How long has your house purchase taken [so far]??

[dubyalass]

I had an offer accepted in mid-June; no chain. I've had my mortgage offer through and the survey done. There is an issue with ownership of an outbuilding so the vendors are sorting that out with the Land Registry. Searches not done yet but unlikely to be anything tricky there.

I'm hoping that I might be in by the end of October but realistically who knows. I've no idea how long the LR are taking to process casework at the moment. Once that's sorted it should all be pretty quick.

PS 700 replies to this thread - most of them probably mine 😬 when I started it I never thought we would still be waiting to exchange five days before Christmas.

@dubyalass i think a fair number of the replies are also me on this thread 🤣 feels better to get my frustrations out as everyone at home is fed up of hearing about it!!
Feeling throughly fed up with it all today

Yes me too, it's my only outlet because it's been so long everyone is sick of hearing about it! I'm bored of it too! 😂

Same. It's my singular obsession. That and Rightmove.

Moan all your like here we are all in the same
boat unfortunately

As a randomer, I am not fed up with hearing about your trials. Even though we've been in our new ( and a bit grittier than anticipated) house, I still feel your pain. The day before we exchanged I was utterly convinced our buyers were going to pull out. The months of selling and buying we're the worst stress ever. I feel for everyone at the crap stage of the process.

Decluttering is never wasted.

Sending Christmas hope to all.

We got our offer accepted late June. No chain here either. Vendors are renovating a place they bought before Covid. They’ve asked for a delay in exchanging contracts due to a shortage in building materials. We proposed to sign contracts in December and get the keys in January. All good. Until they realised the house was not registered with the Land Registry as it had not been sold in a long time. The contract signing date has already been, no sign of a new date in place. This all seems to me like puss taking in a bid to buy themselves more time, as builders are famous for not finishing jobs on time. I am at a loss OP. Did you get an insurance to have your expenses covered in case they pull out? Our one expires in a week.

Bless you @FuzzyPuffling ! What's turned out grittier than expected?

I wonder if there will be any news on my place today 🤔

@MissTangerine no insurance, but if I ever subject myself to this insane process again, I would definitely take out a policy.

In hindsight, had I known it would take this long and be this stressful, I might have pulled out long before now and looked for somewhere else. But then who's to say a different house wouldn't have had its own issues? It's the house buying system in England that's the problem.

I know the feeling, I am now beating myself for being too nice about it all. Had it not been for the interest rate doubling up I would have started looking for another property. I was so angry last night that I could not sleep till 3 am. I actually sent a message via Rightmove to the agency requesting a viewing for another property on the same road.

My lender still hasn't signed off the indemnity, despite me ringing twice to escalate and being told it would be sorted by 2pm yesterday. My solicitor was on the phone to them when I rang. I think I am past the point of fury and into grimly resigned astonishment that things could still be going wrong at this late stage.

Solicitor on the phone at least means they are dealing with it. Come on......!

Grittier...lack of shower/ bath facilities. Fitter came round today and hopefully we should be able to shower by mid- February. And various annoyances..filth, especially the kitchen in particular.

But some bits of new furniture have arrived and we've had a TV point put in the bedroom. We will get there... it's just taking ages. ( Don't think I'm not extremely relieved to have moved...I am. This is better than Cornwall!)

@dubyalass hope you hear more today fingers crossed

@FuzzyPuffling good to hear frustration you’re still cheering us on (much needed!) hope the issues with your new place aren’t too stressful and that you at least have a good Christmas

@MissTangerine thats so frustrating I can’t tell you how many sleepless nights I’ve had

well no updates here. Not heard a thing since last Weds when my solicitor told me a pre Christmas completion was impossible and we would have to look at the new year.

was hoping the outstanding transfer form might have arrived by now as it was allegedly posted almost 3 weeks ago. The lack of news is making my anxiety levels go into overdrive.
I emailed solicitor yesterday to ask for an update but heard nothing. DH has chased the EA but waiting for a call back

I feel like no one is trying to help us resolve this 😢😢

if nothing sorted by the end of the week I know I will spend all of Christmas worrying that it’s all going to fall through

I am deeply grateful that I had a terrier of a solicitor ( online so almost everything was e-signed) and an excellent sales progressor. It's all such pot luck, isn't it, as these aren't people we use every day?

@FuzzyPuffling I would agree. I used online solicitors once and the whole chain nearly collapsed because of how awful they were. We ended up asking a completely different solicitor for advice on something once. Couldn’t get hold of her for weeks. So we had to pay another one to answer a question they needed.

Nothing so far. I'm about to drive over to a friend's for dinner so there's nothing else I can do before they all shut for the day (It's an hour's drive away).

Can't believe this is happening tbh. A plague on all their houses!

I haven’t had any updates from the solicitors but EA have rung DH and said that our solicitors have emailed the previous owners asking for another copy of the transfer form to be completed - it needs to be signed by him and his ex and then posted back recorded/special delivery. Apparently he’s now saying the form was posted back 10 days ago but we were told almost 3 weeks.

someone isn’t telling the truth just not sure if it’s solicitor, previous owner or EA (or possibly all 3 knowing my luck)

I’ve just resigned myself to the fact that I’m not going to be any further forward with this before the new year

My solicitors rang at 16:55 while I was driving, because of course they did. Didn't leave any info in the voicemail so I suspect we are no further on. I will ring them in the morning.

@dubyalass thats typical!! Hope you hear something tomorrow

Oh no, I didn't mean that...my online solicitor was brilliant. So fast - even the long-standing EA said she made everyone else look incompetent through her speed. She might only have been available through email (which worried me a bit to begin with) but always responded to emails within a couple of hours at the outside - often a lot sooner. Highly recommended.

Oh and the solicitors sent me a "moving in box" of cleaning products, tea and coffee and vouchers two days after we moved. Nice surprise!

Got an email from EA to say sellers' solicitor ready to exchange tomorrow. Our solicitor doesn't know anything about this. Deposit is transferred and we shall see what happens. What's worse is the ongoing palava of trying to sell!

Lender has finally replied and all is well.

But now my solicitor has gone down with Covid 😫

@FuzzyPuffling that was nice of the solicitor to do that!

@dubyalass oh no! You couldn’t make it up could you? I hope someone else is picking up your solicitors work in her absence

@Fritilleries hope all goes well and fingers crossed for exchange

well I’ve heard nothing from the solicitor dealing with our purchase for a week. Long story but we have an online conveyencer for the sale
of our property (who have been pretty good and she responds pretty quickly to emails) the local
solicitor we are using (on personal recommendation) for our purchase hasn’t been great as doesn’t always respond very quickly and I find I keep having to repeat information already given to them.

anyway I’ve heard nothing from the purchase solicitor for a week now despite chasing Monday morning to ask for an update.

I even had an email from the sales solicitor asking if there was any news on a completion date and asking for the solicitor details so they could chase up (they have already had these details on more than one occasion but never mind)

I am going to chase again today but not hopeful that we will have any updates before Friday when they break up until 3rd Jan

I need to try and switch off and enjoy Christmas when in reality I will probably worry the whole time that it’s all going to fall through

It sounds like we should still go ahead, but I'm now jaded enough that I won't believe it till it's happened. Part of me thinks it's the universe saying "don't buy this house!" but I am pressing on regardless 😬