Buyers Sellers Roll Call - 13

[lachy]

Staring a new thread!

Come and say hi 👋

Fingers crossed for everyone this week. I really hope we get further towards exchanging, although Monday is normally a quiet day. Week 15 and it's been well over a month since all the searches etc came back. It just seems to be endless backward and forward enquiries!

I’m joining. Our valuation is booked on the 15th December and it’s taking ages and ages. I’m getting really bloody stressed out.

Searches are taking ages too.

And our buyer is hounding us to exchange pre Christmas

And here starts week 23 of a chain free sale to first time buyers. and thanks to a screw up by the other side's solictor we are still waiting for the searches. should hopefully be back next week but the solicitor apparently won't start enquieries til they're back. so what to you want o bet our chances of exchange before Christmas? zero. absolute zero

I'm a nervous wreck - meant to be exchanging today. Can't focus on work at all!

As we're doing it through Help to Buy we then need to get a CTP form - if that doesn't clear by Friday (completion day) we are in breach of contract - so I will be on the phone to them a lot this week but it relies on our solicitors not making a mistake. They made 3 mistakes when we had to submit the last form delaying the process by 10 days!

@Bells3032 fingers crossed things speed up for you soon. It's bonkers that some sales can go through so quickly, and other simple chains can take for ever. We're also in a tiny chain and no idea what to do about Xmas at the moment!

@Maybenexttime08 Good luck for this week!

@Bells3032 fingers crossed this week brings some progress.

We’re meant to exchange this week but who knows anymore at this stage. I have so much to do when we finally exchange, most importantly sorting a school place for DD. It’s so stressful!

We are in the smallest possible chain..one house to sell. To a first time buyer. Agreed in September and searches only just ordered. At this rate I am looking at next Christmas not this one.

@whyamidoingthistomyself it's redic isn't it. This has been our catalogue of errors

early June - Flat put on the market with tenants in situ (this was originally my flat but rented it out when i moved in with my now husband).
mid-June - offer from buyer who wanted to buy it as a rent to rent. They then get their mortgage and survey but only after that did they instruct their solicitor to start work
early-Aug - their solicitor starts enquiries which starts with "is the flat vacant" we say no. So after a lot of back and forth it turns out they were buying to live in but just thought they'd buy with tenants and evict themselves to speed up the process and therefore only have residential mortgage. The agent tries to get me to agree to claim its vacant when its not.
mid-Aug - back on the market. original buyer begs me to reconsider as they love the flat, i have no other interest so agree to evict the tenant much to my sadness.
They then blame the solicitor for not advising correctly and want a new lawyer and take 5 weeks to instruct a new solicitor.
end-Sept - new solicitor finally instructed. My lawyer sends the contract pack several times with no response (later turns out he was provided with an incorrect email). He posts it.
mid-October - other sides solicitor finally gets pack and sends searches.
early-Nov - Search company comes back to other solicitor back saying the plan wasn't right so needed a different one to ensure they applied for the right property.
15th Nov - searches finally applied for. But there's now a wait of at least 20 working days (when i applied for mine for my house it was back in less than 10 in August).

So now waiting probably until at least next week. and the solicitor won't do anything til they are back.

I am very lucky that my purchase was not dependent on the sale of the flat. My in laws are lending us the money for the excess stamp duty we have to pay if we don't sell the flat before we complete on our house in January. but it is insane how slow this has all been and all caused by delays on errors by the other side.

Im impatiently waiting for a call from the vendors EA to confirm she is happy to complete on 8th, that should let everyone exchange tomorrow and I can finally start packing.
Been here twice this year already, my nerves cant take much more.

We've exchanged :-)

Funnily enough our solicitors haven't phoned to tell us, but our developers sales manager!

Now to cross EVERYTHING that we can get this last form through on time.. still not quite ready to relax and enjoy!

@Maybenexttime08 congrats!!!! We actually told our sellers we had exchanged before their solicitor had a few weeks ago!

There is hope!

Our buyer just seems to have instructed a useless soliciter. Loses things, sits on things, to busy doing other things. So frustrating

@midgebabe Once I realised that our solicitors were less than truthful and very slow, as well as making several errors, I phoned everyone up myself - lenders etc, and then things seemed to move along!

@Maybenexttime08 congratulations on exchanging!

Our solicitor has just said that the searches aren’t due back until mid January.

However they were instructed last week and the turnaround time is 20 working days - so I’m really confused :/

Although I guess they’re taking into account the Christmas shutdown.

My solicitor is using a search agent too.

I’m surprised they aren’t due back for so long - I feel like I might cry!

Congratulations @Maybenexttime08

@midgebabe that sounds like the solicitors at the bottom of our chain, they’re terrible. We’re all ready to go and they’re taking ages to respond and issue the last bit of paperwork we’re all waiting for. We’re meant to complete next week but it’s all looking less and less likely by the day.

We accepted an offer on our house in mid September, and then finally found a property end of October and had our offer accepted on that. So far we have got our mortgage offer, survey done and it came back fine, and searches came back on Friday too. I’m not sure how our buyers are doing with the whole process so I have emailed our estate agent to find out their position. Our solicitor has sent enquiries to our vendor’s solicitor so waiting to hear back.

I’m not sure how much longer to expect before exchange but to be quite honest, I really don’t want to move before Christmas now! The tree and decorations are up and I don’t want to be taking them down again! Fingers crossed for sometime between January and March!

Our estate agent is turning into a terrier

I emailed the local authority searches and they said their turnaround time is now just 15 days!! Which is great....

They’re catching up fast. It was 10+ weeks back in October.

But still aren’t due back until January somehow

@MrsHarryKane 10 weeks????? that is insane!!

My local council has gone up to 25 plus days. hoping that's cos 20 days would hit christmas. Hoping cos mine were sent in November it won't hit that.

I am losing the will to live at the moment.

We were due to exchange last week. At the last minute we found out our sellers hadn't got any of the building regs sign off that they said they had. So we have pulled out and planned to move in with family.

Now it turns out we're waiting for something to do with our buyers' related sale. Our "first time" buyers....I'm really hoping it isn't serious and we can still exchange tomorrow as planned.

No exchange here today keeping everything crossed for tomorrow or Wednesday.

Anticipated move date is now 17th December.

My second thread! Haven't posted much as nothing has really been happening. Sent paperwork back to the solicitors two weeks ago, so wondering when it would be reasonable to ask for an update, perhaps the beginning of next week. We are in the middle of a chain of three, so I thought it would all be reasonably quick.......

I update EA / solicitors around once a week and if something is supposed to be happening on my side I ask for updates once a week. Twice things have been stalled then get restarted when I ask for an update though its the admin side at the solicitors, the solicitor is amazing. Suspect the admin staff are overworked.

We have electrician arranged so our house will pass electrical report, £1k ouch. Buyers survey has been postponed twice and now this week. Its already passed valuation survey.

Hi everyone! Hope it's OK for me to join this thread! My timeline so far has been as follows:

16/11 Offer accepted for our sale
19/11 Offer accepted for our purchase
24/11 Mortgage application submitted
27/11 Mortgage approved
30/11 Home Buyers report booked for 14/12

Solicitors were already instructed prior as we had a buyer in September who had to pull out due to redundancy.

Chain is Buyers > us > vendors. Vendors are divorcing and the wife is already living at her parents but been told the husband would like to find an onward purchase but would rent if it meant losing us as buyers.. I just want to make sure we don't miss the stamp duty holiday!

I'm actually (prematurely) worrying about my LBs nursery! We are moving away so he has to start a new nursery (place confirmed and happy to adjust start date). My current nursery has a one month notice period or 2 months when he is 3 which is in mid January...! When would people give notice?! I don't want to do it too early and then not have a place for him if anything with the move happens but equally don't want to have to pay 2 months worth when it isn't needed! My sensible head says only after exchange...