Buyers sellers roll call 11

[kerrymucklowe2020]

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

I feel like we’re the worst vendors in the world. We’re doing our absolute best to find somewhere and they must hate us

I think we’ve had 6 months of bad luck now!

But the house was only on the market in September so our bad luck pre dates selling.

Ah badger it’s so hard isn’t it. I guess it’s not been too long & you have been trying. Good luck!

I feel like a terrible buyer! Twice we’ve accepted offers to then try & buy the one we want (newbuild) & twice now we’ve had to say it’s fallen through. Actually that’s a fib I haven’t told him yet as only heard this evening. I’m hoping the weekend brings progress somewhere.

====={ We are in! )====

Aww @Diangled that's so unfortunate. What was the reason?

Congrats @kerrymucklowe2020!! What's it like??! Hope the sparkling is open!

@kerrymucklowe2020 congrats! Enjoy!

Congratulations on the exchanges and completions! Nice to see there’s some light at the end of the tunnel

Our progress seems to have stalled. On our purchase we have most stuff ready, our searches are taking ages, we’re currently in week six since the requested went in.

Our buyers started well but seem to still be deciding on whether or not to have a survey. Since they seem to be taking about a month to book in I feel like pre-Christmas completion is slowly slipping away. I’m gutted. I still have a school place to line up which I can’t do until exchange As we’re moving 40 minutes away. It’s all so frustrating

Congratulations @kerrymucklowe2020 you and @Zebrahooves wanted to be done by the end of this thread and you have!! Fab news

We are still waiting on our buyers survey to be returned and any excitement that might bring. But we are tentatively going furniture window shopping today to get an idea for all the stuff we can't afford new furniture. I hate wardrobes, and our current house has built in cupboards so it's not been an issue. As a boxy 1970s build the new place has nothing so wardrobes it is...
Also starting to gather boxes for packing. I'm nervous to start in case stuff still somehow falls through but it is starting to feel a bit more realistic. Just found out DH put half the boxes I'd gathered in our non water tight garage when we had friends over...so now less boxes than I thought I had. Thanks DH!

Thanks everyone. And have faith- you will get there ps don't stop checking in with your sellers EA ( I found this valuable for if my Solicitors were waiting information from my sellers)

Congrats to everyone making progress and completions!! Woo hoo!!

I’m slowly calming down from the anticipation that Monday will bring. I’m so worried about all our opportunities slipping away.

We definitely win the prize for the worst and must unluckiest vendors in the world

We might exchange this week. We might have salvaged our disastrous chain.
Wish us luck it I feel like we might be back on track.
I'm hoping the stress headache will disappear the minute we exchange!

What a journey! I'll share more once we're through but for now I'm enjoying a wine and might even delete the Rightmove app 😂

Congrats to those that completed / exchanged yesterday.

Our buyers came for another look today & are so keen to get in. Such a bloody shame the bottom of the chain has collapsed (we’re the top). I felt so sorry for them but appreciated them saying how much they want the house. Their buyers are desperate for theirs too apparently. I’ve sat this evening with a 🍷 in my cosy lounge wondering why we are putting ourselves through the stress 🙈😂. Ah well let’s see what next week brings.

Hi all, I am a Conveyancer and wanted to give you all an update as to how we all are at this moment in time.

My caseload has tripled, as has all of our local solicitors/conveyancers. I am finding it impossible to speak with lenders to progress any matters being reported to them. I regularly spend over an hour on hold to high street lenders just to be cut off. Surveyors are booked up until January next year and removal companies are also taking on extra staff. One firm local to me have also hired four extra lorries! Lenders usually SLA is to respond within 24 hours and it’s now over a week.

I worked seventy hours last week and I normally only work 9-3pm. My full time colleagues are working even longer hours. This is all unpaid.

We honesty are doing all we can. Please know that. I care about all of my clients. I have been in this industry for over 20 years and I have NEVER known demand like this.

A press release was issued jointly by agents, lenders and conveyancers on Wednesday or Thursday of this week advising that we are just swamped with demand.

One thing I all urge of you is to please know we are doing what we can. I am
fed up of being called cunt or fucking useless because I don’t respond to an email within half an hour. And no, I am no weakling usually!

We are human to and honestly we do know how stressful moving house is. We are stressed too trying to get you moved.

Fingers crossed for you all but I urge you, when you conveyancer says they are struggling to get hold of the related transactions solicitor/agents/lenders/surveyors they are not lying.

Wishing you all all the best with your move.

How come is so very busy, DollyPomPom? Hope it doesn't burn you all out 🍷

Hi @DollyPomPoms, I'm a conveyancing solicitor too and just wanted to say I am 100% with you! I've never dreaded work so much, we're all exhausted people seem to have no idea how much time and work and effort goes into one file and that it's all a tick box exercise.

Just wanted to show some solidarity

That should've said that people seem to think it's a tick box exercise! If only

crankysaurus (sorry, not posted much so unsure how to tag you) a culmination of many things...1) the transactions that had been delayed due to lockdown for three months now all suddenly up and running (I personally would usually have around forty completions a month so that has all now been packed into a short space of time-let alone my colleagues!) 2) HUGE demand from those who have spent lockdown in a busy city/no garden who are now looking to escape to bigger properties/countryside 3)divorce rate has sky rocketed since lockdown and therefore the marital home is being sold 4) people now deciding to move home to be closer to family 5)probate sales due to people dying from covid 6) the stamp duty payments being shelved 7)transfers of equity due to a husband/wife/partner dying due to covid

Couple all of that with most employees at lenders working from home and thus their usual procedures not being in place, many solicitors offices running with new procedures/reduced staff due to cash flow or simply just to be covid compliant and able to open by law and agents also running on skeleton staff...it is a recipe for disaster.

Please, please know that we are doing what we can.

Please also know that we are legal professionals. When we say we are checking your contract paperwork that can mean six hours+ of work (six hours of working on your file and nobody else’s - so then our other clients get annoyed) checking replies to enquiries can take anything from two hours to six depending on how complicated it is. It is not box ticking. It is not simple. We have lots of things to do that happen in the back ground. Just doing all of our preliminary checks, on an already ready file, to exchange takes an hour...

We aren’t sat drinking tea and eating biscuits and swinging on our chairs I can absolutely promise you that!

@DollyPomPoms (and of course @Jujuball!) It's great to get an insight into what goes on behind the scenes and I thank you for all your hard work! I certainly appreciate everything my conveyancer is doing for me right now!
However please don't get upset about stuff you might read on this thread - we are all just letting off steam in what is an incredibly emotional and stressful process. We know you're all working as hard as you can and are swamped. We're just moaning and moping because it makes is feel better. Please dont take it personally - we all really love you because we couldn't do it without you!

Just joining as we just accepted an offer on our house today after being on market since mid September. I've appointed the same lovely solicitor I always use and she's clearly working as hard as ever replying straight away at 7am on a Saturday. She was so lovely in my sale from hell 15 odd years ago that I sent her flowers afterwards and she was so happy and said no-one had ever sent her flowers before.

We bought a couple of years ago so not buying and we have a small chain, our buyer who has a sale agreed on theirs with just one other in chain and they are five weeks in with survey done. We cut price once to speed up sales process and took slightly less than we'ld wanted but very happy to now have an offer and really hoping it goes through though not excited yet as so many are falling through atm.

@DollyPomPoms thanks for your post. And it’s useful to see your side if it. Sorry you are super stressed. 2020 what a shitter!

I think the problem was in my case that the estate agents were lying so much, blaming the solicitors - I enjoyed catching them out tbh! Anyway, our house purchase with those guys fell through!

Another beautiful house came on the market today (a Sunday!!) and we want to view it ASAP. I’m sure it’s undervalued....

I wonder why? (More ASB, possibly?)

@DollyPomPoms and @Jujuball I know you’ll both think I’m crackers but I have started looking at a conveyancing ish career

I think we're all so grateful for the professionals in the business- estate agents and solicitors. My estate agents and solicitor have been wonderful.

However, I'm afraid there's a lot of poor examples- online conveyancers and purple bricks!

I completely accept everyone is busy but, as harsh as it sounds, I'm paying for a service and I expect one. Thankfully we're very pleased. I wouldn't be impressed if my service is poor, particularly as we're paying more to have a quality service.

Baxdream don’t get me started on purple bricks!! And there are certain online Conveyancers that need shutting down!

Exactly how my estate agent feels @DollyPomPoms ! They're having to do their work for them!

@DollyPomPoms thank you, that was a very useful insight. It sounds crazy right now. I'm so saddened to hear that you are spoken like that by some people, although they are likely a very small minority, they are the ones that bring you down and so it's easy to focus on that. I understand because I also work with the public in a setting where often emotions run high and occasionally encounter some very rude people. It's taught me to be a more considerate person (I hope) eg when my solicitor gave us the wrong info about our boundary I tried to question this as kindly as possible (I hate it when I make little errors at work!). My solicitor has been very professional and has never once mentioned a high workload despite it being clear that it is.
It's absolutely crazy that you are working 70 hour weeks. Hopefully things will start to normalise a little soon.

No other news from me, other than what I hope is a normal phase of wondering if I'm making the right decision, and looking at houses 20 miles away which are way cheaper and fantasising about giving up work. Not realistic at all but I'm clearly at the doubting stage of the moving process!