Buyers sellers roll call 17 - the one where everyone finally completes

[gingerninja1]

Last thread is now full so started another one so the mutual support can continue

@paranoidandroidmarvin
@takeyourfinalposition
@getyourassoffthatquattro
@shineysides
@blacklilypad

Hi everyone, really noob question here. Will solicitor be required to confirm and get your approval about exchange date and completion date before they go ahead?

I'm going to sign documents and transfer deposits next week just so everything is ready. But we still have some outstanding enqueries, so I'm bit nervous.

Urgh I wish we were near completion. Six months in and no date in sight. A pain in the rear seller who won't move out ahead of completion/exchange so we don't lose our mortgage offer as it's gone on so long. Absolute nightmare. Looks like we might have to pull out soon. Has anyone got any suggestions for trying to negotiate with seller, and making them see sense that if we lose mortgage offer and are forced to pull out everybody loses.

Can I join? I've heard from my solicitor that the completion date should be a few weeks away. Apparently it's our buyers causing a delay, their mortgage company hasn't sent anyone out to value our house yet. We want to be in by the end of the month.

@Okigen that's a good question and I hope someone with experience will answer too! I'd definitely like to know that too, I guess they need your deposit to exchange and surely need your consent to a completion date?? What if you'll have to move that day due to chain, you need to be able to book the day off work and have removals booked etc

@halfwaytomadeit I’m confused, are you expecting your vendor to move out so you can move in before you’ve exchanged and completed and actually own the property? Why would anyone do that? Speak to your mortgage supplier if you haven’t already, they can usually extend them.

@Okigen. We had to send and email to say we were happy on that day to exchange as our solicitors were amazing. The peoples house we were buying had terrible solicitors and they exchanged and agreed to the completion date without even taking to them and they ended up homeless. This is unusual though. Even the mortgage company had a rule they wouldn’t work with these solicitors.
But I would make sure that you let them know you want to be told and agree. This is not a usual thing that happens though.

[quote Paranoidandroidmarvin]@Okigen. We had to send and email to say we were happy on that day to exchange as our solicitors were amazing. The peoples house we were buying had terrible solicitors and they exchanged and agreed to the completion date without even taking to them and they ended up homeless. This is unusual though. Even the mortgage company had a rule they wouldn’t work with these solicitors.
But I would make sure that you let them know you want to be told and agree. This is not a usual thing that happens though.[/quote]
Thanks @Paranoidandroidmarvn I'm quite worried now lol I'll make sure to tell them to confirm with me. My solicitor is crap and I don't trust them not to exchange when enquiries still outstanding

@Okigen The solicitors need your permission to exchange. Usually they call you and get verbal permission; ours asked us to email them to confirm too, once we’d paid the completion statements. Completion date was a bit different… the chain could only agree on one date; really, so there wasn’t much of a choice!

@halfwaytomadeit I’m confused too. Our buyer asked us to move out between exchange and completion, and allow them to store some things… our solicitor strongly advised against it, it’s a legal nightmare. It creates tenancy agreements and access undertakings and all sorts of issues. Are you asking them to break the chain; so they exchange and complete with you so your offer doesn’t expire, move elsewhere and then do their own purchase later?

Buyer is still being a pain. Estate agent called him yesterday to say that they couldn’t have access before completion; but he said it was nothing to do with them; and then called hourly. He’s said as long as he can leave things here tomorrow, he doesn’t mind not moving in - but he can’t; there’s just no room. I’m worried about him just turning up; but we’re out all day at antenatal classes anyway.

Packing is underway 😬

@TakeYourFinalPosition @Knittingbaker
Long story short, we are 6months (and two missed dates) into purchasing what was supposed to be a straightforward sale as seller is moving to new build that is already long completed. We have moved in with family to ease sale, but now there is no date in sight because of issues on sellers side regarding solicitor enquiries/poor organisation from both seller and solicitor. We have asked to break chain so the entire sale doesn't fall through as we will not be granted another mortgage extension and will have to pay for another valuation. We have even offered to pay moving and rental costs for a month, but seller is refusing to come to any agreement which means after 6 months of them messing about with various things it looks like we will have to pull out anyway. We are already paying over valuation costs to keep things less complex with having to make changes to mortgage, but unfortunately we have a selfish seller who wants everything on their terms.

Ah right, it is to break the chain - sorry @halfwaytomadeit, it’s probably my nutty buyer who made me read that weirdly, as he wants to move in before completion 🙈

Have you officially told him through the solicitors that your offer expires on XX date and can’t be extended? Someone in our chain had to do that - to be honest, it didn’t really spur anyone on until it was imminent and he proved it, but we are now completing a couple of days before his offer expires.

You’d have thought enquiries on a new build would be pretty simple and quick; unless there’s a dreaded ground rent type charge… I hope they can either solve the queries or give you a clear update on whether they’ll break the chain, so you can decide what to do. Being messed around in this process is horrendous; we’ve been it for ages now too 🙈

@TakeYourFinalPosition It sounds like your buyer and our seller are a match made in heaven
Yeah unfortunately they know this, but don't seem to care/understand consequence of that for everyone involved. Hopefully we will hear something positive soon enough. Well done to you for making it to the other side of this nonsense!

I would love to join in (mainly for a place to moan ) as we are now 6 months into a chain free purchase and the clock is running out on our mortgage offer. The seller decided to fire her appointed solicitor a month in and save some money with an app (I think) based conveyancer who has been utterly incompetent at every turn. We still don't have answers to the enquiries our solicitor raised in August 🙄

So frustrated that we are now at risk of losing this house and having to start again (we won't let the seller's team run down the clock on another mortgage offer)

@glastogal

I would love to join in (mainly for a place to moan ) as we are now 6 months into a chain free purchase and the clock is running out on our mortgage offer. The seller decided to fire her appointed solicitor a month in and save some money with an app (I think) based conveyancer who has been utterly incompetent at every turn. We still don't have answers to the enquiries our solicitor raised in August 🙄

So frustrated that we are now at risk of losing this house and having to start again (we won't let the seller's team run down the clock on another mortgage offer)

Good lord 6 months for a chain free purchase! What has happened for it to take so long? I would be chasing the solicitor every day in all honesty.

@TakeYourFinalPosition Congrats again on exchange. Tell your buyer to eff off, he sounds like an absolute idiot!

I assume the completion date will have to be agreed with me before exchange? My mortgage expires next month so we absolutely have to complete before that!

@glastogal @Getyourarseofffthequattro well, also on month 6 of a chain free here! Apparently it's now the norm. Although, my seller has managed to find a house that they want to buy while waiting for me, so now I'm in a chain. Ironically the chain started later but seem to be almost ready now except me

I'm getting really nervous. I guess it's first home worry. I keep dreaming about disasters happening, like problems with the mortgage not coming through or the roof has fallen

@Getyourarseofffthequattro trust me, we have been annoying the solicitors/estate agents/mortgage broker everyone we can think of. The seller wanted to leave them to just get on with it so we've had to work quite hard to push them from our side. They are just completely useless 🙈

@Okigen 6 months is the norm? That's insane!! My solicitor is horrified by how long it's taking. I really hope someone can pull something out of their ass at the last minute cos I will be devastated to watch this collapse 😩

@Okigen I definitely have those nerves as well. Especially as the seller has vacated and the house is sitting empty. We are definitely doing a walk through before exchange!!

6 months shouldn't be the norm. I think that's just what shit solicitors say so they don't look bad

We have just found an onward purchase. Completing on our sale on the 19th so will be chain free - no upward chain either. Want to be in before Christmas so in theory about 5 weeks

@Getyourarseofffthequattro Nope my solicitor didn't say anything. But I had two colleagues who have just finished buying their flats and they both took 6 months. Another bought a house and it took 4 months.
Anyway finger crossed you will move in your new home in Christmas. It has been a roller coaster hasn't it

[quote Okigen]@Getyourarseofffthequattro Nope my solicitor didn't say anything. But I had two colleagues who have just finished buying their flats and they both took 6 months. Another bought a house and it took 4 months.
Anyway finger crossed you will move in your new home in Christmas. It has been a roller coaster hasn't it [/quote]
Gawd! It's ridiculous isn't it

I bloody hope so. I seriously considered whether it was viable to take the deposit and buy a derelict building in France and live there and never come back. I feel like I'm at breaking point to be honest!

Hi! Can I come here to update and whinge? We put our house on the market in May, sold immediately but after 2 months the sale fell through. Accepted another offer in the beginning of August and it's been like death by a thousand cuts ever since as we are trying to sell a leasehold property and no lender is willing to invest in a leasehold at the moment. We're having to go through a deed of variation which will probably cost loads and I still suspect that this sale will fall through as well. We have been looking for a new house to buy, but the area we were relocating to is tiny so not much has come up. I'm a bit excited though because I think we may have found something yesterday and are desperate to put an offer in, but at the same time it feels risky to start the purchase process if our sale is going to be difficult/fall through again.

To make matters worse we moved in with family to get our child started in school in the area. We didn't think there would be issues selling the house so just moved in thinking it would be great. A few weeks into the new living arrangement something awful happened (not our fault at all) which meant that we had to leave and temporarily move back to our old house. So we're now stuck doing school runs that are 40 mins each way twice a day, thinking what the F have we done to deserve this.

Anyway, does anyone have any encouraging words about selling a leasehold? When we bought ours noone even mentioned it but looking into it now it looks like a nightmare and I fear that we'll be stuck with this house forever.

@BabyPotato I've heard that the laws around leasehold properties are due to change (for the better), so hopefully that will encourage more buyers to overlook the fact it's leasehold. Fingers crossed for you.

[quote halfwaytomadeit]@BabyPotato I've heard that the laws around leasehold properties are due to change (for the better), so hopefully that will encourage more buyers to overlook the fact it's leasehold. Fingers crossed for you.[/quote]
Ooooh interesting. Do you know what will change exactly?

I'm not 100% but we were told about it during our search. I think it's related to less cost for ground rent and buying/extending freeholds. Basically giving less powers to leaseholders which would make buying a leasehold more appealing

The leasehold reforms don’t apply to existing leases, unless the government have changed their mind on this again. It’d apply to future leases but they can’t devalue existing ones without compensating the land owners; or that’s what our solicitor said. MSE & the leasehold press seem to have corroborated it.

We’ve just sold a leasehold flat - it was okay; but our service charges and ground rent are low. @BabyPotato If you’re after a deed of variation, do you have a doubling ground rent condition? Are you certain the buyers are being put off by the leasehold, and not that you’ve moved in and are leaving again? That can worry a lot of people.

I cant think of anything special we did, but we sold okay, so I hope that might be a bit reassuring…

Does your advert list out the leasehold info? People have learned that not showing length/fees etc tends to mean they’re really high…

Also, hi all!

Crazy buyer didn’t make contact today, and presumably didn’t show up, but we’ve been at antenatal classes all day so we haven’t been here. Packing is killing me, but we’ve done 70% of the living room. Bedroom today, then kitchen tomorrow, and then Tuesday for cleaning/walls/etc.

Van is booked to pick up on Wednesday night, and then hopefully load a bit before Thursday, when we’ve gotta be out and over by 1pm.

I can’t quite believe it’s happening, and I really wish I wasn’t so pregnant for it, but I’m somewhat excited (in amongst all the stress and fear that I love my flat 😂🙈)