Do you believe that the universe has a way of preventing things from happening?

[Lenor]

House move related, I know the title is fairly vague!

We were finally meant to be exchanging this morning. When the funds arrived from the bank for our mortgage, our solicitor noticed an error on the mortgage offer to do with our rate. It differed from the rate that she had last seen we were on. It would have increased payments by £350 a month.

Incredibly long story short, a new mortgage offer was generated today as our fixed rate ended on the part of the mortgage that was being ported (and we went onto a new fixed rate). Except the new mortgage offer makes no mention of the new fixed rate, it says we’re now on an (astronomically high) variable rate. Disaster.

This is to top off a move that has so far involved:
•two buyers pulling out (demanding money off on the week of exchange… twice)
•structural surveys at our expense to try and avoid the first buyer pulling out (survey was a total waste of money, all was fine but they wanted money off anyway)
•our onward purchase pulling out
•two interest rate rises during the time our mortgage offer was being considered
•our mortgage advisor making a mistake with our name that resulted in a huge delay on the mortgage and them reducing their offer by 30k due to the current economy
•deciding to put our current property onto a buy to let mortgage to avoid losing out on our onward purchase (which is our dream home and we have fallen in love with)
•the buy to let mortgage offer taking 3x as long as it should for absolutely no reason, just “high demand”
•the offer coming through with a caveat that we must air bnb the property, not let it to the tenants we had already found. This had never been discussed and took weeks to sort
•our property been downvalued on the mortgage offer by a ridiculously small amount (less than 1% of the property value), but that further delayed things as we had to redo all paperwork
•our vendors threatening to pull out repeatedly because of the delays
•a survey on our dream home showing tens of thousands of additional work being required

and I’m sure there’s more. This has been the most horrifically stressful 9 months of my life. It’s making me physically ill. I have 3 children under 5 and would never, ever have undertaken this journey if I’d had any idea the financial and emotional toll it would take on my family. We’re in so deep now, and we desperately want to move to our dream home and have a garden for the children and for life to just get a little bit easier… but when do you call it a day? When do you say enough is enough and I can’t do this any more?

Rejection is divine protection.

Tru dat.

Hmmm maybe the universe is trying to tell you something! That’s a lot of hurdles, even for a house move. Sounds full on, esp with three LOs.
i kind of believe that these happen for a reason, usually because something better will come along.
good luck op with whichever path you take 💐

Is there a chance perhaps the new house might not be your dream home..

No, "the universe" is not a being with agency and can't so any such thing. The idea is non-sensical.

English property law, on the other hand, is the spawn of Satan.

No, I don't believe that the universe organises anything. But I do (kind of) believe that "What's for you, won't go by you." If you love the house you're moving to, plough on and accept that the last year or so has been so full of financial upheaval for banks/lenders/buyers that everything has been harder than it needs to be. Presumably, you had a good reason to embark on this process so you might as well see it to the end. Assuming the house you are moving to is one that you love. And it isn't haunted...(Which isn't any crazier than thinking that the universe is out to get you.) I hope it all gets sorted and you are in your new house soon.

Thank you for the responses. I just cannot believe the number of hurdles we’ve had.

On paper, the home is just perfect for us. We couldn’t believe our eyes when we came across it. We’re in an incredibly built up appear where outside space is very sought after. This is really one of the only properties in the entire area with land, and we’re so excited about what that could mean for our family. We also got it for a very decent price. It was out of budget and had several people offering, but they were mostly developers (who wanted to build on the land) and the owners were very keen for the property to go to a family who would look after the land. We have a little allotment across town and once they heard about this (from the EA) they were so pleased, they accepted our below offer asking despite having other higher offers.

We feel like it was meant to be… but how can that be the case when every single thing that can go wrong has done?

I suppose our decision is made easier by the fact that our mortgage offer expires over the Christmas period. If we don’t complete before then, we have to truly accept that this isn’t happening.

It does sound like a lovely place OP. Really hoping it works out for you without any further issues.

The buy to let mortgage said you couldn't let on a normal tenancy? Thats crazy!

No advice OP sorry, but I’m feeling exactly the same. It’s almost like it’s not meant to be 😫

I have found this so many times during my life, I always think to myself now, if things don’t run smoothly it’s not meant to be.

But with moving particularly, we moved last year, big downsize, put our house on the market, had a few viewings, a low offer, we’re about to take it off the market, and we had another viewer that offered an acceptable offer, started looking in the area we wanted to move too, 3.5 hrs from where we were selling, two weekends of block viewings, nothing suitable, buyers kept asking if we had found etc. I said if we don’t find something then we will pull out of sale. Constantly refreshing RM. Found the bungalow we now live in that had absolutely everything we were looking for, 3 double beds, en suite, dining kitchen, large drive & garden, viewed, offered. All went through, best thing we did.

We also wanted to buy a property on the coast, found a place we fell in love with, offered asking price, our offer wasn’t accepted, offered over, still not accepted, cash buyer, didn’t make any difference. We were really disappointed. FF over a year, we found another very unique place on the coast, needed upgrading, but it was perfect in so many ways. So pleased we didn’t buy the first one we fell in love with, it would have been a big mistake, it’s still on the market, and the vendor has put up the price. He is never going to sell it, at that price, I often wonder if he wishes he had accepted our offer. But he did us a huge favour.

Good luck OP.

Or maybe the universe is testing you to make sure you really want this property and it will be perfect once you move in.

It all sounds incredibly stressful.

“The universe” is not trying to tell you anything positive or negative. Make your own intelligent decisions in life and don’t discharge responsibility for making good choices by invoking woolly entities like “the universe” as if you have no control over your own life.

I believe if it's not to be then it won't happen. So many times I got rejected for job interviews and then a better suited job came up, or I was trying so hard to make a new relationship work when it just wasn't meant to be etc. I tried moving house earlier this year and we lost out on about 20 houses. I couldn't understand why but now I'm glad we didn't move house. When it's meant to be it will happen. Just trust your gut and ask yourself if it feels right.

We just moved after a similar nightmare. No buy to let issues in our case but a lot of hurdles, admin issues and people straight up just not doing their jobs properly. Everything fell into place at the 11th hour in the end, but the toll it’s taken on my mental and physical health, particularly as an autistic person who does not deal very well with goalposts shifting and a ton of uncertainty, has been a lot. So I can empathise very much with where you’re at. You’ve had a lot to deal with and really understandable you’d be starting to think “is it worth it”.

To an extent I get the whole “if it’s not meant to be” thing, but I also kinda don’t believe it at the same time. The whole process of buying and selling houses in England is terrible and needs overhauling. People made the process, the universe didn’t. I mean maybe it helps some people with acceptance of the situation to say “it wasn’t meant to be” if things don’t work out, I guess. I think personally I’d have found it easier to accept once I knew for sure it wasn’t happening, but the not knowing if the hurdles would be cleared or not was the really difficult bit.

No.

Alternative view: the universe could be helping you by taking you off the fixed rate!

Could you take the variable rate and then find a fixed rate next year? Inflation set to peak over next few months so if you can just about swing it money wise and are up for taking a gamble, it might work in your favour overall? Lots of experts are now saying to wait it out as deals are getting more competitive by the week. Obviously there are huge benefits to fixing and knowing exactly what your outgoings are from the outset though but worth considering the universe might have different plans if you believe in that kind of stuff!

Thanks everyone, I do really appreciate everyone’s thoughts.

A variable rate definitely won’t help our situation unfortunately. We’re already on a variable rate for our buy to let which is terrifying enough, but the fixed rate on our residential mortgage is for 2.79% I don’t think any variable rate is going to beat that for a long time, and for the short term the variable rate is currently 6.25% 😣

In some ways I do believe that things have already happened for a reason-

we never would have considered owning a second property and having a buy to let, and it is still our intention to sell this property… but the additional rental income short term will really help us out as the new house does need a lot of work.

also, if we had exchanged before our new rate fixed in there is a chance no one would have noticed that our offer said we were going into a variable rate. It was only picked up because the new rate had started and there was therefore a 10K exit fee payable on completion.

finally, we were incredibly worried about doing a reno with young children. The last few months have been SO stressful… I wouldn’t care if we were living in a dump so long as I have some security and know what’s happening! I think we’ll appreciate our circumstances a lot more after all this has happened.

I've always found with our house situation whenever it's not working out really easily it's not meant to be. Time and time again it has happened and it feels like I'm forcing it, when it is meant to work out it happens with little to no effort or distress...