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!

Further phone calls and pushing today and we've found out our buyer has now sent 2 payments. 3rd and final installment should be sent tomorrow. Our solicitor is happy to exchange tomorrow and for us to book moving van for Friday. Fingers crossed.

Congratulations @Panda368 . I bet that's made your day 😊🍾

We are now not exchanging today and probably not this week. It turns out after telling us everyone was ready, our vendor is still waiting for her post to turn up - if it ever does, she then needs to return a document to her solicitor before we can even talk about exchange.

Which is confusing as last week we all agreed to complete on the 15th so why this is all happening now, just after I've packed all but a week's worth of clothes away, I don't know...

I'm so fed up and grumpy. My whole life is on hold and I still feel like the whole thing could fall apart!

Oh gosh, it’s horrible to read everyone’s stress @InescapableDeath @OneStepInTheFuture but I’m glad I have people who are in the same sort of boat!

We’re stuck in limbo right now- both buyer and vendor of our short chain (we selling to a FTB and we’re buying a probate property) are being slow! Frustratingly, after I’d asked multiple times whether our buyer’s solicitor needed to raise more enquiries and been told ‘no, all sorted, just waiting for the last search to come back’ , we’ve now been told that there are actually additional enquiries. Worse than that, our buyer’s solicitor won’t actually send them through- we’re stuck waiting. In the meantime, we have no idea whether they’re simple ones and exchange /completion is imminent (so we should start packing and booking storage), or whether it’s still going to take ages. Argh.

On the vendor’s side, they still haven’t returned the first round of paperwork (fixtures and fittings etc) even though it’s over a month since our offer was accepted. No one seems to have any sense of urgency apart from us, which is deeply worrying, although the EAs are still saying everyone is committed and wants to complete ASAP.

I really do hate this process!

I'm so fed up and grumpy. My whole life is on hold and I still feel like the whole thing could fall apart!

Yup, this is exactly how I feel

Still no memorandum of sale... the estate agent tells me that one of our buyers has the wrong address on their ID so they need to provide something else. It took me chasing for 3 days for them to realise this.

Maybe by the weekend...

@Caroline147

Oh gosh, it’s horrible to read everyone’s stress *@InescapableDeath* *@OneStepInTheFuture* but I’m glad I have people who are in the same sort of boat!

We’re stuck in limbo right now- both buyer and vendor of our short chain (we selling to a FTB and we’re buying a probate property) are being slow! Frustratingly, after I’d asked multiple times whether our buyer’s solicitor needed to raise more enquiries and been told ‘no, all sorted, just waiting for the last search to come back’ , we’ve now been told that there are actually additional enquiries. Worse than that, our buyer’s solicitor won’t actually send them through- we’re stuck waiting. In the meantime, we have no idea whether they’re simple ones and exchange /completion is imminent (so we should start packing and booking storage), or whether it’s still going to take ages. Argh.

On the vendor’s side, they still haven’t returned the first round of paperwork (fixtures and fittings etc) even though it’s over a month since our offer was accepted. No one seems to have any sense of urgency apart from us, which is deeply worrying, although the EAs are still saying everyone is committed and wants to complete ASAP.

I really do hate this process!

Oh no, i feel for you. First time poster but lurking a while.

We are at our wits end this week. Our sale is going smoothly with our solicitor in good communication with our buyers solicitor. But our purchase is so so slow. We are using a different solicitor for purchase as was far cheaper, plus we had a great solicitor last time we used them but sadly got given a different handler for this purchase. He has been radio silent since last week after telling us we would have the forms to rsise enquiries last wednesday. Said there were estate rent charges that need looking into. So frustrating. We have chased yesterday and today but no response. Not sure why this issue stops him from giving us the pack forms to raise our own enquiries!!

We sold and bought end of feb. Actually changed buyers a week later and our sale is ahead of our purchase.

We're getting super frustrated about our sale here. We had word a week ago from our solicitors that our buyers had agreed to our suggested completion date of 16 April, so we've booked removers, storage etc. for next week on that basis. We're doing a long distance move, which takes 3 days, so couldn't leave it too close to completion to try & find someone.

Since then, radio silence, so DH chased, and we've had an email back this morning saying they'd chase the buyers' solicitor, and that "usually we would not advise you to book removals until exchange has taken place" - eek! How they expect us to arrange removals in less than a week, I have no idea. Our EA was on leave last week, but is now back and is also chasing the buyers' solicitor, so we're keeping fingers crossed that we will actually manage to exchange this week.

It's all so, so stressful (and that's without the fact that we don't have a rental to go to yet, so we'll probably be living in the motorhome for a few weeks ).

On the plus side, we have exchanged on the building plot we're buying - hurray !

That's awful @oneofthegiantsisme.

Our vendor has now got her post and intends to return it to her solicitor tonight...

...but our own conveyancers have left it til now to tell us our lender requires 7 WORKING days between exchange and competition, so the date we'd all agreed wasn't workable anyway! I'm so fed up as had practically told everyone I know I was moving next week. Sigh.

I have only posted rarely but it has been so helpful every time.

We have finally exchanged! Moving on Monday.

We chose to book removals once the completion date looked fairly certain and decided we'd just accept the loss of £500 deposit to avoid having no one!

When we move it will have been 24 weeks from going on the market, but 22 weeks from accepting an offer and having ours accepted. Not too bad (we were told the average was 17 weeks) and we were ready to exchange from 19th February, we were just waiting for our vendors to decide what to do, somewhat complicated by Covid 19 as they couldn't afford a 6 month rental contract and couldn't find a suitable Air BNB.

Anyway this time next week absolutely none of it will matter!

That's great news @FakeFruitShoot !! We are nearly on week 24 and I am really losing the will to live because we still haven't exchanged / got a completion date… The people at the bottom of the chain are messing around and not responding now. I thought we were away over the average time ... but maybe not from what you say. Congratulations!

Well, the short version of what happened this morning as I have sent an email to our solicitor and estate agent saying that if we don't exchange by X date we will be pulling out…… Hopefully it won't come to this. But we're going to end up with nowhere to live and I have a suspicion is that something is going wrong at the bottom of the chain and we are not being told

We’ve had a development this morning.

All gearing up for completion in June - we’ve now been asked about completing at the end of April!

That’s 3 weeks away!

So I am supremely pissed off despite having our offer agreed a month ago we are no further forward with the solicitors and it is proving to be a complete arse ache! The deeds were lost..... found at the bank..... still there..... so we still don’t have any paperwork from their solicitors as the house is not registered on land registry...... our solicitors haven’t sent off for searches as no paperwork......

We however have paid for our survey got the report back, got an approved mortgage offer.......

Why can’t people prepare properly before going to market!

@FakeFruitShoot fab news wishing you a smooth move!

@ForThePurposesOfTheDIR also very positive news!

@hassletassle how much time have you given them..... we were hoping to move summer half term, not looking very likely currently!

@Didicat we are on week 24 , We were supposed to be moving at the end of January/early February and it's been delay after delay after delay. Everything has been ready for awhile but our buyers buyer / their solicitor Hasn't been responding to things for a couple of weeks now (And they are the ones that have caused a lot of the avoidable delays )

I accepted an offer in October. We are the top of the chain-going into rental. We lost one rental because of all the delays, we have another one lined up but they want us to start paying imminently and we can't afford to pay our mortgage and rent for very long

That's good news Fake! I hope things work out OK for you, hassle, and DIR - I feel your pain!

We had a development last night - DH had an email from our solicitors late yesterday afternoon - not copied to me (despite what he'd asked them), so I didn't see it until he got home from dropping DS back at uni at 8-ish. The buyers' solicitors now say their local searches won't be back until 26 April, so clearly we can't complete on 16 April as agreed. I'm not quite sure why they originally suggested a completion date of 1 April when the searches weren't back .

So now we're facing a dilemma. Do we contact the removal/storage people etc, and postpone everything, stay put until we've exchanged, and hope that the removals aren't too difficult to book at that point? This is what our EA advises. Or do we go ahead as planned, move out and put everything into storage, leaving the house empty for a few weeks until completion? That means that we're in control of where we go & when, but obviously has its own risks.

We're leaning towards moving anyway ATM. It's risky, but we're committed to the move - we've bought a plot, nearly ready to submit planning permission, and we need to sell this house to finance the build. So if this sale falls through, we'll be back on the market pronto and taking any offers, pretty much.

Aaaaargh!! Why does it all have to be so difficult?

Good news today.... Our buyer has transferred all money to their solicitor, who has transferred the money to our solicitor.

Contracts have been exchanged....and completion will happen tomorrow.
Moving van has been re-booked (luckily were doing the moving ourselves so it's just a van to book)

And we're ready to go ...woop.

Congrats @OneStepInTheFuture!

Fab news @OneStepInTheFuture hope it all goes smoothly for you tomorrow

Congratulations, that's great news OneStep!

And we have a memo of sale, chain is officially complete!
Our purchase - just waiting for searches to come back (if they haven’t, solicitor hasn’t replied to any emails in a week) and any further enquires.
I know our buyers were due to exchange on their sale when they lost their previous purchase. So now it’s how quickly things get tied up between us and them.