Move into a hotel between exchange of contracts and completion?

[5thCircleOfHell]

I'm on the cusp of exchanging contracts with the buyer of my house and the seller of the house I'm buying. But we're having trouble agreeing on a completion date. My buyer is ready to go, needs to be out of his rental by a certain date. My seller will be ready to move a week after that date.

Has anyone here completed on their sale, moved into a hotel or B&B for a week, then completed on their onward purchase? If so, how does it work for mail and things like that? Seriously considering it after we have all exchanged contracts, because the stress of it all is really getting to me.

I know quite a few people who have done this. What can really help is if you’ve got a removals company which is prepared to keep your stuff safely for the week (many are). Then the removals people take the stuff away from your house, store it and then bring the stuff to the new house once you’ve completed on that. So it’s fine although You do need to make sure that you keep what you need for the week but it’s no worse than packing to go on holiday. The other thing to make sure is that you put the completion funds somewhere safe, until you can pay them towards the new house. In most cases the solicitor should be prepared to keep them for a week and I think that the deposit protection scheme is higher for house proceeds (up to a million?) but worth checking (you don’t want to lose your house sale money whilst it’s sitting in the bank account if a bank goes bust).

Your buyer should not be moving into your house until you have completed the full chain. If anyone needs to go into temporary accommodation it is them, not you!

For post, just set up a redirection from the date of completion on your old house with the new address and ask your sellers to put it aside for you. If you’re in bad terms get it redirected to a relative until you’re in the house (they can be amended I think).

@2tired2bewitty

Your buyer should not be moving into your house until you have completed the full chain. If anyone needs to go into temporary accommodation it is them, not you!

I think the OP may mean that they will be exchanging on both at the same time but completing on the sale before the purchase? If so, in that case, the buyer won't be moving in until the sale has completed. It's open to anyone to do that in a chain to keep a chain intact. Whatever the OP is doing, I would imagine/hope that they have their solicitor's agreement that it is a suitable way to do things.

@BlueMongoose but the whole issue is that the buyer needs to be out of their rental a week before anyone else is ready so I think op is saying they will move into the house before the whole chain has completed.

OP I think it really needs to be your buyer who finds somewhere else to go for a week, that way the whole chain can complete on the same day. Much easier than you having to juggle completion dates.

I wouldn’t be happy vacating my house until I knew I had somewhere to go to that day!

Can you offer a week's rent to the buyer? better option

@chukwe

Can you offer a week's rent to the buyer? better option

Rentals are sometimes by the month or longer, so that might not work.

[quote MindatWork]@BlueMongoose but the whole issue is that the buyer needs to be out of their rental a week before anyone else is ready so I think op is saying they will move into the house before the whole chain has completed.

OP I think it really needs to be your buyer who finds somewhere else to go for a week, that way the whole chain can complete on the same day. Much easier than you having to juggle completion dates.

I wouldn’t be happy vacating my house until I knew I had somewhere to go to that day![/quote]
Not necessarily before THAT sale is completed, as I pointed out above. The buyer could have special problems with renting somewhere just for a week that the Op doesn't have.

I did it many years ago.

Hired a holiday cottage (admittedly in October) and arranged for all my furniture to go into storage.

It was the only way to keep the chain intact.

In the end I actually kept everything in storage for an extra 10 days after completion, had the house painted and new carpets laid.

It wasn’t cheap but well worth the expense.

The vendor of the property I was buying agreed to hold all my mail for me and I called regularly, up to Completion, to collect it.

Are you talking about breaking the chain i.e. into 2 separate chains, and you complete on selling your present house, move into a hotel, then complete on your onward 1 week later?

If not, I wouldn't even contemplate allowing your buyer to move in before completion as there are insurance and mortgage issues all over the shop with that, let alone the fact that evictions are all but impossible atm, so you'd struggle to get them out if the chain collapsed and/or completion failed.

@PicsInRed

Are you talking about breaking the chain i.e. into 2 separate chains, and you complete on selling your present house, move into a hotel, then complete on your onward 1 week later?

If not, I wouldn't even contemplate allowing your buyer to move in before completion as there are insurance and mortgage issues all over the shop with that, let alone the fact that evictions are all but impossible atm, so you'd struggle to get them out if the chain collapsed and/or completion failed.

Yes, that's pretty much it. I was thinking if we all exchange contracts at the same time - very short chain, just 3 of us - then I could complete with my buyer, I move out into a hotel for a week, then complete with my purchase. I wouldn't consider moving out if contracts were not exchanged on either side.

Well, it's a risk, but a small one.

However I would query why your buyer don't do this, seeing as it is them with the lease deadline. Why is it you taking on all the risk and paying for storage and accommodation?

Yes I agree with pp - if it’s your buyer that has the issue then why don’t THEY go in to temporary accommodation for the week?
However, yes I did that. Except I had not exchanged in my ongoing purchase, which fell through a week after I completed on my sale, so instead of two weeks in a holiday let I ended up doing eight weeks in four different holiday lets and four hotels! My dogs had to go to a friend and the movers stored my stuff. Me and my daughter lived with what I could fit in my car. As the house I eventually bought was £20k cheaper than my earlier house I could afford it, but of course I’d have rather put that money to my refurb.
But as you will be exchanging on both you presumably won’t have the same issue, but again I don’t see why you are the one inconvenienced.

Yes we did.
We had twitchy first time buyers going into ours, and a reluctant seller who had two above him in the chain. Nobody upchain would agree the date our buyers wanted so we compromised. Was worth it but we were fortunate to have a place to go for 2 weeks. Removals company just took our stuff into storage and delivered it to our new house when we were ready.
I would do it again to keep the chain intact.