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!

@notheragain4 they have responded and want completion 1st week Aug which I think is achievable - you are right would be silly to throw a sale away.

It's a pain but these things take forever unfortunately!

Yes and at least by 1/8/20 if it hasn't happened you must be very close and I'm sure they won't want to throw away at that point. When is the house ready?

@notyetthere our estate agent still hasn't put up a sign and we've been on the market for nearly 2 weeks - dh is going to chase today. My mum also said that it's not in the estate agent's window.

'LoisLittsLover' our EA was very proactive in getting the sign. Just as we sent off the contract yesterday, he was already sending a message to the signs people.

I can here DH cleaning downstairs and the toddler just shouting at him to stop making a racket with the vacuum cleaner😂. It is going to be a long time keeping on top of the cleaning and tidying.

The full survey has arrived. Its fine as expected, the things highlighted are what we expected.
But after getting the professional snagging report for the house we didn't buy, this report is so much more basic... anyway.

We pulled out of our purchase today. It is such a relief. I think half the reason we ummed and ahhed for so long was because the mortgage broker was so pushy - he sent off the application after I told him to hold off (because I had just been put on furlough) - he claimed he never got my email because his "inbox was full" (bollocks). Then he said because it was during lockdown, we may as well wait until the offer came in because the valuation was free. My company is one of those ones in the newspaper headlines doing huge redundancies, which we won't find out about for months, and he said it's "good news" because I haven't been made redundant yet! And a mortgage that would be way too high a percentage of just my husband's salary was "completely affordable". Oh, and that the mortgage we applied for was the "best rate you're going to get", even though we've saved 5% extra in lockdown and can now get one 0.2% lower.

Lesson learnt: don't deal with people who sell things on commission for a living. Next time we'll do the application ourselves and not have all this pressure.

Congrats @FauxFox

@Kelsoooo I do that quite a bit and it’s not on the way anywhere I have to go the ‘wrong’ way home to go past it!

Walked around the back today to go to the park and I still like the look of it, so that’s good.

We’ve gone back to the agent after reading the survey and we’ve asked for some money to contribute to refurbishing the windows, as they all need quite a lot of work and there’s a lot of them! So waiting to hear back.
Our buyers money is apparently coming thru for the deposit, so exchange on our house could be soon...

@BeijingBikini oh I hope everything works out well for you, fingers crossed 🤞 I know a lot of people in the airline industry we live near an airport and it’s heartbreaking. My little bro is furloughed and has literally heard nothing at all!

@notheragain4 House is ready to move into. To cheer myself up I’ve asked DH to arrange hire of a skip...I feel the need to clear stuffs!

@poppiesandnettles welcome to Skip Life!

@Karcheer thank you! Yes it's pretty crazy - the company went from having the best month ever to virtually being shut down overnight. Half of my team has been on furlough since April, I'm going so mad at home now - luckily have picked up some volunteering in a shop for July. Hopefully once the job and corona situation is better we can start househunting again.

@BeijingBikini sorry to hear you’ve had to do that but also good that it’s brought you a sense of relief. That mortgage broker sounds like a dick.

@Karcheer I’ve been wondering about this issue of buyers negotiating down offers due to survey results. It doesn’t quite make sense to me, but perhaps that’s the scale of numbers for us as FTBs at a fairly high price point & 85% LTV. If I got a £20k reduction in the price we’ve agreed, that’s not £20k more in my pocket after the purchase to buy new windows or whatever. It’s a very modest reduction in the monthly mortgage payments that would make no significant inroad to having £20k available for windows for a long long time. I can see it being different for cash buyers or those with low LTVs where maybe it does translate to cash in pocket. Is it that you hadn’t realised the windows would need replacing so you genuinely value the property as less now?

A survey will always highlight work that needs doing. And every house needs work unless it is brand new. House maintenance is a normal part of living in a house!

Unless a vendor has misrepresented their property or deliberately tried to cover problems, then I think it's bad show to use a survey to renegotiate an agreed price.

A survey will always highlight work that needs doing.
That’s what I think.... waiting for our report, might be today! I’m expecting it to be full of things but just hoping no red flags - not expecting to be anything to negotiate the price down, unless it’s actually dangerous/needs doing immediately or the house will fall down, in which case more likely to pull out tbh. I know the windows aren’t new new, the roof is 17 years old etc.

@BeijingBikinin I think that was the right decision for you. The uncertainty of what this virus has brought upon us is still very much in our midst. Good luck with your job and fingers crossed you aren't made redundant. That mortgage broker had no shame in pushing you take on credit when he clearly could see the funds to service it are at risk. That isn't ethical IMO.

@Karcheer I am terrified of our future buyers doing this to us. When we viewed this house we liked the openness and fantastic entertaining space downstairs. This was the selling point. However, we also did note that BR might be missing for knocking a wall out but previous owners had photos and details from when they did the work (i'm a structural engineer) so we were confident it was all ok. Our solicitor, however, did make them pay for indemnity insurance. This is probably the only sticking point with ours.

Now that we have the For Sale sign up, even not up online yet and photos are to be taken tomorrow, we are ensuring that the front of the house is looking its best. First impressions and all that.

Woke up at 5am this morning, mopped the whole ground floor and then started my work. We are ensuring that if, like us in the past, there are people who are keen to view due to the sign, we need to be ready to present the house quickly, hence the early morning clean. I just need to go and hide stuff in the shed and car boot when the time comes.

We are viewing 3 houses today too hence my early start and I am keen on one in particular going by its Rightmove listing. I still also have to get my 7-8 hours of work in. Better get off Mumsnet.

Hi everyone. I'd like to join in this thread as I am about to put my house on the market. Met with the estate agent yesterday and have a photographer coming on Friday. We are actually viewing a house this afternoon. I was unsure about viewing seen as think the property will go quickly before we are in a position to put an offer in but my husband was desperate to go see it. Its the perfect location for us but needs quite a bit of work.

Good to luck to all viewing/having viewings!

I've just spoken to the schools admission teams, I have no idea how to switch the girls school.

They weren't overly helpful.

But going to put the application in today for their new school in September/October and just hope they have space for them both at the same school. Otherwise, fuck. To be blunt.

Also, they kept asking "well when will your moving date be" I don't bloody know love, it's why I rang to ask the process 😭.

@Lemonylemony exactly that, we would keep our mortgage the same, so anything off would be used to replace or majorly overhaul the windows.
The windows looked like they needed revarnishing, but the survey showed pictures of him sticking a screwdriver in rotten wood, his view is they need replacing as a matter of urgency. There are over 40 windows, so to replace is going to cost a fortune - far more than a few pots of varnish. It's not a show stopper if they say no, but it's a huge expense that we didn't expect.

@Karcheer - 40 windows! The house must be enormous!

We just received a quote of over £12000 to renovate 3 windows. I nearly had a coronary. Twice the price of a new kitchen for 3 windows? Sounds insane to me.

@Kelsoooo are you allowed to apply yet? We aren't allowed to apply until a month before (although not sure how that works with the summer holidays) I am dreading it, we have 2 ofsted outstanding schools within half a mile of our new house but they are over subscribed, as I am working from home I may do the 40 mile round trip every day to their old school and put them on the waiting list of the desirable schools instead of putting up with whatever we get.

Leaving their current school is the hardest thing for me in all this, I love our school

The lady said we could as it's an interschool transfer, we're in the same LEA though if that makes a difference?

Ah maybe so, we are moving to our neighbouring county, I'm so nervous about not getting into a good school. Plus we need one with wraparound childcare which they don't all have! I'm hoping the fact we are a military family might give us some weight on the waiting list, but we haven't moved on posting so probably not!!

This is our problem too as one of my children will need to move school. Our sellers basically has done nothing with regard to their purchase and having their survey rescheduled again to next week. They are although cash buyers. I dont know then how long does it take if the survey goes ahead next week and if they are happy with the survey results.