Buyers Sellers Roll Call 14

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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!

I've found my thread! Never sold a house before, parents never sold when I was growing up so allllll new to me yet here I am 😬😬😬

Sold our house in 3 days a couple of weeks ago for the asking price. Not found anything on the open market in the town we live. Either way over budget or need too much work. So sacrificed location to get the perfect house in the neighbouring town. Having a wobble on location but I'll get over it. It's where I grew up and its literally 10mins down the road.

House is a new build and. It's ready in June/July. Picked out the bathroom at the weekend and the kitchen had been fitted but they've pulled it all out so we could pick what we wanted.

Had the surveyor people at ours today for our buyer. The house we're in and sold is a Victorian terrace. Flabbergasted they haven't paid for a home buyers report and just having it valued. Relieved. It's not falling apart but there is stuff that needs doing. So all those niggles can be their problem.

Got a 2 hour zoom.call with the bank on Friday for the mortgage application and that's where were up to. So we sit and wait now. DH is a nervous wreck over the 'exchange in 28 Day' thing on our purchase but conveyancing is so slow ATM they said they can be flexible.

Exciting @InescapableDeath 🎉🥳🎉

Hope this last stretch is pain free!

@InescapableDeath congratulations 🎉🥳🍾I bet that's such a relief.
Can I ask you that are further a long than me what comes next. Firstly we are a chain of 4 I'm buying an empty house with no onward chain. My buyers exchanged already and are due to complete with there buyers on the 30th. They sold there's back in September to first time buyers who are already in rented accommodation so that's why they are a lot further along. My buyers are awaiting there local search but the rest are back and there survey report should be with them in the next couple of days. The house I'm buying my solicitors has had all of the searches back and I've received the fixtures and fittings forms and property information form. She has also sent some queries to my seller. What comes next are all of the queries and everything have been answered. I can't remember the process. I'm also going through with a divorce at the moment that the same solicitor office is also dealing with. You can imagine all of the stress 🤦‍♀️😩😬😬. Thanks in advance. I love reading this thread as although it all feels like it's all going so slow I love reading about other peoples experiences going through the same plus it makes me more excited about our house move 🤣🤣😊

Stuff slowly happening. We heard yesterday that our buyers have done their mortgage application, and are in touch with the old buyers solicitor to purchase their searches. A mortgage survey for them needs to be booked in so hopefully that will happen quickly.
We’ve filled in the initial paperwork and given it back to our solicitor. I’m not sure what happens next.

Quick email from our solicitor, our searches were back 19th of March and he’s just sent them on to us (with a note saying they’ve not been looked at by him yet!) Thankfully there is absolutely nothing concerning in them, so there shouldn’t be any enquiries arising from our point of view.
The draft contract pack went to our buyers solicitor yesterday.

Yay for progress @LaMariposa!

Our final search has come back this morning so fingers crossed we can now agree an exchange and completion date for 2-3 weeks time 🤞🏻🤞🏻

So glad I've found this thread!
In the process of selling for the very first time, and tying it into new (build) purchase.

It's been 2 months since we signed our reservation form and we have only just requested searches after a myriad of issues with draft contracts.

Someone reassure me that it does eventually click into place.

I keep trying to work out the logistics of exchanging and completing simultaneously on both properties, and for some reason I can't compute it 🤦🏽‍♀️ help!

Third attempt at a purchase, others we pulled out due to serious things coming up at end of processes. Such a waste of time and money. Waiting for searches but everything seems in track so far. Received mortgage offer and the seller has been proactive with information unlike the last sets of jokers. Feel very happy about the prospect of living in this one, so fingers crossed.

Congratulations @InescapableDeath hope the move goes smoothly

@Dandelionrarrrr I agree - that is quite a sneaky omission!

Eeek our purchase is ready to go!! Waiting on our buyer who's solicitor is soooo slow.
Apparently he's had the searches, mortgage offer and enquiry response desk for weeks but still has to review the file and write his final report which he is going to try and do this week.
Our buyer is selling a leasehold flat which has new managing agents who don't know the answers to the enquiries argh
So so close to being able to exchange and yet so far.
We only had our offer accepted at the end of feb so it's all been very quick but apparently the top of the chain is getting twitchy.
Why do I have the feeling this could all fall apart?!

Wow that's very quick @arthurdaly! We had our offer accepted about the same time and everything is going so slowly.

@Onandoff that sounds awful, fingers crossed third time's a charm for you.

Our survey was due to be done on Monday, they said they usually get the report to you within 24 hours, but to allow up to three working days. I've been constantly checking my emails yesterday and today and still nothing. No rush really as still got weeks to wait for the searches, but wish they'd get on with it!

Finally feel like we’ve made a bit more progress today.

All our initial instruction paperwork was in to our solicitors last Friday. Broker has been asking for little bits of info today for the mortgage application that we believed to have had already been sent out. I’m over it and trying not to be as grumpy. The fees have been taken from our account so I can see it has been processed and isn’t just sat on his desk.

Solicitors say they are drafting up a contract. We asked if they started the searches and they told us they usually do that after the draft contract. We asked them to start searches immediately. Surely they’d raise that with us earlier. I’m trying to be less negative but they really push my buttons.
Hopefully they have started them now.

Oh and the sales progressor has a week off this week and apparently they don’t cover this...madness

Hello! Can I join? We've been talking about moving for a while now, but not particularly seriously. However, in the last couple of weeks we just decided to do it and we're going to attempt to sell our house and buy a new one in a new town, and hopefully get everything sorted before our child starts reception in September. This is doable, right?

We've not sold a house before and we're only starting, so will redo the bathroom and a whole lot of painting etc to make this house attractive. I have spoken to a few EAs and I'll book a few valuations in in the next couple of weeks.

I really want to get this done quick so we can sort my child's school place and get settled in the new area, so it looks like I won't be resting much for the foreseeable... Off to study this section of Mumsnet!

We’ve had some pretty devastating news back from our structural survey. The house we’re trying to buy needs party wall ties on both sides and lateral floor ties across the whole rear elevation on every floor. It also needs remedial wall ties on at least one floor. We’re talking 15-20k of work, and that’s before you get to the making good and redecorating. This has come as a massive shock to the sellers. We have money put aside for work, but no-one was anticipating anything on this scale. No way can we swallow the cost and I’m not sure yet whether they can afford to drop that much. We still want the house, but a large part of me is wondering whether we’re mad for even considering it.

How frustrating @umbel maybe you can meet somewhere halfway with the costs? I am slightly dreading our house that we are currently selling having a survey although it can't be as bad as it was when we bought it 13 years ago.

@umbel we gave up on a house with major structural issues circa £30k as we couldn’t take that sort of hit financially and the vendors only offered us a very minimal £3k off the price.

It is not just the money aspect you need to take into account but the disruption and stress! Also will it effect your insurance premiums going forwards?

No idea but is it something the vendors could claim on their building insurance cover?

@umbel oh no, that's rough.

I totally agree with @Didicat. The stress of undertaking this type of work is enormous, and there is always the possibility that things could go wrong. Bloody old houses - they're beautiful, but so much trouble.

Thanks @FelicityElectricity, @Didicat and @gelatodipistacchio I appreciate the commiserations. We need to pin down the costs in a bit more detail and find out how much disruption it’s likely to cause before we decide whether it’s even worth negotiating. I’m hopeful the vendors will be amenable though. There is literally nothing available here at the moment and it’s such a good fit for what we want, I would hate to walk away. If we have to, I think we would have to give up the idea of moving any time soon. This place would be our home for the next 20 years I would think, so that makes a difference. I just don’t know what to think. It might be irrelevant anyhow, once we declare this to our lender - if we can’t borrow against it at all, we’re stuffed.

Just to say, we finally completed on Tuesday so just hang in there everyone who is going through shit at the minute. I honestly thought it would never happen at one point but it did and the relief is immense. So, good luck to all of you still waiting x

I'm sorry @umbel, that's really disappointing. Something the sellers would do well to consider is that anyone else they sell to would have the same survey outcome and likely need a similar reduction in price. We had to request a £7.5k reduction in price following lots of unforseen things thrown up by our homebuyer report and this is what the agent pointed out to our sellers, who thankfully agreed.

Our news today is that our buyers have requested a completion date of 30th April, so 2 weeks time 😬 We've got no issue with this as gives me a few extra days before c sec is scheduled, but ironically it's their solicitor who hasn't contacted ours to say they're ready to go or wanting that date despite the buyers telling them this a week ago(!) Thankfully ours is going to chase them today.

Got our homebuyers survey back this morning and have skimmed through it briefly. Most of it is things we were expecting, but there's a couple of issues I'm not sure if I should be concerned about: there's evidence of ground movement outside, no visible damage to the house but significant damage to the detached garage (we knew this looked dodgy) and it's adjacent to the drainage installation, so they've recommended getting that looked at. Possibly caused by trees from neighbouring property.

The other issue they've flagged is uneven floor surfaces downstairs. It's a concrete floor so he's said it may be due to floor coverings being layered on top of each other, but he's recommended it's checked for signs of cracking or compaction. Presumably this would involve ripping up the carpet which I'm guessing the vendor wouldn't be happy with. Hoping it's just an arse covering recommendedation but need to do some research into both of these things.

Oh how frustrating @umbel, I’m not at the survey stage yet but it’s always been a concern what one on the one I’m selling will throw up.

@BabyPotato I’m only days/weeks ahead of you! House went on the market a week ago, after 7283 trips to b&q, several paint testers and a gallon of silicone!

I'm joining this thread! We sold our house and were sale agreed on our purchase on 19th March, it's a short chain first time buyers are buying our purchasers and our vendors are going to rent.
Both ours and our purchasers have mortgage offers through and I spoke to the solicitor and he thinks we will complete in mid May!
It's going very quickly and I'm not sure whether to believe this or not!

Feeling quite despondent here, just can't find anything, so little on the market. Our buyers wanted to meet the stamp duty deadline so i'm sure that the estate agents will be telling them that we will move into rented, which is absolutely not the case, the cost of renting is more than double our current mortgage. The buyers paid for a full survey, they were here for more than 4 hours! so nervous as to what its going to say, the house is mostly in a great condition but it is Victorian.
I wake up each morning feeling miserable, can't wait to be on the other side of this.