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!

And now a spectacularly dull question: solicitor has asked about a surface water charge, which I do pay looking at my bill. Is this good? or not good? I've never thought about it before for a second.

God all these tales of CFery are really incredible!

However I'm a bit worried our sellers might cursing us today. We complete tomorrow, and yesterday I ordered a couple of bits and bobs for our wedding (next week!) to be delivered to the new house, assuming they would take a few days to arrive.

Had confirmation just now that the packages will be arriving today! Bit embarrassing, hope our sellers don't mind 😬😬😬

I wouldn't worry @goodbyestranger www.ofwat.gov.uk/households/your-water-bill/surfacewaterdrainage/ some households pay for it and some don't - depends if you drain directly into the public sewer

just found out that the sellers are refusing to pay for a very justified indemnity policy so the EA has agreed to (poor sod!) (actually if they had pushed, we would have picked it up). Just shows what arseholes people can be. They are going to get a huge huge sum (no mortgage) divided between all the (adult) children - they are all in their 50s/60s and none of them would put up the £100 to get this over the line. Think the EA will be delighted to be shot of them!

I can finally join one of these threads as a purchaser - yay! I remember a few PP from the countdown to 30 June thread.

Put my house with EXDP on in April, completed at the end of June, and moved in with family to accommodate buyers wanting to complete by the biggest saving stamp duty deadline.

Nothing was coming on the market for ages, now I've finally found a lovely house in one of my two preferred areas, and had an offer accepted £10k under asking (it was overpriced).

There are only 3 in the chain, me, my vendor, then theirs is a probate purchase...except it hasn't been granted yet, though I'm told it's due imminently

A slight delay in timeframe suits me as having applied for a huge mortgage direct rather than through a broker, and the bank have said they need to see 3 months maintenance receipts, despite me being able to afford to pay the mortgage on my own. Their stress testing mechanism says my payments "could go up by 73% if interest rates rise". I'm not quite sure how that works out seeing as interest rates are at a historical low, but the computer says no. I actually only need to wait until the end of August for the final month's proof of maintenance receipts, but it's hugely annoying having to put my application down for the moment.

In the meantime my solicitor should be able to move forward with searches etc, as it'll at least show progression with something on this purchase.

I finally got an energy assessor out to survey my property for an epc and he has explained why no one seems to be calling me back. There are 9 assesors in my area but only 4 are working! I've been sending text messages and calling up people who weren't working 🙄. Well one more thing done this week...

@goodbyestranger I have never heard of a surface water charge before. Thanks for the education. One more thing to look out for.

My pleasure :)

@StrongArm

I wouldn't worry *@goodbyestranger* www.ofwat.gov.uk/households/your-water-bill/surfacewaterdrainage/ some households pay for it and some don't - depends if you drain directly into the public sewer

just found out that the sellers are refusing to pay for a very justified indemnity policy so the EA has agreed to (poor sod!) (actually if they had pushed, we would have picked it up). Just shows what arseholes people can be. They are going to get a huge huge sum (no mortgage) divided between all the (adult) children - they are all in their 50s/60s and none of them would put up the £100 to get this over the line. Think the EA will be delighted to be shot of them!

Same thing has happened to us . Sellers been pretty difficult all the way through to be honest and I have had made me feel negative towards the house . I have to force myself fo be rational

Update: the search we expedited to arrive mid July rather than late July did not appear. So Tuesday I bite the bullet and get yet another weeks Airbnb, this time in London as figure purchase should go through soon and cheaper than where I live now (holiday area). Found a nice flat but non refundable and still almost £900. Literally as soon as I book it my solicitor emails not only the search but her report on it and says we can exchange that day! Except we couldn’t, as sellers live in Australia so time difference meant it was 3am their time. I also had to get parking suspension as permit only and council requires 7 days notice. I did that, thought I should get my own permit but need two proof of address, not surprising, but I won’t have that for a few weeks! Is there a way around that? I’m not going to have a council tax bill for a bit and utilities are all done online and car registration stuff is in storage with movers (to get address changed).
Anyway, solicitor was off Wednesday, so I thought Thursday for sure. But seller’s bank slow in releasing mortgage redemption statement so didn’t happen. My insurance guy is on stand by. Now looking to exchange and complete today! I left my holiday let at 7.30am, and of course my son starts texting me all these questions about some form he has to submit first thing today that he was too tired to do last night…🙄
I think it’s the roller coaster - will it or will it not happen today, and everything being out of my control, that I can’t stand.
But I’m looking at a six month old baby on the ferry so cuteness overload.

I've told my estate agent that if I don't get an offer from today's viewing I'm taking the flat off the market. My vendors are desperate to move and I don't want to let them down.

Well from the point of view of a seller: I've been a complete and utter delight (out of character) .... until now. And the reason is that the buyer's solicitor is really pissing me off with his stupid questions and demands for stupid unnecessary Statutory Declarations/ indemnities etc. Eg he wants a SD to confirm that I've had unimpeded access over an alley over which I very clearly have the right to unimpeded access (the right couldn't be more clearly or comprehensively set out in the deeds, and dates back to 1897). So I've told to buzz off and look up a bit of basic law/ that I've already confirmed unimpeded access in the Property Information Form/ that if there were to be any future problem then the remedy is against the neighbour not me. I'm super annoyed that these solicitors are firing out requests for indemnities and Statutory Declarations instead of thinking about good old fashioned property law. Had we had any dispute, ever, then possibly some reason for him to be cautious but he's way over the top on every last little thing. So I may be starting to appear as difficult, when I've been an angel hitherto.

@goodbyestranger- poor you! The buyer of our previous house used an online legal firm who didn't know what 'permitted development' was. As the house had a permitted development loft conversion with all building regs it caused weeks of delay. In the end I had to give the buyer the link to the government website explaining it, for him to explain to his solicitor - I do wonder why we pay them so much money sometimes.

@Livingintheclouds

Update: the search we expedited to arrive mid July rather than late July did not appear. So Tuesday I bite the bullet and get yet another weeks Airbnb, this time in London as figure purchase should go through soon and cheaper than where I live now (holiday area). Found a nice flat but non refundable and still almost £900. Literally as soon as I book it my solicitor emails not only the search but her report on it and says we can exchange that day! Except we couldn’t, as sellers live in Australia so time difference meant it was 3am their time. I also had to get parking suspension as permit only and council requires 7 days notice. I did that, thought I should get my own permit but need two proof of address, not surprising, but I won’t have that for a few weeks! Is there a way around that? I’m not going to have a council tax bill for a bit and utilities are all done online and car registration stuff is in storage with movers (to get address changed). Anyway, solicitor was off Wednesday, so I thought Thursday for sure. But seller’s bank slow in releasing mortgage redemption statement so didn’t happen. My insurance guy is on stand by. Now looking to exchange and complete today! I left my holiday let at 7.30am, and of course my son starts texting me all these questions about some form he has to submit first thing today that he was too tired to do last night…🙄 I think it’s the roller coaster - will it or will it not happen today, and everything being out of my control, that I can’t stand. But I’m looking at a six month old baby on the ferry so cuteness overload.

you can get a temporary permit for the car. Not sure which borough but they are usually pretty good at that round here - they will give it to you for a limited time period (i forget what it is - might be 14 days or a month)

we wanted to move next week - we are now ready to exchange on the property we are buying. it is clear the EA with our buyer screwed up the dates and only late in the day has now realised that we wanted to exchange next week. The buyer is nowhere. They got forced into agreeing they would 'try' for next week but it's clear they are not ready and just to add salt into the wound, his solicitor has just called mine and is insisting on a building completion certificate from 2010 (which I lost) but as the building work is over 10 years shouldn't be an issue. They are insisting they have it - which means I need to apply for a copy - the council has a 7 working day turnaround SLA which means we will miss July exchange/completion :(. it is a deliberate ploy on their behalf to pass on their delay and incompetence to me rather than them owning it! They don't need this but know it buys them 2 weeks where they can tell everyone it's not their problem!

this will now coincide with a big family celebration we had been trying to avoid which means it's likely this will get pushed out to end of August - i am concerned the owners of the place we are buying will be furious (it really shouldn't have taken this long) but I don't think they have any other buyers so not sure there is much they can do

it does mean I can't get leave from work to move which is a nightmare!

i think it's just cover your arse behaviour isn't it @goodbyestranger

I last bought/sold around 2-3 years ago and there was none of this. I think it's been spurred on by all the property deals. There are so many things that a few years ago solicitors used some common sense!

He doesn't need to cover his arse with these daft bits of paper which require me trekking miles in the heat to get them signed. He just needs to understand a bit of elementary law. Anyhow, I may appear difficult, but in fact it's the solicitor who's being difficult (or incompetent).

Sorry for your hassle StrongArm - should have said that first.

Still enduring a tedious wait here while the new chain above us catches up (our offer was accepted in April).

Trying to push it all to the back of my mind as our vendors and their vendors only got going at the start of this month, so it'll be ages yet if it happens at all.

My valuation is back and it's all good. So just waiting for a mortgage offer now. Getting there!

@StrongArm thanks I'll look into it.
Completed today! Yay yay yay!

I'm just here to rant. The whole buying process is so stressful, to the point my GP now put in a referral for a psychologist because she thought it is the cause of the severe insomnia I've been suffering. On top of that my solicitor is rubbish. Glaring errors made. No reply to email - I don't know if I ever received a reply without having to call to chase. I now triple check all the documents as I no longer trust they wouldn't miss anything. I picked them based on recommendation from a friend but it looks as if we had two different solicitors!

Newbie here. Accepted an offer this week after three open viewing weekends with 30+ slots booked and bizarrely only one very low offer and one over asking cash chain free buyer. Guess which one I went with... 🤔
I'm not naive enough to assume it'll all go to plan.

There's precisely nothing to buy apart from two. One I loved very much but was out of my budget plus needed modernising and one I'm meh about but just about affordable but my teenage daughters are in raptures about. I'm quite shabby chic so feels odd to have offer accepted on a fairly blingy new build.

Loins now firmly girded for all the coming weeks and months bring.

Okigen I've had to point out multiple errors. I'm quite shocked at the lack of attention to detail tbh. So today: Transfer sent through with incorrect purchase price and names misspelt. These are typical errors/ about #6. It's just shoddy.

If it's any comfort I didn't sleep last w/e - I kept waking up being outraged about the buyer's solicitor. I guess insomnia is part of the deal.

Congratulations @Livingintheclouds! I seem to recall it's been a long old slog for you to finish all your transactions, well done!

Congratulations @Livingintheclouds 🥳