells3032 it's so unbelievably frustrating. We had similar issues, in the end I had to go nuclear with the estate agent and also speak to her manager. The EA should be helping the sale along, they can be pressing the solicitor too, since that happened 2 weeks ago things have moved much faster, his broker (who works for the EA) ended up having a zoom call with the buyer to press the need to move faster. it's hard because the only leverage we have is to threaten to pull out, but I know I don't want to pull out and I don't want to risk empty threats.