Please sign up if you think the England process need to be changed!!!

[J417]

This is no rocket science and we are not living in a middle age!!!

Below could be modified but the idea is to speed up and get to a legally binding stage

1. Before sale

Sellers

• Get solicitors to verify all deeds, searches , Building reg, form completed, fixture and fittings etc
• Home buyer survey done

Buyer

• mortgage/finance line up

1. When sale is agreed, a completion date should be agreed

A reservation fee of 5% of property price from buyer, held by solicitors

1. 14 days after Agreed sale should be legally binding with exchange of contracts

during these 14 days

• buyer solicitor verify the legal things,
• buyer could get own survey
• buyer get their mortgage approved
• buyer could only pull out if major mis-representation found e.g. structural issues, missing deeds

I am not sure if the process you are suggesting works in all cases.
I would propose a fine for anyone pulling out of a purchase/ sale. This would get rid of navel gazers, people changing their mind on a whim.
When we bought this house we had both our buyers' buyer as well as our vendor pulling out within days of each other. Our buyers' buyer because he was getting worried about Brexit and our vendors because they had decided they didn't want to sell any more.
Only engage in the transaction if you have made your mind up!! Otherwise face a fine/ removal of a cash deposit.

Why would anyone want a chain ?

Allow me to copy and paste from another post message.

Got a buyer in beginning November and found our perfect home. Just due to exchange and the house our vendors were buying has fallen through.

Why not go and buy a house, have a completion date, say 1/5/2022. Then sell yours? or vice versa depends on your market?

Everyone will have certainty

Be reminded if there's mis-representation or major e.g. structural issues, there should be a way to pull out and redeem compensation, from surveyor or solicitor even if complete.
I would trust that the solicitor /surveyor wouldn't try to cheat in that sense

@AmberLynn1536

Our system is ludicrous compared to other countries, I’ve considered downsizing but the stress of our system makes me think I just can’t be bothered with it.

I would say this should definitely be the time as the race for space is still on and you would get good money unless you are living in a buyer market and want to buy in a seller market

Good luck!

@MrsMoastyToasty

I think that buying houses should be more like buying a car. The estate agent is the equivalent of the used car dealer. The estate agent buys and sells used and new houses. You see the house that you would like from their stock. You buy it from them either with cash, a loan or part exchange. End of the chain system.

This sounds perfect. Yes, I would be prepared to take the hit on my selling price for this to happen.

Things are a mess at the moment because of Covid.

Not really. We had a nightmare move when we last moved 20 years ago. Well, talking to people, it wasn't that atypical. It felt like a nightmare.

Our system is ludicrous compared to other countries, I’ve considered downsizing but the stress of our system makes me think I just can’t be bothered with it.
This is us too, and a lot of people I know.

the seller gets all his paperwork in order before the property is marketed. So rather than wait weeks and months for paperwork to arrive in dribs and drabs, it is all there for the solicitor to do their due diligence from the off
This would be SUCH a simple change to implement, and would make such a difference. My dn has just bought. First time buyer and seller was moving to a new build. Should have been so simple, but got very elongated due to the whole thing of the vendor being asked for one thing, she provided it, then the next week the solicitors asked her for something else. One by one. Throughout. Estate agents providing a list, in the first place of all the things you will (might?) need before it goes on the market would have saved weeks.

Where do I sign?

The English system is a shamble.

@Puffthemagicdragongoestobed

I am not sure if the process you are suggesting works in all cases. I would propose a fine for anyone pulling out of a purchase/ sale. This would get rid of navel gazers, people changing their mind on a whim. When we bought this house we had both our buyers' buyer as well as our vendor pulling out within days of each other. Our buyers' buyer because he was getting worried about Brexit and our vendors because they had decided they didn't want to sell any more. Only engage in the transaction if you have made your mind up!! Otherwise face a fine/ removal of a cash deposit.

I couldn't agree more with this! Time wasters should be impacted in some meaningful way.

I have to say the English system of shelling out money for reports on houses you don't even know if you're going to buy gives me nightmares.

So much easier in Scotland. I can't remember if it was £300 or £600 but you pay it once for your own home and in exchange you (and anyone else) get access to all the reports of all the properties you like before you can decide which ones to view.

Sometimes you can live with a poorly rated kitchen but don't have the budget / time / inclination for damp or roof repairs. Sometimes you know you're going to rip the kitchen out and tack on an extension so the fact it's damp and dated doesn't matter if the things you need to be alright are alright.

When I bought my first home there were too identical flats on the same street for the same price. One looked much nicer in the photos and when viewing. I read the home reports and bought the other one because actually it just needed a lick of paint and not the thousands the better looking one would need.

If I'd had to fanny around with organising my own surveys etc - the good one could have been sold by the time I realised the other one was a shit rolled in glitter.

You can always pay for additional surveys if you are seriously interest in a particular property and the home report raises red flags, but the sellers paying before it's put on the market gives everyone a more even playing field.

And to the person who mentioned dates etc - the report is dated and has to be within 28 days of going on the market. A buyer would want one dated within the last 3 months because that's what the bank needs for a mortgage. But if your house doesn't go under offer you'd just wait until someone makes an offer to get a replacement. So the vast majority of homes would have 1 or 2. If it went under offer and the buyer pulled out after searches are done and the additional report is produced and missives are ready to be concluded then the buyer is likely to find themselves liable for the costs of putting the property back on the market.

(AFAIK - I'm not a solicitor)

As long as the home report would be accepted as proof by the bank as value of the property. I'd hate for a house to massively downvalued and be financially penalised because the bank won't lend .

Thought you had a petition etc for us to sign

I sold a flat last year, my first time selling. I will share my experience to illustrate why something needs to change.

Flat on the market in April. Offer accepted in June.
We find our dream house. Place an offer. Get into a bidding war. When we exit the bidding war, the house is going for 70k over asking price. We could have gone higher but couldn't justify it when the place needed so much work. Theoretically we pushed that price up by 70k.

Then our buyer changes their mind. Our sale falls through. So we couldn't have bought the dream house. Our offers were invalidated yet they still resulted in an inflated price!

We accept another offer. A few weeks later, they change their mind and pull out!!! This enraged me as we were losing potential buyers to these time wasters.

In the end we found a reliable buyer and a decent property to move to, but the process prior to that was crushing and horrendous.

I'm not even in England and think the English system needs to change!!

It seems daft that you need to shell out for surveys on multiple houses. The Scottish Home report system works well, I'm in the middle of buying my 3rd house and it seems so much easier than the stories I've heard!

@gogohm

Why should the seller do a survey? That's down to the buyer, not everyone bothers, mine didn't

Because sellers trying to hide known issues is a real problem in England.

The English system is shit for both sides - gazundering and late withdrawal affect sellers, lack of info about the house and gazumping affect buyers.

So much easier in Scotland. I can't remember if it was £300 or £600 but you pay it once for your own home and in exchange you (and anyone else) get access to all the reports of all the properties you like before you can decide which ones to view.

Cost of the Homebuyers report depends on the value of the property, and it’s very basic / full of caveats. Not all mortgage lenders accept them and will require a separate survey for valuation (for instance, our surveyor asked us what valuation we wanted him to put on the house we were selling ).

Then, as a buyer, you’ve got the stress of the “offers over” system, and as a seller the offer isn’t binding until the missives are concluded and even there there is scope for being dicked around at the last minute by buyers (as happened to our neighbours that were gazundered).

@MrsMoastyToasty

I think that buying houses should be more like buying a car. The estate agent is the equivalent of the used car dealer. The estate agent buys and sells used and new houses. You see the house that you would like from their stock. You buy it from them either with cash, a loan or part exchange. End of the chain system.

I don't think I can ever see that working.

The sums of money involved are too significant.

I agree 100%. In Ireland there is something similar where the EA takes a small deposit from the buyer and then the same with the solicitor and then if the buyer drops out the vendor is protected and has some compensation.

We were recently disappointed we had a bidding war and went with 1 couple but they pulled out 24 hours later as when they told their landlord he offered them his house and they pulled out. We ended up loosing both buyers. What made it worse is we had found a house and lost it as well, all because the EA hadn't done proper checks.
Luckily we've now got another buyer but now struggling to find a house that measured up to the old one.

The system really does need an overhaul in the UK to protect both vendor and buyer.

I can tell you, it’s thee most stressful thing I have ever experienced and we are also going through it for a fourth time now. 5 weeks in and everything was going very well and now SILENCE!!

My husband and I have been through the adoption process and that was stressful but house buying is on a different level altogether!!

@Thethreeofusandpooch

I can tell you, it’s thee most stressful thing I have ever experienced and we are also going through it for a fourth time now. 5 weeks in and everything was going very well and now SILENCE!!

My husband and I have been through the adoption process and that was stressful but house buying is on a different level altogether!!

I was getting daily calls / update before I put in offer and then radio silence from vendor EA, till another house came up in the local market, again warm update and then radio silence ever since ...... the promise of calling back and update .... well .... I wonder when they will relist and try to get 1m+

Where should I make a petition for people to sign?