About to put our house up for sale...anyone else? Part Two!

[InTheCludgie]

Hi everyone here is the new thread for those of us who are about to, or are currently trying to, sell our homes!

So we are now back on the market and have a viewing tomorrow morning, plus one for early next week. This week is a bit tricky as it's DS's birthday so have had to say no to a couple of suggested times for viewings.

How is everyone else getting on?

@FTStheFirstTimeSeller good luck!! I did loads of googling before we put our house on the market and decluttered and de personalised so any buyers could picture themselves on our house. This isn’t absolutely necessary as any buyer can easily change decor etc but was just something I wanted to do.

we went with Purplebricks and I did all our viewings personally. We didn’t have any no shows but some last minute cancellations which is annoying but that’s life! Didn’t have any issues using an online agent other than we’ve literally had no post sales support or sales progression. Luckily we’ve had contact with our buyers via the app for any queries backwards and forwards and I’ve done the progression myself chasing up our vendors estate agents and our solicitors!!

good luck with your sale

Thanks! Hopefully buyers will like my office wallpaper as much as my colleagues do😂
Which means they will recognise the house in advert, but well. They might just wonder why are there only 2 small wardrobes now, so where are all our clothes.

I would be quite peeved with no support considering Purplebricks charge fee. That was some task. I am very much preparing for that too.

No new viewings here but had a call from a new staff member at the EA who's taking over the sale of our house, she's going to pop round next week to get a better look at our house and have a chat. Turns out she's the EA who sold my DSis house to her a couple of years ago and I've been told that if anyone can sell our house, it'll be her! She sounded very assertive on the phone so I'm not sure what to expect...

Great! Good luck!!!!

Had two more viewings over the weekend, but still no offers.

One has given feedback that the location is great, the price is great, the presentation is brilliant but the kitchen is too small.

It is small. I know it's only been a few weeks but I'm losing hope!

The guy who said he was offering hasn't, and the lady that's viewed 3 times has gone quiet.

One more viewing booked this evening...

Hope everyone else is progressing nicely!

Good luck to everyone doing viewings and awaiting offers

@RubyPip 3 times? Who views 3 times and then just vanishes without saying anything at all? Kind of rude.

We're waiting on more documents from our purchase. Seems like everyone else in the chain is ready but us/our purchase. Combination of slow solicitors on both sides and very slow council. Everyone has agreed we want to complete next month, so fingers crossed. I'm viewing the house again soon to take measurements and have also started to declutter/sell stuff we won't be taking with us. I'm hesitant to do more because I still can't believe it might actually happen. But I really need to start thinking about how completion/move will actually work logistically. Such a long chain including us moving across the country with dog, toddler, and no help.

A viewer 7 pm tonight, who views at that time. Everything crossed..

Lots of ‘urgent chasing’ happening I am told but as far as I know a search is still outstanding on my buyer’s sale. We were supposed to exchange last Friday. I really hope it’s not going to drag on much longer.
Good luck with viewings and to everyone else waiting for things to happen!

Fingers crossed for all of you waiting on viewings. @RubyPip if it helps, our buyer disappeared for a month before calling out of the blue to make an offer. He'd been sorting out his agreement in principle to get closer to our asking price.

I really liked the house we saw yesterday. DH liked it too but is hung up on another house we offered on last week. We spoke about the other house on Thursday. He wanted to go back with a small increase. I told him to think hard about how much he is prepared to pay and how much would make him walk away then to make a final offer so we can draw a line under it and get moving. I didn't want to waste time going back and forth with a tiny increase until the owners told us to go away and stop wasting their time. He came up with a figure and responded to the agents email on Friday. So far the agent hasn't acknowledged it let alone given a response from the vendor (they're open 7 days a week so there was a little hope). She's slow and uninterested in us as buyers. I asked what he'd like to do about the house from yesterday and he's announced he's tempted to try one last offer on the other one. Give me strength 😭

DH and I were just saying we wish there was some sort of clear checklist or progress chart towards exchange, a bit like how we can go online and see exactly where the DC are at in their swimming lessons! I don't know why the process is so tortuous and obscure.

As far as we can tell, the only thing we are waiting for is our revised mortgage offer (sellers agreed to a reduction for essential work). If that comes through on Wednesday as our broker suggested, we could be exchanging that day or at least later this week. But I'll believe it when it happens! Meanwhile I have been speaking to schools near the new house and it looks like there is a place for DS but not for DD. We are only moving 2 miles away so she can stay in the current school if necessary, but it will be a logistical headache.

DH and I were just saying we wish there was some sort of clear checklist or progress chart towards exchange, a bit like how we can go online and see exactly where the DC are at in their swimming lessons! I don't know why the process is so tortuous and obscure.

This would make life so much easier! I'm sure there are some fancy law firms who offer it. Most probably avoid it for the risk of clients calling to say the estimate said 2 weeks for something and it's been 4 weeks.

If you move your son, your daughter will go to the top of the waiting list assuming siblings have priority. So you might only have short term pain there.

There is!

My online conveyancers had exactly this - a list of actions needed to be completed, a traffic light system so you can see what's partially done and what's complete, a percentage of tasks completed to exchange and every incoming and outgoing communication to anyone else.

I knew exactly where I was and what was happening next.

Any chance you still have the list of actions? I was looking for similar online but it's (obviously) usually just quite broad

That sounds a great system @FuzzyPuffling would you mind sharing the name of the firm you used? Is that allowed? 🙏

They are called A V Rillo

They really push at everybody to get quick results - be prepared to work hard! (My sale and purchase took around 3.5 months from offer to completion, and would have been a lot faster if it wasn't for my buyers sloooooooow solicitors)

The list of actions is very much tied up with my personal circumstances (and those of my buyers and sellers) so I can't share them, I'm afraid.

We exchanged last week after accepting an offer in the second half of September.

We found a conveyancing firm who have an online portal where the process is explained and everything is viewable… emails/phone calls between solicitors/received from estate agents, everything.

They've responded promptly to updates/emails and it’s been so transparent… a complete breath of fresh air (and not expensive) so they (firms like this) are out there.

Understandable! Thanks

Hello everyone.
Sorry it's been a while since I last made an update. I have been reading the thread though. Cheering in my head for those who completed (there seemed to be a little spurt of completions around Christmas and New Year), and hoping those of you still waiting for offers would get some soon.
Our sale was plodding along nicely. Things went a bit quiet at Christmas. But got a call from the Estate Agent after the New Year, with an update that the buyers were still very keen. Had a bunch of enquiries. Our solicitors sent us the contract to sign. And I was wondering when the buyers would do a survey.
And then yesterday all came to a very sudden unexpected crash. Our estate agent called us, told me she had been copied into an email from the buyers solicitor saying the buyers didn't want to proceed because of a historic rent charge on the property. This is the first I heard of it and the buyers solicitor had sent the email to the wrong person at my solicitors company. So my solicitor was also unaware.
The rent charge in question is a historic one to an individual who is no longer alive. The owners were never asked to pay it and neither were we. It has been 17 years at least. We are talking about a sum of 3£ per year. And we have an indemnity insurance on it that would be passed along to the buyer. Even in the very unlikely event they would be asked to pay it back, it would be a mere 200£. Also these type of rent charges will all be wiped from the face of the earth by the government in 2037. And you can redeem it easily for about 50£ if you prefer to have no risk at all. Just a bit of hassle of paperwork, which is why our solicitor suggested we get indemnity instead when we bought the house. Their solicitor and our estate agent explained to them it is really common and no matter of concern. So I can't believe they don't want to proceed based on this. Our estate agent thinks there is a different reason they are not telling us. We'll we have offered an additional indemnity insurance and to take 200£ of the purchase price. Waiting to hear back. But since nobody believes this is the real reason they don't want to proceed, we don't have much hope.
Considering our options now on how to move forward. This includes potentially renting the place out or doing an airbnb.
Feel very deflated and upset.

@FigandHoney Oh no! What a nightmare. A very similar thing happened to my friend a year ago. The buyers didn't trust what my friend, the estate agent, or even the solicitors were telling them. They had "done their research", made up their mind, and that was it. My friend did find another buyer who was a little less impulsive/easily panicked and it all went through fine. But it was of course a lot of additional hassle and anxiety. But it could very well be something else that's the real issue, like you said. Do you think your estate agent might be able to get to the bottom of it? I have a feeling given the current market they'd be very eager and motivated for sales to go through. I can't remember your situation, but do you think you could you stay put for a while or have you moved on already and this is an empty property?

We have run into an issue with our sale as well, got a call from solicitor yesterday. Seems like we may have a boundary issue on our hands. It looks like part of our garden (a 1m x 5m strip at the far end - makes up maybe 5% of the garden) is actually not within our boundary. The garden backs onto a busy road and it seems like the previous owners moved the fence to include the grass verge, which is as far as I understand it part of the highway or council land. Just from looking at our title plan you wouldn't realise but when looking at it in relation to other plans/maps, it becomes more obvious. It didn't come up when bought the house and nobody has ever come forward to complain. I feel like we could offer to move the fence back, give the buyers a discount, or maybe there is some sort of indemnity for this? But I am extremely worried they could pull out over this... I spent the night going down the google rabbithole and now I feel sick.

@thunderouslug It is just upsetting they have let things go this far before deciding they don't want to go ahead with the purchase. It incurred us and surely them Solicitors fees, that are 10× the amount it would cost to pay of the rent charge for the last 86 years. And 40x the amount to redeem the rent charge. If we had known we would have redeemed it ourselves. But it takes 4 to 6 months. And our solicitors advised us is completely unnecessary with the indemnity policy.
The estate agent and our solicitor think it must be a different reason. The estate agent says if this tiny thing spooks them, then they will never end up actually buying a house. But I have a feeling they have seen all the headlines about house prices dropping and want to buy a house at a cheaper price in half a year.
Apparently this is the second time they started to buy a house and then decided not to proceed. Really they should get blacklisted or something. It's ridiculous this us allowed. If buyers can jump off at any time then you and swllers have no guarantee, then you should also be allowed to keep your house on the market until exchange, me thinks.
The estate agent kind of pushed us to accept their offer. But the way they dealt with it at the start already had us worried they wouldn't be serious buyers. Now we wish we had held out for someone else instead of waisting all this time and money.
We already bought our new house so not moving is unfortunately not an option.

As to your boundary issue, if I was your buyer I would accept a price reduction and the fence to be put back in the right location. Unless your garden is tiny without that strip and the garden was the only reason I bought the place.
Their seems to be an indemnity insurance for a lot of things, so maybe also for this. Obviously I don't know anything about the legalities.
Have you spoken to your solicitor? What is their advice?

So sorry to hear this @FigandHoney , it's such a waste of your time. The amount of money they might only potentially have to spend is minuscule compared to the solicitors fees you must have both spent already.

@FigandHoney so sorry to hear this, bloody bunch of time wasters! If it is something else putting them off buying they should at least be honest in case it can be rectified. If not for them, even for potential future buyers.