Sellers/Buyers Roll Call 9 and STILL going

[kerrymucklowe2020]

Is it time to start s new thread as the previous one has nearly 900 posts?

In our efforts to declutter, we have found this chair in the loft. DH wants it gone. I on the other hand fancy keeping it. I promised DH it could be kept in the lean-to and I could paint it a lovely dark frenchic alfresco colour and sit on it on the patio. What do you all think? To keep or get rid?

@Notyetthere keep! I love it I’m also not convinced you even need to declutter, based on that worktop/surface behind the chair - in my house that would have been filled in about 5 seconds with letters/paperwork/kids’ drawings/kids’ toys/other bits of random useless crap 😂

@FourForYouGlenCoco That surface (alcove shelves) had a vase and and artificial flowers. I packed that lot on Sunday so it is looking a bit plain there. The top shelf has file boxes now that I started on sorting out our paperwork last night. What you don't see are the boxes piled up just behind that wall. Or the box room I'm working in surrounded by large boxes filled with winter duvets and nappies (as DD decided to learn potty training in a week rather than the months I was expecting).

Dors anyone know an average time for mortgage offers??

Think it depends on ltv and if you're already with them.
Ours only took 4 days but others seem to take weeks.

@kerrymucklowe2020 our bank has a backlog so going by MSE chat, it is taking people on average 4-5 weeks from application to mortgage offer. Ours will probably take 5-6 weeks.

Ours was Halifax

My mortgage offer was within a week (also Halifax)

Ours took 3 weeks with Santander

Yes, I have read that Halifax are swift about it even with the backlog going on. I think HSBC are also quick in the going by what others are saying. We unfortunately are porting and borrowing more so we didn't fancy leaving our bank for another at the cost £2k in ERC so we stayed. that £2k should just about cover our solicitor fees.

Our mortgage application is delayed as our broker notices my tax year overview and calculation don't match (self assessment)

I called hmrc and there is no reason the figures don't match but they will send over a letter within TWO WEEKS to say this is okay (even though it isn't okay as the bank won't like it).

Anyone else experience this?

It's nearly four weeks since we applied for our mortgage. We were told that it would be really quick when we applied because the lender was withdrawing the rate and would process the applications extra quickly as a result. Clearly not the case. They keep asking for more documentation that I wish they had just asked for all in one go!

@Baxdream divorcing couples who aren't getting on are an absolute nightmare.

I have a wonderful client who is buying from a warring divorcing couple. I advised her NOT to get the mortgage sorted until we were well on our way. She ignored me and it's been titting about for so long now her mortgage has actually expired...

Your solicitor shouldn't order searches until they get the pack from your sellers' solicitor. The reason is sometimes it can mistakenly not include a second parcel of land, so they should have you check the plan first. Or if they search against what they think is the property and get it wrong, they'll have to do the searches again, which would be a pain and expensive.

The system is inefficient and long winded, but solicitors need the time to investigate your title and if there's a chain it can be reaaaaalllly long winded! Then there's the dates, and all for £600 on average solicitor fee? Compared with the agent's fee, makes me feel sad sometimes 😆

My solicitor’s searches are clearly all automated and outsourced, the reports are prepared by 3rd parties. The solicitor refuses to comment or advise further upon anything in the report - for eg. report says there is a plan for a wind turbine within 5 miles (it’s London, so no biggie at all) but that’s all, no further detail about where or what this plan is, and solicitor says if we want more information ask the local authority, they cannot comment. So it doesn’t really seem to me that doing the searches is really much work for the solicitor at all.

Hi everyone - joining in, if that’s ok!

Accepted an offer on our house at the beginning of June (we are almost divorced - all perfectly amicable!), from first time buyers. Neither of us are buying anywhere straight away.

The final search was due back yesterday and all other enquiries are complete, so just entering into what feels like a very anxious period, where I haven’t got a clue what’s happening!!

I’ve tried to get an update on what’s happening next, but suspect that I’m just too impatient!
The house is stood empty now, so we don’t have anything else to do - just want to get it all finished.

@MinecraftMother thanks so much, that's so helpful!

I agree that the solicitor should get more and the estate agents less!

"Doing the searches" is literally pressing an "order" button for me, anyway.

But you really should wait for your contract pack before ordering for various reasons.

To the fabulously informative solicitors we have on this thread....what happens after the searches and home buyers survey? We've got our mortgage offer, searches are complete and survey is next Monday. When I mentioned to the EA I was hoping we would exchange in September she said that was unlikely because there is still so much legal work to do.....we aren't even in September yet, what is left to do that takes a whole month?!

Hi @houseofrabbits

All solicitors are different, but my order of tasks would be:

• When the contract pack arrives from the seller's solicitor, order searches and raise initial enquiries on the title and Property Info Form/anything else that's in the contract pack

• Check the search results when they arrive, and raise further enquiries if needed

• Once all enquiries are answered, searches are in, mortgage offer is in, and clients happy with their surveys, I send out my report about the house to the clients with all the paperwork to be signed and a completion statement telling them how much to pay to us to allow us to exchange and complete. At the same time as drafting my report I normally start asking my client/the other side's solicitor what sort of timescale we're thinking for exchange and completion. I find this helps to push things along so we can start lining things up in anticipation of exchange when the client returns their paperwork/pays their money to us.

I suppose it depends if there's any enquiries outstanding? Some files unexpectedly throw up more complicated issues than an average file, so it does sometimes take a while to resolve them.

@houseofrabbits I forgot to add, unless there's an awful lot of enquiries still outstanding, or something complex that can't be resolved quickly, or delays along the chain, I would've assumed exchange in September is feasible. It's still 6 weeks to the end of September!

Hope this helps, but ask your solicitor what's outstanding and what their expected timescale would be. Quite often the EAs really haven't got a clue what we solicitors actually do to be honest

@Jujuball thank you for explaining, that does make sense. I know our solicitors have raised enquiries about the TA6. I emailed the lead conveyancer after he emailed us the searches on Sunday to ask if there is any further investigation he would recommend other than a homebuyers survey and he said no, but I suppose they could be raising enquires of their own.

When I emailed last week our solicitor said we were 'a few weeks away' from sorting an exchange date. But with 6 weeks until the end of September I was hoping it would be before then!

Usually agents are mad to get things moving, whether it's remotely possible or not 😆
You've got plenty of time to get your exchange in September, unless there is something specific at issue.

You should ask your solicitor for a copy of their enquiries.

Ps solicitors working on a Sunday tells me their workload has boomed and they are overwhelmed so working through the weekend (don't mean overwhelmed in a bad way, by the way).

@MinecraftMother I did think it was odd they hadn't shared their enquiries with us, I was giving them a few days to email them to us but I will ask for a copy tomorrow.

Yes I was quite impressed the solicitor emailed us on a Sunday!

It's a fairly simple transaction on our end, we are selling our house to my parents as cash buyers, the house we are buying is a bog standard housing estate house (so not too complicated to deal with). But there are 4 others in the upward chain so that can make things take longer.

Bloody chains!

A thorn in my side at the moment.

You maybe won't get copies of the enquiries before the reporting stage.

Sometimes it just leads to questions from the client that would be answered in the report, so doubling the work, if you see what I mean?

What I do now is just give a precis of the enqs when sending the plan for the client to affirm for me.