Buyers Sellers Roll Call 15

[MotherofHeathens]

Because we're nearly at the end of the other thread and still inflicting this torture on ourselves...!

@Paddingtonthebear I'd get the full survey. Even if you're not planning on using it to knock down the price (I'm assuming you're expecting some interesting findings given the age of the property) it's good to go in with your eyes open.

Yes, agree

we are having such a mare with our process!

we are selling 2 houses to buy 1 though at this rate, I feel like I need to hire someone just to manage all the different parties as working full time and doing this, I feel like I've got 2 jobs!

the first one sold really quickly - they did an open day and we got 3 offers and we took the one with the smallest chain. He really wants to complete by 30 June but we've hit an issue with the Land Registry and their solicitors who appear to be incapable of giving any advice, but just fire off questions to us (my solicitor at one stage said are you expecting my client to give legal advice!). Argh! For it to close, it looks like we will need to take out some sort of indemnity policy....which apparently will only cost a few hundred so am tempted to do it

the other house has only just gone on the market but unfortunately for us, a house in better condition and slightly larger than ours has just gone on today on the same road. Haven't seen how much it went on for. I forced the EA to lower our price as I felt they put it on too high so I hope the one down the road isn't competing in our price range!

We seem to have had quite a productive day today

Boiler has been serviced and passed, annoyingly the certificate may not be ready by Friday when we want to exchange. But my solicitor said she isnt waiting for anything from us so maybe it isnt that vital??

We've been chatting with the EA of our sellers a lot today as a go between to our buyers as they were holding us up. It seems thats done the trick and our solicitor has what she needs.

I still think exchange Friday may be unlikely, but hopefully it'll happen next week and then completion on 25th June. All parties involved and the solicitors all seem to have agreed to 25th June and exchange ASAP so fingers and toes still tightly crossed.

We got the searches today, and it all looks good. Just waiting on the survey and mortgage now. It all takes so damn long!

All forms and ID deposited. Along with all the house related documents I could find, including the deeds, our searches from when we bought it, and an indemnity policy I don’t recall taking out 🤣🤷🏽‍♀️

So now I assume some more waiting happens?!
We’ve had our survey.
Our mortgage app has been submitted.
Mortgage survey done.
Am I missing anything that I should arrange or could prep for in advance!!??

We’re in! It’s been utterly exhausting today but can’t fault it as sale completed by 9:45am and purchase by 10:45 , new keys by 12:30. Removals we’re great and cracked on, so everything was unloaded and in the right rooms by 2pm. So, basically, there is a point in the process where it all actually went smoothly!

Best of luck to you all on your house buying journeys - watching my two heathens when they walked into the new house today (having not seen it before) made all the stress worth while. Even the 10 going on 15 year old was enthusiastic!

Congratulations @MotherofHeathens!

Congrats @MotherofHeathens!

There is hope! Congratulations @MotherofHeathens 🎊🎉🎊

Congratulations @MotherofHeathens enjoy your new home!

Now for the rest of us to follow suit

@MotherofHeathens That's fantastic news! Congratulations. How long did the whole process take for you?

@MotherofHeathens congratulations!!

So glad it all went smoothly, enjoy setting up your new home.

Congrulations!

@MotherofHeathens Congratulations!!

We’re STILL waiting to exchange and complete on our sale, despite our buyer’s crazy attempts to rush it through last week without checking with their solicitor. We authorised exchange yesterday though- so hopefully just a question of getting the solicitors on the phone today.

On our purchase, we’ve had our independent survey report through, and there’s £6.5k of work urgently needed for the roof and rendering that we hadn’t anticipated. We’re trying to figure out whether to renegotiate: on the one hand, we already had a tight budget for renovations and even £5k makes a big difference to us. On the other hand, it’s a very hot market and there were other bidders close to our price, so is it worth the risk of losing the house for such a small amount of money. I’m also unsure what happens to the mortgage we’ve had agreed and contracts we’ve signed if the price we buy at changes- do we need to redo any of that. Does anyone have any advice or experience of renegotiating following surveys?

congrats @MotherofHeathens

we are still trying to sell 2 small places to move to 1 bigger one!

we had some good news today - the buyers have accepted my offer of indemnity insurance to sort out the tithes issue and they have an estimated date of exchange for 14th June with completion they say a few days later. Because we have to book a moving date so soon, we could only get the 21st June so we are moving then (so they should complete after that). We've also booked a cleaner for the Wednesday 23rd so hopefully they can move in after that when it's clean! That's property1.

2nd property is having a lot of viewings but no one has bitten yet with an offer - there are some cosmetic things that need doing and we think the surveyor may suggest that the roof needs looking at/some cracks in the walls so we are fully prepared for someone to offer then push the price down on survey so we have some way to go I think

the property we have offered on - they are behaving strangely. We keep trying to arrange a 2nd visit but it all seems too much for them. We are getting tempted to withdraw our offer and start looking again given property 2 hasn't sold as fast as we hoped! Argh. We are viewing 4 more properties this weekend just to have a look and see what we think

@Caroline147 £6.5k sounds a lot - I would find out if they expected issues with the roof!

@Caroline147 Yes, you’ll need to update the mortgage approval and sale contract if you renegotiate on price. Normally it can be done pretty quickly but it may be tricky at the moment.

We've just found out that the house we are looking at buying has a restrictive covenant on it, which means we need council permission if we want to make any changes including putting up temporary structures like sheds etc. Given that the reason we wanted to buy it was huge garden which meant there is potential to build a garden office, add a greenhouse and so on, this isn't encouraging. Plus the sellers have already broken the covenant several times over, they've confirmed they didn't get permission. Suddenly its looking much more expensive.

We finally exchanged on our sale!! Completion on 1st June. Never been so relieved!

Thanks @TheFunBus and @Porridgeislife - it’s a probate sale so the vendors know very little about the house. You’re right that £6k is a lot of money, but there’s the risk of missing the stamp duty deadline and paying £15k if we need to get our mortgage etc changed

Waiting to find out if we will exchange today as agreed. Unlikely as the sellers solicitor still has some queries to answer even though they were chasing us yesterday to resolve our bits (which we did)

So frustrating, but all being well we should complete on 25th June which is a bit too close to the june cut off for my liking.

@MedusasBadHairDay personally I wouldn't let it bother me. We had a restrictive covenant on our last house and it was basically going back to when the house was originally built in the 1950s and the council didn't want anything done to change the look of the estate etc.

We broke the covenant many times over even doing internal works to the house which were signed off by the same council that had the covenant and so did every other single person on the estate.
You can get indemnity insurance for breech of covenant but the reality is the council are very unlikely to enforce

Can anyone tell me what is a reasonable amount of time between replies from solicitor in the current climate? I know everything is manic in the property market but it is now two weeks since I heard from our solicitor and there's a minor but vital issue to be resolved before the conveyancing process can actually start. I have contacted them 4-5 times in that two weeks. It is stressing me out!

@Caroline147 well done Caroline!! that's a quick completion. That's good in a way that they weren't trying to deceive you and they genuinely didn't know about the roof and it sounds like you now have a list of things to attend to!

@MedusasBadHairDay how old is the covenant and have neighbours breached it too? those sort of things always worry me too particularly when it goes against the main reason you wanted it in the first place

just heard we've got an offer on property 2 at asking price but haven't had a chance to speak to the agents. We have 14 people viewing tomorrow and a similar amount on Saturday . I would just rather take the highest quality offer and the ones who want to see it through rather than the highest money but I am yet to hear whether they've asked us to take it off the market (I would in their shoes so if they haven't, I'm a bit surprised).

we also need to decide whether we pull out of the one we made an offer on - they are being really uncooperative - have wanted a 2nd viewing and they just won't make time for it and it's starting to worry me. It wasn't our dream house anyway but we probably need to make that decision once we've confirmed we have a 'real' offer on our house.

So apparently we now need a FENSA certificate for a back door we replaced in 2017 -

Its less than 50% glazed but apparently we still need it?
Does anyone have any experience of this

I've never heard of FENSA for a door