Buyers Sellers Roll Call 14

[PowerslidePanda]

New thread for anyone buying or selling houses at the moment - come join us!

The previous thread ran for about 10 weeks and in ordinary (non-stamp duty holiday) times, that's long enough to get a transaction through, so let's hope this thread sees lots of people finish!

STILL nothing. Honestly, I think I’m going to put it back on the market. I’ve had enough. I honestly can’t cope with any more stress. It’s driving me to drink. A lot.

We’re 8 months on and still no sign of a completion date. Been ready to exchange for two months but the top of the chain wouldn’t commit until they had found a rental. Found out last week that they’ve offered on a property. We’ve lost our really good mortgage deal which had already been extended once and the new deal the lender is offering will cost us a lot more money per month. I am so fed up and angry with the top of the chain who has done nothing but mislead everybody. There is a part of me that wants to pull out but the thought of starting over again is just awful especially as we’ve invested money in the searches, survey etc and we’ve been waiting all of this time.

@Gyptian blimey that is a complete p*take. No wonder you're fed up. I'm surprised you haven't pulled out or others in the chain after that long. Hopefully you will get there soon.

I'm so sorry @Gyptian, that's really stressful and so crappy of the people at the top of your chain. Do you know if the place their buying has no onward chain? I really hope it doesn't for your/ everyone else in the chain's sake.

We've had positive but nerve-wracking news that our buyer's lenders have agreed to complete a physical valuation (they did a desktop one which down valued our house and resulted in our FTBs saying the only way they could proceed was if we took the financial hit and knocked down our agreed price to the valuation price). The valuation is booked for tomorrow, I'm hoping it can at least get us a bit closer to our agreed sale price but am also a bit nervous in case it doesn't... Or even goes down further 🤦🏻‍♀️

Can I ask (as this is the first time we've sold a place) do I need to do a full tidy up and clean beforehand or does that not really matter for the purpose of a mortgage valuation? I've got a dog, a 3 year old and am 33 weeks pregnant so whilst I want to maximise our opportunity here I also don't want to kill myself cleaning 😂😂

*they're

We are on Week 15, our solicitors are ridiculously slow. It's taken them 3 weeks to review the responses to the enquiries from the sellers, and re-send the ones they haven't answered properly. Why does it take 3 weeks?! At this rate we'll be in the house in 2022. I keep getting phonecalls from the estate agent saying "the sellers want this completed in a couple of weeks", I'm like, that's great but speak to the solicitors then - I'm using the ones you recommended me and they're shit! I rang him up once to chase and just got loads of robotic responses and "I'm afraid I can't say".

Plus the sellers seem to have got a bunch of work done without planning permission/prior approval, I've asked the solicitor about it but he takes so long to get back that the sellers and estate agents usually sort it out before he does.

vickyp0llard
We are on Week 15, our solicitors are ridiculously slow. It's taken them 3 weeks to review the responses to the enquiries from the sellers. Why does it take 3 weeks ?

Why indeed ! My solicitor wrote to seller's sol. on 24 Feb, requesting - inter alia - a contract with the seller's & buyer's correct names written on it. Pedant ! 3 weeks later (March 17), and no reply, he writes again. So, we are in Week 9, without even a contract in place. And this for a cash purchase, without any searches, or chain involved !

@mummabubs-I have no idea and neither do the estate agents unfortunately. It’s just a mess. My only consolation is that if it does continue to drag on, we might get an opportunity to apply for a better mortgage deal as my broker has said that he expects rates will start to come down.

I hope your valuation goes well tomorrow.

Buyer or their solicitors lying again saying they are waiting on my solicitors to deal with 4 points we reverted on last Thursday.....

Thanks @Gyptian, fingers crossed for you too. I've just reread your message and I'm wondering is it even clear whether they've had their offer accepted!? I'd almost be inclined to pass a message on up the chain giving them x number of weeks to find rental accommodation as they originally agreed to or you will be pulling out. This might push your sellers into pushing them as they won't want their sale to fall through? I have to confess we're finding it stressful enough with just 3 of us in a chain so I take my hat off to those negotiating with more!!

Jumping in having lurked for weeks. The same weeks that we have had 15+ viewings and not a single offer 😬 Market is very buoyant here (SW London). We are priced very competitively. Recently renovated and in the catchment for 2 Outstanding Ofsted primary schools. One problem seems to be that when we renovated we cut short the long living room which was just wasted space and apparently viewers don’t like a utility room (clear on the floor plan and something we have found invaluable). Another is that we don’t have a south facing garden - not much I can do about that and it’s clear on the property spec.

I’m embarrassed to say I cried on the phone to the EA this morning. Just so frustrated.

@maybeshesawomble we had a similar issue in the garden was an odd shape with low “social” fences, everyone said it was too small and not private enough. Whereas we loved chatting to our neighbours over the fence, there will be someone who loves and values your house they just haven’t come yet. Good luck with the next viewers and I love a utility room it’s on my must have list.

Still nothing happening here. Not sure whether to nag the solicitors for an update or leave it.

I just want to move!

We did get a lovely card from our buyers in the post saying how much they were looking forward to moving in which made me feel a bit better.

@mummabubs-no, there is zero clarity whether the offer has been accepted. I don’t know. We’ve been threatening for weeks that if the chain didn’t meet the end of March, our mortgage offer would expire potentially leading to the chain collapsing. The top of the chain obviously doesn’t care. I’m not sure I can face trying to find another house though, especially as we viewed 20 plus before we found this one. Also, I don’t know if our buyers would be happy if we decided to start again. The house buying process is so ridiculously stressful, people shouldn’t be allowed to get away with messing people about like this.

@LaMariposa-you sound like you have lovely buyers!

Hello all, sorry to read you are all still super stressed. We still haven't exchanged and the only reason I've been given is "the bottom of the chain aren't ready@". They're first time buyers and we are on week 22 of our own sale. My solicitor and EA are doing their best to get information 😭

Meanwhile we've had an offer accepted in Scotland , sort of... they want to know our completion date as are keen on a quick sale. I think if I can't answer soon they'll move on (they had similar offers).

Worth making sure that your sellers know how different the English system is , it's a bit tricky doing coordination across the border

Oooh hello

Going to read the thread after work, but just briefly

Viewed an interesting house nearly 4 weeks ago

I arrived home after a walk 3 weeks ago yesterday to find an estate agent taking photos of my house

3 weeks ago tomorrow the house went on the market

It was sold ( was sold on the friday but that fell through) and offer finally accepted on the other house yesterday

I’m a bit shell shocked to be honest

Im being very rude posting and running but I’ll be back

Fingers crossed your offer is accepted @hassletassle!

@Gyptian that's such a ball ache. I guess when I said about threatening to pull out I meant to try and push them as opposed to seriously trying to start looking again, although I completely understand why you wouldn't want to call their bluff on it to be fair! There's so little on the market here that we'd be scared of not finding anything suitable for a long time.

Nervous day in our house today, we managed to get a physical valuation booked for this morning and the surveyor said she'd be sending her report to our buyer's lenders by the end of play today. We're just desperately hoping that they get closer to our agreed sale price this time. 😬 She did seem lovely and said she's currently being asked to do a lot of in-person valuations where a desktop one has already been done and significantly downvalued the property.

Sorry @hassletassle, I meant I hope that your accepted offer sticks!

@mummabubs good luck on the valuation

Oh goodness, so many interesting and scary stories

Its not the end of the world if we don’t move as we love our house, but as some of the stories will attest there are many things that can go wrong or delay matters

Fingers crossed for everyone...

And gyptian, you must be so pissed off

Mind if I join? We have had a bit of a whirlwind week.

We have been getting our house ready to put on the market since early Feb but we hadn't quite made the final push to get it on.

Last Thursday I found out I was pregnant with no2.

Then on Friday we went to view a house and the shit hit the fan. We loved it so had a weekend long desperate scramble to get all the final jobs done and the house tidy ready to go on the market.

Harassed our mortgage broker into getting us a AIP on monday morning (the man is a marvel) we put in our offer on monday lunchtime.

Photos taken by our agents monday afternoon. Our house went live Monday night.
By Tuesday morning at 10am we had 18 viewings booked in for this Sunday. Advised by our agents to tell the vendors agents we have a first early offer and a shit load of viewings in place so we do.

Tuesday afternoon the vendors agents tell us we are going to Best and Final offers on Thursday at 12. We are currently pondering our best and final (I think we are increasing by 1K as we have already gone in with pretty much our top offer.

I don't think I can cope with the next 48 hours.

Gosh thats scary panda and quick!

Good Luck @Panda368 is there anything else on the market that takes your fancy?

@Didicat nothing right now that has quite the same kind of space/cost level one or two have gone up and down in the last few months but nothing with what this house has.

The house needs fully doing up + rewiring + new boiler but would be livable while we did it (as long as we can cope with grandmas 1980s pink carpets). We definitely couldn't afford something similar that didn't require work its a 4 bed + garage + decent garden and walkable to good primary/secondary schools and a good enough distance from the local motorway.

We wont have a problem shifting ours but the garden/garage/3-4 bed combo are like gold dust around here so we have pulled out all the stops.