Buyers sellers roll call 11

[kerrymucklowe2020]

Here's the new ( last one for us eh @zebrahooves?)

@Talia78 our EA is on at me about the mortgage application all the time. Doing my head in tbh, I can't make the bank go any faster can I?

@Simonsaysitschristmas

Brilliant news *@Notyetthere* !!

I’m cautiously dipping a toe back into this thread after bowing out in thread 9 due to my house being valued at £0. The bank’s surveyor reported a horizontal crack. Lots of time, money and stress later we have proved that there was never a crack and so we seem to be back on track.

Just waiting for our buyers solicitor to receive their mortgage offer and then I think everything is done. Hoping for some news in the next few days.

Gosh - why did the Bank's Surveyor think there was a horizontal crack when there wasn't?

@IamtheonewithSocks honestly, I have no idea. It was a nightmare, we asked for photos/more information from the bank and they said they didn’t have any. We ended up having structural engineer come out to the house and assess it and write a report for the bank saying there wasn’t a crack anywhere and the house was structurally normal. That’s why I can’t relax until our buyers mortgage offer is in the solicitors hands and we can exchange because I’m so paranoid that people are going to keep making up non-existent issues.

@Notyetthere Congratulations. You can now escape from your hotel room and your little girl will be a lot more settled.

@Lurchermom if you advise them that the tree has the potential to cause structural issues and they refuse to remove it, then if it does cause issues, they will be a whole lot more liable as they can't argue that they were unaware that the tree may cause issues.

We are settling into our new house, but doing a shit load of cleaning and decorating. I'm knackered, but it will be worth it in the end.

@Badgerbadger88 not DC law, can't remember the name but our solicitor was going mad saying they'd mis-advised their client (our buyer) and generally they were shocking.

I've got what is probably a really stupid question about remortgaging but we've never had to buy a property and sell at the same time, we bought our current house as FTBs. We've done the sums and it looks like it'll be better to pay the exit fee on our current fixed term mortgage and get a new one on a better rate for the new house than to port our existing mortgage and borrow the extra from our current lender. What I can't work out is how that all gets sorted out. Do we just agree the mortgage offer with the new bank for the new house then they pay and also pay off the old mortgage on completion day? I'm getting all muddled up about what I need to do and am scared I'll miss something.

Santander wrongly advised us that we could port our mortgage onto our new house. We made an offer. Then it all goes through and as soon as we contacted Santander to get a redemption figure they said “oh we don’t do those types of mortgages & the exit fee is £8000!”

£8000!!! We’re still going ahead with a new mortgage and all Santander could say was “sorry. Here have £50” nothing about training their inept staff & no real apology.

Sorry had to get my rant off my chest

We completed today! 13 weeks with buyer number 3, and a total of 18 weeks since listing.

I swear I am never doing this again, but it’s been worth it to walk in the door today and remember why we fell in love with it.

@AmandaHugenkiss congratulations that's wonderful!

Congratulations @AmandaHugenkiss! Wow so many completions on here lately, it's great to see 

@Pepperwand it's pretty much your sale proceeds are used to pay off your current mortgage and your new mortgage goes towards the new house, if that makes sense. You just need to get a new mortgage offer for the new house and your solicitor will sort out redeeming your current one

[quote Pepperwand]@Badgerbadger88 not DC law, can't remember the name but our solicitor was going mad saying they'd mis-advised their client (our buyer) and generally they were shocking.

I've got what is probably a really stupid question about remortgaging but we've never had to buy a property and sell at the same time, we bought our current house as FTBs. We've done the sums and it looks like it'll be better to pay the exit fee on our current fixed term mortgage and get a new one on a better rate for the new house than to port our existing mortgage and borrow the extra from our current lender. What I can't work out is how that all gets sorted out. Do we just agree the mortgage offer with the new bank for the new house then they pay and also pay off the old mortgage on completion day? I'm getting all muddled up about what I need to do and am scared I'll miss something.[/quote]
My advice would be to get hold of a good broker/IFA. We were getting so muddled, went to the IFA we used first time around and it has been so easy since. Sign here, send me this document, voila you've got the best mortgage offer we can find!

@Zebrahooves thank you! That seems to tally with what we have read. Just waiting on our solicitor reading the survey and speaking to the vendor to see how we want to proceed. Desperately want the house, but at the same time don't want a house that is either going to cause problems in the future/antagonise neighbourly relations or be a pain the backside to sell on for the same reason.

Congratulations @AmandaHugenkiss. I'm glad it worked out for you.
We sold with our third buyer too.

Congratulations @AmandaHugenkiss

Thanks all, I’ve had a large glass of wine and I’m having a nice early night! 😊

Woo hoo @AmandaHugenkiss 13 weeks doesn’t sound long but I bet it felt like forever for you!

Thank you everyone!

@Simonsaysitschristmas Yay to bringing up the value of your home from £0. Hope the rest of the process is nice and smooth for you.

@Badgerbadger88 ofcourse you can ask. Our chain has been a short one of 1st time buyer-us-empty house. Below is our timeline

3rd July - our house went on rightmove.
6th July - accepted offer on our house
14th July - our offer on purchase accepted
23rd July - complete 2.5hr telephone mortgage application to port and borrow extra
7th Aug - bank receives our full application pack with attachment
1st Sept - Valuation and building survey Completed
14th Sept - bank confirms that mortgage offer has been approved but will take 14 working days for offer to be issued.
29th Sept - exchange on our sale
7th Oct - receive mortgage offer bit it has the wrong address. Solicitor requests another one
8th Oct - Complete on our sale and move into hotel
15th October - exchange on our purchase
16th - completion on purchase

As you can see, the biggest hold up has been our mortgage. Everything in our chain was ironed out and completed by mid-end of August. Our bank, like a few banks discussed on this thread, have had a big backlog and from start to finish it has taken about 50 working days to offer. We weren't a complex application, both of us key workers, not furlough, 60% LTV but we didn't fancy paying the ERC so we stayed with our bank.

@Yippeeforme definitely try a fax. Apparently banks love a fax. I reckon the fax exchanges between our solicitor and the bank have saved us another week in a hotel.

@Talia78 Our buyers got very huffy. They needed to be within the catchment of a particular school near us for the exam for secondary schools (I think exams were today). They needed a permanent address so they threatened to pull out and find a rental in the area instead. So yes, in answer to your question, it is possible. They could have been bluffing but we didn't want to risk it.

@Talia78 Our belongings are in storage. We had about 10 days between exchange and completion of our sale so Dh spent every morning in those 10 days moving our stuff into storage. We then hired a van on completion day to move the big things with dad's help. With regards to our purchase, funds were requested on Tuesday I think, our bank transferred it to our solicitor's account today so our solicitor was happy to exchange today. We had earlier in the week told our vendors about the potential of completion on friday.

@Zebrahooves I'm about to join you.

@AmandaHughenkiss CONGRATULATIONS!

@Notyetthere that’s amazing thank you!! Did the enquiries take long to do? Looks like everything moved quickly apart from the mortgage itself

Not long at all. Our searches had a turnaround of 10days. Enquiries didn't take that long either. Our buyers became awkward about some electric things but when we saw that they cost minimal to resolve we just did the work just to move on.

So we finally have the memorandum of sale through, and amazingly they’ve agreed to our proposed timeframe of being in before Christmas so we may only need to stay in temporary accommodation for around a month if it all works out

Contracts for the sale of our house also went back to the solicitor today so it looks like we’ll be exchanging tomorrow and completing the second week of November.

It’s finally dawning on me it’s actually blooming happening!

@Badgerbadger88 that is terrifying to hear as we are currently porting our mortgage with Sandtander

@Talia78 I’m sure it’ll be fine. Our new house is a bit specific. I have to admit I was quite shocked at them.

Halifax gave us a mortgage including valuation & mortgage offer within 7 days from AIP. And luckily it’ll cover the ERC from Santander- otherwise we would have lost the house of our dreams.

I didn’t mean to worry you!

I now have enough of a financial agreement to proceed. Both ends are champing at the bit to get moving.
I just need to get a survey done - which is proving tricky to find someone to do it quicker than mid November. But I'm not working tomorrow and have a long list to phone.
My Solicitor has got started today, and knows everyone is desperate - do searches take different times with different LAs?
Everyone else wants to be in by Christmas.

Our best and final offers are in and are all within 10k of each other except one which is a massive 30k higher than the rest. Trying not to get too giddy about it just yet. Estate agent is double checking that the offer is genuine and so far it is. Agents concern is that they have bid high to get the house and will then attempt to knock the price down when the survey comes through. And it could all go pear shaped if their lender values it down to the asking price - agent is trying to get confirmation that they have the funds to make up difference if needed. Apparently they already lost out on 2 other properties - and didn't want to miss out again. Feel a bit bad for them but perhaps I won't be thinking that in a few weeks down the line if they start messing us about.
Hopefully tomorrow will bring a bit more clarity.

Well we finally accepted a lower than wished for offer on our house (all local agents are amazed that we had to go so low) managed to extend a little to have an offer accepted on the house we want (lost money and spent more is not my favourite outcome but the increase is well within our tolerance). So now just waiting for buyers mortgage to be approved and surveys on both sides, our house should be fine but the idea makes me feel sick. But we are moving early for a school place so are going anyway. Hoping for mid November exchange and December completion. Fingers crossed!

Glad to see some completions in here!

Our issue is clarity on the chain above us, currently we are in a chain of 5, which feels precarious and even then we are assured that that’s the end of it.

We’ve got our structural survey booked, and our buyers have too - but we have no idea what’s happening above us!

@MollyButton

I now have enough of a financial agreement to proceed. Both ends are champing at the bit to get moving. I just need to get a survey done - which is proving tricky to find someone to do it quicker than mid November. But I'm not working tomorrow and have a long list to phone. My Solicitor has got started today, and knows everyone is desperate - do searches take different times with different LAs? Everyone else wants to be in by Christmas.

Yeah LA vary widely! The county we are in has had a 4 week turn around on searches for our buyer. The county we are moving to (next door!) is on a 6week+ turn around.

Amazing news @AmandaHugenkiss knew you'd get there in the end!

Feeling a bit happier this morning as we have a slight plan of action. I think the hardest thing is the tree being with the neighbour so it's an unknown quantity. We've decided that we're going to start having a look at the rental market, just in case. But we're holding in to the hope the tree can be sorted in good time. If it comes to it we are prepared to offer some money towards the costs (but not all) since it will cost us a lot more to walk away from the sale! My concern from reading up is that the danger is more from the water table than from the roots, and if they get rid (which is what we're asking for) it could cause heave in the ground which can cause it's own calamity of trouble. So might not be end of the issue. Just got to wait and see what the vendor says on Monday when solicitor has was the survey herself and passed it over to vendor's solicitor.