Buyers Sellers Roll Call 16

[Househunting21]

Because the last thread is nearly full and I for one very much appreciate the space to vent

Good luck to everyone hoping to exchange and/or complete this week!

Is it normal for a solicitor to summarise and:or explain the meaning and consequences of covenants in deeds etc? Just received the Report on Title (and a big sheaf of searches, deeds etc) from solicitor and it's full of things like "there is a restrictive covenant on the title deed. In summary: see title deed" but I don't understand enough conveyancing law to understand what I'm reading and what it actually means in practice. Is this a bit lazy on their part? I'm sure last time we bought (over a decade ago) the conveyancer did more than just shuffle and forward paperwork.

In other news we might be two weeks or two months from completion and nobody knows and nobody knows who will decide and the uncertainty is maddening.

So sorry that people are still stuck without updates / progress. There has to be a better way of doing this..!

Our deposit is now with the solicitor, mortgage deed signed, searches back, enquiries submitted. Is it now ‘just’ a case of waiting for responses to the enquiries before the contract can be drafted and signed?

Wondering if there’s something else I should/could be doing. I’d ask the solicitor, but..!

21 weeks in and counting.
The seller doesn’t seem to push anything. We are waiting for them and have everything ready our side.
We’re in rented so this chain of 3 should have been easy.

I think was on this thread early on, but it must be too far back now for me to check where I was then.

Tomorrow will be the start of week 13 of my purchase transaction. It's going sooooo slowly I'm ready to tear my hair out.

I'm buying from an elderly lady who is in turn buying a leasehold place in a sheltered scheme, but as she has no email, everything is being done by post. Her solicitors are really slow as well, and took an age responding to mine initially.

I sold my last house in early summer, and moved in with family thinking it would help speed up the process, but I hadn't banked on this! I would really like to be in by latest 2nd week of November, so me and the DC can enjoy our first Christmas settled there. Any tips on how to get the vendor to hurry it along would be gratefully appreciated.

Just read you are in the same boat as me @finova, only 7 weeks further on. You have my sympathies

@Starseeking I’m so sorry. Husband and I were having this conversation the other day saying how much quicker things must be nowadays with email. I don’t imagine things would get quicker unless someone who has a computer starts to help her out. It’s so frustrating isn’t it.

Morning all! Ready for another week of trying to get people to do their jobs?! 🙈

@Getyourarseofffthequattro Did you ever hear how the mortgage conversation had gone? 😬

@YouCanCallMeA1 In my experience, it varies quite a lot between solicitors... I hope it's been readable!

@OrigamiParrot Our draft contract went over as soon as our buyer instructed their solicitors; but I know some solicitors do it last... so I think you're probably just waiting on enquiries and that, yep. Good luck!

@Starseeking That sounds so stressful, I'm sorry! We're also hoping to be in my mid November...

So last week nothing much happened... We had the mortgage valuation here on Monday morning, but our estate agent couldn't get an update on whether the offer had come through, just that it "should have" by Thursday at the latest. Our solicitor also called to see if the sale was still happening, as our buyer hadn't bought the searches that they'd asked us to contact the old buyer about, and they hadn't had any enquiries or anything since all the info and contracts went over nearly three weeks ago.

Our estate agent came back on Friday to say that the buyers solicitor now has the searches... and today she's said the solicitor intends to raise first enquiries on Thursday.

I have no idea why it can't be done sooner; or what's happening with the mortgage offer... but I'm getting worried. I've got 9 weeks of pregnancy left; but I'm waiting for a consultant appointment because they think my dates have been calculated wrongly, and I'm expecting the end of November if I'm honest... At this rate, we'll barely be in. And our seller's seller mortgage expires in mid-November, and he won't extend it again, they've decided to stay put if this doesn't come off. Our estate agent knows all of this...

@TakeYourFinalPosition nope, of course they said they'd tell us Friday but they didn't. Expected but annoying. I'm going to ring them again today and emphasize the fact that we either get an answer of we will have to pull out.

@Getyourarseofffthequattro Eurrrgggh. I'm so sorry, I was really hoping you'd have heard. I feel like we've been doing this together forever now 🙈Asking outright if our old buyer was proceedable seemed to make the difference for us; although I really hope you get better news than we did.

I'm really tempted to phone today and chase the mortgage offer; and then suggest that if they can't speed up his solicitors, we won't be able to move... but I'm 90% sure that's pregnancy hormones. DH won't agree! I just want to know where we'll be. And that we won't be moving imminently before birth, because DH has to pass a Covid test, and rates here aren't good... he'll miss the birth if he tests positive. We've already been told to minimise out of household contacts for three weeks before, but we won't even have exchanged at that point if this is anything to go by 😬

[quote TakeYourFinalPosition]@Getyourarseofffthequattro Eurrrgggh. I'm so sorry, I was really hoping you'd have heard. I feel like we've been doing this together forever now 🙈Asking outright if our old buyer was proceedable seemed to make the difference for us; although I really hope you get better news than we did.

I'm really tempted to phone today and chase the mortgage offer; and then suggest that if they can't speed up his solicitors, we won't be able to move... but I'm 90% sure that's pregnancy hormones. DH won't agree! I just want to know where we'll be. And that we won't be moving imminently before birth, because DH has to pass a Covid test, and rates here aren't good... he'll miss the birth if he tests positive. We've already been told to minimise out of household contacts for three weeks before, but we won't even have exchanged at that point if this is anything to go by 😬[/quote]
I think it's the way forward. At least if it's bad news we know where we stand and can make some decisions I guess.

Oh gosh it's so stressful isnt it. I really hope you get some good news. it's just not what you need when you're heavily pregnant is it. And it's frustrating because nobody seems to care! I could scream some days honestly.

Just spoke to the ea. She hasn't spoke to the mortgage advisor. She's spoke to the other woman in the office who maintains nothing is wrong. Apparently they're speaking to the BDM to expedite it. I was like right so what time scales are we looking at?

She was like I don't know. I said it's been 4 weeks this is ridiculous and we still don't know?

Oh I'll get other woman in office to update you tomorrow she's not in today.

Great. I would bet my last pound she won't have any information.

I asked outright if they are proceedable and she just said "we don't have any information to say that they're not" but that's not the same as a yes.

I feel like we're going to have to complete on the sale of ours before it falls through soon and all live at my parents. Christ.

Thanks @Paranoidandroidmarvin. My vendor is in her mid 80's and has no family to help so the estate agent has even had to find a solicitor for her. It really is quite painfully slow, I will rejoice when it is all over.

What is the piece of paper you are waiting for? Is it searches, an enquiry, or something else? Has your solicitor advised of any way to expedite it?

It’s a piece of paper to say the extension was completed and checked. No idea what is going to happen. Part of me just wants to say I’m not waiting and find something else. But the house is perfect

I asked outright if they are proceedable and she just said "we don't have any information to say that they're not" but that's not the same as a yes.

Oh god, that's the same response we got. And then they chased and said he wasn't... I hope it makes them chase; but I really hope you get a better reply.

@Paranoidandroidmarvin Building control sign off? I was going to say that I wonder if you could get that from the council; but I think it'd bugger up any opportunity to get indemnity insurance for you or any future buyers if they haven't actually got sign off, as you'd be making the council aware... You could potentially suggest to the sellers that you're happy to approach the council for it and see if they quickly kick into action to stop you?!

@Paranoidandroidmarvin

It’s a piece of paper to say the extension was completed and checked. No idea what is going to happen. Part of me just wants to say I’m not waiting and find something else. But the house is perfect

How long has passed since the extension was built? I heard somewhere that if more than 10 years ago, the council can't raise any issues, although if it's more to do with building control sign-off that it's safe, that might be more tricky.

Is this the type of thing you could get an indemnity for, or are you/lender not prepared to go forward if the document doesn't arrive? I hope you get it soon in any case!

@TakeYourFinalPosition Between my mortgage valuation and receiving the physical mortgage offer took 10 days. I'm with Santander, who have really taken their time with every stage of the process, so I wouldn't worry too much about that aspect for a few more days yet.

[quote Starseeking]@TakeYourFinalPosition Between my mortgage valuation and receiving the physical mortgage offer took 10 days. I'm with Santander, who have really taken their time with every stage of the process, so I wouldn't worry too much about that aspect for a few more days yet.[/quote]
Yes we are with Santander and it took ages.

Our vendors mortgage app was submitted 4 weeks ago and they don't even have a survey booked yet.

@TakeYourFinalPosition we had enormous problems with our mortgage offer and I was worried our sellers would think we weren't able to get the money! It took weeks and we also had to escalate to the BDM when they missed their SLA for issuing the offer after valuation (said it would take 3 business days, then sorry it's going to take 4, then on the 5th day we escalated.

Finally got the offer issued on the 6th day, then they sent it to our solicitor snail mail and lost us another 2 business days whilst the rest of the chain was going crazy. Today we've hand delivered all of our documents to the solicitor, only to find that our sellers haven't signed their purchase contract yet, and that there is a building control certificate missing. Our sellers think it's already been sent (and indeed I did find one of them in our pack from their solicitors, which my solicitor didn't seem to have seen . So we wait...

Thanks all - we're probably panicking over waiting 10 weeks for the last buyers, I think. I keep trying to remind myself that it's still normal timescales; but it feels like so long, collectively.

The buyer has text DH that he had an issue with paperwork but it's resolved and they're expecting the mortgage offer today, and then his solicitor will look through everything and raise enquiries on Thursday.

@TweenWrangler That sounds really, really frustrating. Are you just waiting on the purchase contract now then?

I think so. I've just chased the EA to see if she's had any further update. Trying not to feel PO'd with our sols for not spotting the document and not apologising for the oversight. Removals now saying they've got other people asking about the dates we want - it's all so stressful!

I feel like moving house is something other people get to do. Sat today planning where my Xmas trees will go in this house. No doubt in my mind we will still be here then.
Not a hugely bad thing as I love my house and we really didn’t want to be moving anyway. But.

@Paranoidandroidmarvin

I feel like moving house is something other people get to do. Sat today planning where my Xmas trees will go in this house. No doubt in my mind we will still be here then. Not a hugely bad thing as I love my house and we really didn’t want to be moving anyway. But.

I can sympathize with that I'm really hoping to move before Christmas since we sold in June but at this rate who knows!

@Paranoidandroidmarvin

I feel like moving house is something other people get to do. Sat today planning where my Xmas trees will go in this house. No doubt in my mind we will still be here then. Not a hugely bad thing as I love my house and we really didn’t want to be moving anyway. But.

I feel this.

I've just had our health visitor out for the first time... We told her about the move. She's not impressed that we're not sorted yet And kept saying we need to get ready and reduce stress.

Our buyer messaged us yesterday that there had been an issue with the mortgage offer signatures or something; but it was sorted and they were expecting the full offer yesterday. His solicitor is looking at everything on Thursday. He's reiterated that he's keen to close quickly... I'm hoping our EA confirms that he's now got the offer today; and then we get this done in one round of enquiries on Thursday.

@Getyourarseofffthequattro I hope you hear from the EA today

@Paranoidandroidmarvin Are you getting a mortgage? Would the lender accept indemnity instead of certification, if the latter isn't possible?

@TweenWrangler I hope you hear from your EA today too!

We could have done an indemnity and we would have been happy with that. But they sent off the request to the council so we didn’t have a choice. I am only going to wait for so long to be honest. Then we will have to find somewhere else.

@Paranoidandroidmarvin

We could have done an indemnity and we would have been happy with that. But they sent off the request to the council so we didn’t have a choice. I am only going to wait for so long to be honest. Then we will have to find somewhere else.

Oh that's really, really shit of them... I'm sorry.

My fingers are very crossed that the council don't drag their feet and this gets sorted quickly... A mental deadline sounds like a good idea; just so it doesn't feel endless, but I hope that it comes off!