Buyers sellers roll call 12

[Bells3032]

New thread. Hopefully the last one for us!!

Sorry to hear that @EnglishRose1320
You never know what will come onto the market on Monday!

@Tomatoandbasil we are! Due to exchange next week and complete on December 10th. It’s been touch and go as our mortgage provider decided to change our valuation from desktop to in person just after the second lockdown was announced. Originally the earliest they could fit us in was December 2nd but we got incredibly lucky and they moved it to the 20th and the magically decided to work overtime this weekend so the valuation took place this morning

The valuation was the only thing we were waiting for so it’s looking doable, but if you’d have asked me 2 weeks ago when we were waiting for the searches to come back, the survey and the valuation I’d have said maybe not, so it really does depend on how far through the process you are and what the current timescales are.

@PointyMcguire that’s great! You’re further ahead than us. Waiting for searches. They’re due back by end of Nov. Hopefully.

Congratulations to everyone who is near completion. We are a little ways off. Accepted an offer 2 weeks ago. Buyer surveyor is coming around Monday.

Hopefully we are not far off not. Our buyer has their mortgage offer and is waiting for one search report. They have a homebuyers survey on 25th November, so we should be ready to exchange after that. They want to complete on 17th Dec.
We are waiting for queries to be answered, but they were only sent out on Wednesday evening. Mortgage offer in and searches back.
Our vendor is moving in with their partner so we can get moved in by Christmas, and fingers crossed it might actually happen.
We are on our third buyer and fifth purchase, it’s been a long year.

We're hoping to complete on at least our sale before Christmas. They did the survey and applied for searches and mortgage at the beginning of October so it should be doable. Will be doing lots of chasing this week I think.

I've noticed that there are so many people on here who are on their second or third (or more!) attempted purchase. What sort of issues are coming up that are causing people to pull out or the purchase to fail?

Ah @Tomatoandbasil I’ll keep fingers crossed for you. When it comes to searches it seems very much dependent on the local authorities as they all seem to be running to their own timeframes.

Thought we were finally getting somewhere yesterday when we sent the paperwork to the solicitor. Declared no issues with the neighbour - overnight she's decided she has an issue with us, caused criminal damage and we've had to have the police out. I've been fuming all day and the police were worse than useless. I guess their inaction means I can still legally say we have no issues.
I honestly can't wait to move away but if this sale falls through we're stuck here for the foreseeable.

@catfeets I’m by no means an expert but would have thought having to call the police for criminal damage would absolutely count as an issue with the neighbours, as regardless of whether they were useless or not there will still be a report of them attending. I’d be worried by not declaring honestly, there may be legal recourse if your buyer found out you’d lied further down the line.

@PointyMcguire we just don't know what to do. Basically she threw dog shit all over our garden and ruined all the furniture. I'd call that criminal damage personally. Seems the police don't care and are more bothered that we knocked on her door to speak to her about it (she told us to fuck off and refused to open door). She's completely denied it and told the police she has no issue with us. We've said the same and the police seem unwilling to speak with her further.

@PointyMcguire what can legally happen though? I'd like to see case where someone has successfully sued a seller for not declaring issues with the neighbour. I'm not saying it's right, just stating an opinion.

On a personal note my next door neighbour has an obsession with cars and will buy and do up a car with the noisy muffler. Has been doing it for a few years now. At midnight one time I did go out and ask him to reduce the noise from his muffler. And to be fair to him he did somehow manage to stop.

Shortly before we moved in we had refurb works done. The neighbour called to complain / shout at me because the builders were working at 10pm. I wasn't living there so didn't know.

On the other side we share a drive way and that neighbour parks exclusively on the shared drive so we can't use it. To be fair he did ask if he could and we said yes not anticipating that he'd take that to mean for his exclusive use. I've never said anything to him about it.

Are these things you declare?

I nearly exchanged on Friday - the only issue is fi we complete 30th November or 1st December. I think I have more than one company that can move us on 30th, and at least one for the 1st.
Should exchange tomorrow - then busy with Utilities, Insurance etc.
Oh and I had to help my DD replace her car at very short notice this week (she needs it to get to college).

[quote catfeets]@PointyMcguire we just don't know what to do. Basically she threw dog shit all over our garden and ruined all the furniture. I'd call that criminal damage personally. Seems the police don't care and are more bothered that we knocked on her door to speak to her about it (she told us to fuck off and refused to open door). She's completely denied it and told the police she has no issue with us. We've said the same and the police seem unwilling to speak with her further. [/quote]
What a vile thing to do. Is she mentally unwell? What would make her do something like that ?

@InescapableDeath Any luck? 😬

@fourmonthstogo well, 1st purchase fell through because of ASB neighbours (vandalism of cars & kicking peoples doors in), 2nd fell through because the vendor upped the price by £10k randomly, 3rd fell through because the bank down valued it and more ASB behaviour next door....

We’ve now found our absolute dream property, the vendor is amazing and the neighbours are amazing - and I am on tenterhooks waiting for it to all fall through.

I have to remind myself that people do end up living in their dream houses - they do! And it’ll happen to me too (my dream home is very modest).

@lboogy well it would be misrepresentation so at best they could be made to pay damages to the buyer and at absolute worst case scenario the buyer could back out of the purchase entirely, even after completion, although I think legally that’s pretty rare. I’d also imagine if it could be proven the seller was aware fraud charges could be brought against them too.

Like I said, not an expert at all, but my understanding is anything that has an official record needs to be declared so if you’d lodged a noise complaint with the council over your neighbour or had the police involved then yes I think you’d need to declare that as part of the information pack. If however as you describe it was a one off where you spoke to them and then they quietened down I don’t think that’s something you’d need to mention. Likewise the shared driveway doesn’t sound like an issue as presumably the neighbour isn’t going to stop shared usage if you did speak to them?

@Badgerbadger22 it will! We’ll be crossing that line into completion together I’m sure

@catfeets that does sound particularly grim, I’m sorry you’re having to deal with that

@lboogy she's just an awful person. We've had issues with her over the years but haven't reported her because we knew we'd be selling, plus she'd apologise when we spoke to her over things. She's a council tenant so it would take years to have her rehoused, so not worth the bother.
95% of the time she's no problem but this time she's taken it too far. We've never been anything but nice to her, we do diy for her etc and she repaid our kindness with dog turds on our furniture.
She doesn't have any issues with any other neighbours so we're assuming that every time the police turn up to speak with her (regularly) she thinks it's us that called them when it actually isn't. Then she retaliates and the police don't care.

@Badgerbadger22 fingers crossed for you with this purchase, sounds like you are due some good luck!

@PointyMcguire I just can't wait to move. I assume her issue is with our very different personalities and the fact that I don't pander to her attention seeking.

@catsfeet I sympathise with your neighbour problems. We had trouble a couple of years ago when our lunatic neighbour got a digger in and undermined our garden, leaving a 10 foot unsupported cliff edge of soil on our boundary. It was horrendous at the time, and involved the police (called by him for no valid reason apart from the fact that he took objection to me photographing evidence of his misdeed), solicitors letters and finally the council as he needed planning permission for a huge and very expensive retaining wall!!!! We documented all this for our sale which still went ahead. For your own peace of mind I think you'll need to mention it, particularly as the police were involved. Sorry, probably not what you want to hear, I know.

@lboogy I should think you need to sort out the access to the shared driveway. There was a question on my form about any third party having access or using any part of my property. In your case, this is a very big yes. I wouldn't say it's a dispute as such but as he could claim rights over the shared drive, you need to declare it.
I'm sorry to say I walked away from a property for the same reason. There was a space in front of the house that the neighbours had always used and belonged to the vendor. We were advised that they could claim rights given precedence. It wasn't the only reason though.
Re: one-off discussions over party or building noise that didn't involve the police or authorities I should that those are normal neighbourly activities unless they escalate.

The moving house stress is getting too much for us