Buyers/Sellers Exchange waiting room

[spidershavetoomanyknees]

Currently waiting for exchange, stuck in a never-ending loop of "there's been a couple more enquiries higher up the chain" and "we're nearly there now". Wondering if there's anyone else who would like to join me here in the waiting room of doom to vent into the void.

Next train for Exchange (line terminates at Completion) is currently delayed and they'd like to apologise for the delay.

Also felt like pointing out that we've had two new bathrooms last year and a brand new boiler fitted a week before the house went on the market 😂

So, bottom of the chain has sent the deposit money...to the wrong bank account. I just don't even know what to say anymore. The level of incompetence displayed by one person is truly amazing. I understand making a mistake but jfc it's a lot of money. My bank always does a check when I transfer something online to see if the details match and alerts me if name/account number etc don't match up. I have no idea what this means now. I assume exchange is suddenly much further away again.

So our buyer has had his survey done on our home and has spoken to the surveyor who has come up with some magical price of £7k. The chimney stacks flashings have failed, we have an underdrawn cellar (?) and some joists that were visible had woodworm which would require treating and the underdrawing removing. Our buyer wants to renegotiate on price... we took his offer at £422 which was lower than the top one at £425 as he appeared to be more proceedable. Any thoughts??

That's £7k to do the work but no mention of a specific price in the Estate Agent's email about renegotiation of price....

Packers have been - we have a sofa, mattresses and that's about IT overnight.

@Allfurcoatandnoknickers I don’t know about the cellar thing but my chimney stacks (3 of them) needed doing and that part of the quote was £1500 - £900 of which is scaffolding which might not be wholly due to the chimneys, I also had guttering and a single storey extension roof replacement replacement come up and the scaffolding quote was for all the work. £7000 seems excessive. My EA recommended the roofer to my buyer and he provided a detailed quote. If your buyer does want to negotiate then I would insist on a proper quote.

@thunderouslug that is madness and enough to drive anyone to madness. I hope it can be rectified quickly!

Depends on how desperately you want to proceed. I'm stubborn so would be inclined to say no. The house we're buying with £5k of work is 1930s and none of it is unusual for the age of the house.

Coincidentally the last survey for our 1960s house said the chimney needed repointing urgently. A builder came round after we bought it, looked at it through binoculars and said he'd take our money but really the chimney was fine. It's been 6 years now and it's still standing. The dodgy flashing on the porch was a whole different story but again, not surprising for a house of its age.

Stress levels are up now. Exchange did NOT occur today. Middle conveyancer was quiet. Tomorrow is really the only day left to exchange now. Our solicitor is going to ring them in the morning, but they are one of those larger shops so unsure if they will get through. Both agents tried contacting them and the buyer as well.

@Allfurcoatandnoknickers another vote here for being a bit stubborn... we just bought a 1930s house and funnily enough there are things that need repairing! That's just the age of the house, and a lot of it (dated decor, potential damp bits) was factored into the sale price

Exactly! The house was built in 1918. The surveyor said ballpark £7k to put right which I wish he hadn’t as that will set his expectations now… we’re going through the report tonight and will put together an email to the agents 🤦‍♀️

I’m pretty stubborn - he’s getting lots of new stuff so I kind of feel it all evens out in the end 😂

Hope I'm ok to jump on this thread.

We've had an email today saying 'we're ready to look at completion dates'

So.... what? A month? 3 months? 5 months?

How long would he be looking at from this point? We're ftb so I'm clueless!!

@Sousuke they are the ones using PMSL? My solicitor despairs of them. She said it’s usually 20 minutes on hold to get an assistant who is not authorised to do anything. They will get there in the end I am told but I’m expecting similar pain. I hope it happens tomorrow 🤞🤞.

@Karmatime I think officially they are Valerie Holmes but that company was acquired by PMPL a few years ago. To be fair the conveyancer on the file was working remotely today so I presume couldn't because of that? The exchange occurs on an office recorded line I think.

@notanoxfordcomma impossible to say without any sense of what else is going on! Can you ask your solicitor for a ballpark?

@notanoxfordcomma It depends. If you have the following done: mortgage offer, searches and queries on them done then you are probably 1 month away from completion and 2 to 3 weeks from exchange. If any of those are missing it could be longer. It also depends on the solicitors involved. A good high street solicitor can check off a task in under a week. The online sweatshop factories can take a month for each task because they have too many files at any given time and only look at the ones that are literally on fire.

Can I join? We offered on our house I think back in August. It went on at the height of the market so had a lot of interest and went to sealed bids. We absolutely loved it so went in at £21k over the 'offers over' price. We also approached the owners of the 1 bedroom cottage it's attached to as they are family members of the other house, and put in an offer for that too. The cottage is accessed through the garden of the main house, and the main house is using part of the cottages garden, so we only wanted the main house if we could have the cottage too. We managed to come to an agreement and are buying that one cash.

Our mortgage company for the main house has made us jump through hoops to get the mortgage approved. Survey after survey but we finally got it approved at the end of January. We thought we were the ones holding the sale up but when we said ok we can crack on now, turns out our solicitors hadn't even received the draft contracts from the sellers solicitors due to some mix up with the title deeds for both properties!

Our mortgage offer expires 2nd April and we've only just started the searches. Our solicitor has applied for an extension just in case but does think there is a possibility we can complete on time. We are less confident! We really don't want it to expire as we got it just before the rates went up.

Luckily we sold our house in December and are living with my parents so there is no chain.

@spidershavetoomanyknees we have done, it was just this evening so thought id ask here too!!

@Sousuke they're all done, searches back, everything resolved. Literally just the date to set... I just don't know if setting a date means it will be imminent or if there's still waiting to do!

Just coming on for a Friday scream! My buyer’s solicitor who was on leave all week was supposed to do ID checks today on his gifted deposit and exchange and complete early next week. No updates all day and then finally after much chasing my EA tells me they haven’t done the checks yet but are ‘aiming’ to exchange and complete next Friday. This doesn’t fill me with any confidence and this takes us into the 8th week of promises to exchange next week!
I have asked that my buyer puts the pressure on for an earlier exchange date. It’s not so much the logistics that concerns me as the property is vacant but leaving everything until the last day of the week feels like a sure fire recipe for yet another delay.
I hope everyone else who was due to exchange imminently has got there.

Sorry to hear that @Karmatime If given the choice we don't want to complete on a Friday in case of delays. I suspect we won't get a choice as our sellers have 4 children and unless we choose half term will probably prefer Friday. Last time we were lucky enough to get a Thursday for exchange and completion together. We had to persuade our sellers who agreed once we pointed out that if something went wrong we'd have the next day to fix it.

@Karmatime that's so frustrating! I'd definitely be pushing to not exchange and complete same day. So much potential for it to go wrong

This weekend we're going round with a family friend to get an idea what's needed for electrics work... really nervous because we haven't seen the place in ages. Wish us luck! Hoping not to hear the dreaded "needs a full rewire"

Good luck @spidershavetoomanyknees - it will be exciting to see the house again and hope the electric works are not too extensive.
I’m going to try my best to get them to aim for an earlier exchange. I just can’t face getting to Friday and it tipping over into yet another week.

We didn’t exchange Friday. Apparently lender hadn’t given the go ahead yet. Hope it comes through early Monday. We have to complete Tuesday because bottom of chain has offer expire then. My solicitor basically inferred PMPL submitted request for exchange to bank last minutes. Probably on the first.