Anyone else having a bit of a car crash trying to move at the moment?

[Thurlow]

Drinking wine and mulling over the past six months.

We’re a bit lazy, kept putting off the hassle of moving. Eventually got the house on the market and got a good offer. Offered on a unique house, really looking forward to it, only for it to transpire that the vendor has been trying to sell for four years(!) has had repeated offers but is so ridiculously picky she hasn’t found anywhere to move to in all that time. Lost about a grand on fees and searches, then lost our buyers, fortunately found some new ones in a rental so better.

Made an offer on a second property, absolute dream house, tiny chain, all great. Then vendors discover unsolvable problems with their onward property and pulled out. Lost £1.5k as we’d done a survey because the chain was complete.

Now our buyers are understandably wobbly but we’re hanging on to them by the skin of our teeth as the market is so quiet. Just made an offer on a third property which is really big but not entirely our taste, feels like a bit of a compromise and no idea if it will be accepted.

This has been going on since April! I’ve mentally decorated three different houses now, I’ve completed checked out of the house we’re in (which is now far too small for us) and half our stuff is still in boxes.

Anyone else having as good a time at the moment as we are?!

Sounds like bad luck. But to be honest you could be more cynical and interrogative of the agents and vendors. You want someone who really really wants to move / sell ASAP.

It's weird the second instance where someone's onward property fell through and they.. decided to stay put?! That's really weird.

Do you have to move, OP? The market is ridiculous at present. I'd stay put for now if it was an option.

I think they were only moving for one dream property, hence why they pulled out.

This is our last throw of the dice for this year - if our buyers pull out we’re going to wait till next year!

We’re on month 17 since we put our house up for sale and month 13 since we had an offer accepted. Not quite a car crash but incredibly frustrating and tedious, as it feels like we are in a never ending purgatory. Still not got a date and just waiting for the next thing to go wrong causing more delays. 🙁

Ooh Gyptian I thought the 10 months we’ve been going was bad enough!

House went up for sale last July, accepted one offer, they then pulled out when they couldn’t prove their funds as they were investments with no guarantee.

Back on the market in August, sold again in October. Offer accepted on a house for us in November. Initially given March as moving month, then an issue with our buyers property has caused delay after delay, after delay. We lost the house we were buying as they were sick of waiting so we had to start again finding another and we are now hopefully nearing the end. We need to complete by the end of September or we’re forking out stamp duty which I really don’t want to do as it’s our bloody buyers issues that have caused all the delays.

April? I hate to break it to you, OP, but that's nothing

As with pp, I've accepted an offer last September - been on 'about to exchange' promise since May (and various othe delays before then!)

You all win with the length of time!

I think I’m more bitter about the money we’re losing and that we’re in, then no, we’re out, then we’re in on another house…

I hate the British system right now!

Good luck to everyone.

Sounds like my life for the last 12 years 😩

Everything that could of have happened when selling/buying has happened to us, we have given up multiple times, and tried to make peace with where we were already living. At one point we left the country for 12 months due to frustration with it all!

At the moment we have sold, in rented, and had an offer accepted. There is no reason to think it will go wrong this time, but history tells us otherwise! Until the keys are in my hand I probably won't believe it.

Good luck!

Me, this week.
Three in the chain, us in the middle. Our buyer threatened to pull out last Thursday (exchange day). We’re now completing on our sale this Thursday, have to move in with family until the 17th when we complete on our sale.
So, extra costs for moving, storage, cats in cattery, huge stress.
Never again. Our buyer is currently living with family and wouldn’t wait another 9 days.

I mean complete on our purchase.

Oh dear this thread is making me twitchy... selling a probate property and no onward chain - offer accepted under asking price in May. Buyers in some kind of complex funding situation and had to change conveyancer. Wracking up costs monthly as it's been empty a year and there is equity release on it. It only increased by 20% in value since 2004... need closure soon. 😪
It also has an enormous garden which we have needed to do massive and time consuming interventions on because we can't be there.

Yes we lost 4 houses due to flaky vendors when we first accepted an offer in august last year! Finally completed a few weeks ago on our fifth chain free house.

I have to say by this point we became experts and interrogating vendors circumstances and the house we have bought is more of a head than heart decision, although I do love it. By round five of viewings we weeded out all potentially flaky people who ‘hadn’t really decided where they wanted to move to yet’, any that said they would go into rented (we learnt the hard way they never will) and any vendors game playing with hundreds of viewings over multiple weeks to get the highest price.

In the end we secured our house with the lowest offer out of six, actually under the asking price, as we could move quickly due to no chain (we ended up selling and staying with family), had a large deposit, couldn’t be bothered shelling out for another survey and were the first to view.

I have to say by this point we became experts and interrogating vendors circumstances

Yes, we’ve just made our 3rd offer and I’ve asked a lot more questions about what the vendor is doing this time!

@SaltySeaAir-that sounds horrendous. Really hope that it works out this time.

[quote Gyptian]@SaltySeaAir-that sounds horrendous. Really hope that it works out this time.[/quote]
Thanks, it's certainly been stressful. I couldn't believe it when a pandemic came along last year and scuppered another sale - of all the things to worry about that was a new one 😆

We're in a similar position, for a similar amount of time. We can't even rent, as there isn't anything! So we're stuck with nowhere to go hoping that our buyers will be patient.

It's all very unsettling. I mentally moved in to one house that we loved and lost and still can't really accept it's off the table. Prices have risen wildly too so we are looking at really expensive things that are...a bit horrible and need hundreds of thousands in work doing to them. I'm wondering if we just stay put and try again next year!

time.

Thanks, it's certainly been stressful. I couldn't believe it when a pandemic came along last year and scuppered another sale - of all the things to worry about that was a new one 😆
Hahahaha oh bless you

.a bit horrible and need hundreds of thousands in work doing to them
Jesus, what's your budget?!

@EverydayCook

We're in a similar position, for a similar amount of time. We can't even rent, as there isn't anything! So we're stuck with nowhere to go hoping that our buyers will be patient.

It's all very unsettling. I mentally moved in to one house that we loved and lost and still can't really accept it's off the table. Prices have risen wildly too so we are looking at really expensive things that are...a bit horrible and need hundreds of thousands in work doing to them. I'm wondering if we just stay put and try again next year!

I sympathise with the mentally checking out part. From an outside perspective we should all probably halt and wait for a better market but it’s hard when you’ve completely checked out of the house you’re in. And yes, a lot of what we have seen still needs a lot of work and I can be honest enough to admit to myself that we’re not the kind of people to do that. A new kitchen or bathroom and some paint, fine, but much else and we’d flounder

@TheHouseILiveIn - budget sounds big but where we live (leafy South East - prime escape from the city location post pandemic) it doesn't get you much in this market. We're looking at £300-350k more on asking that the same house would have fetched last year. So depressing.

@Thurlow - yep. Also building costs have gone through the roof so it's actually a big risk. Without being in the trade I've now idea how anyone would realistically price an extension right now.

Well our move has turned into a car crash. We thought after 14 months, that we were nearly there with one query outstanding at the top of chain. We’ve now found out that we’ve been hugely misled and that there is another house at the top that no one knew about and that there are 10 outstanding queries on it. 😱😱😱 A vendor above us has to complete by the end of September, so the whole thing is probably heading for collapse, 🙁🙁

We’ve had so many problems with the previous top of the chain being dishonest and causing problems and now it’s happening again. This is the third time where we’ve thought we were going to get a date imminently and then the rug is pulled from under us. So so fed up of this.

Oh Gyptian what a nightmare, I'm sorry. Do you know what type of queries they are, are they likely to be straightforward or need loads of paperwork digging out? Am keeping my fingers crossed for you that someone in the chain can get it sorted, how stressful.

@Househunting21-apparently they are relatively straightforward but some involve going to the local authority for info. So it’s unlikely we’ll be able to complete before the end of September. It’s just so unbelievably frustrating.

Oh, I’m so sorry, that’s horrible news

Well it looks like it might be on again, as there has been a flurry of activity taking place today by the agents and solicitors. Some of the answers to the queries are starting to come through, so it looks like completion by the end of September might be feasible after all. What a rollercoaster this has been. I still won’t believe it until I have the keys-there have been so many twists and turns.