Buyers/Sellers Exchange waiting room new thread

[thoughtsofmoog3]

I noticed the last one was full, so here we go!

Hello to the newcomers and welcome back to those who are still working their way through the joys of house buying/selling.

Update: Did some hassling today and we've signed all our contracts, and proposed a completion date for the end of the month to our chain! Feels like an absolute marathon to have got here. Hoping to exchange this week - let all the solicitors and estate agents know... fingers crossed.

Still not exchanged. Buyers enquiries ongoing. All now dependent on my current landlord answering questions about an outstanding application on the freehold title. I hassled them last week and the landlord’s legal team has no interest in answering this question. Worried that exchange will never happen. Now have a deadline to exchange for the purchase in two weeks. The stress is incredible. I have had to start looking at other houses incase my purchase falls through. Nothing is quite as good as the one I chose 😞. A word of advice (from my own exp) for anyone buying or selling leasehold - ask to be sent the management pack as soon as this is received by your sol. The seller pays for the pack and absolutely has the right to see it. A buyer should also see the MP as it will contain more info than the report on title / property report that the sol prepares. Also - for sellers - ask at the outset to receive all enquiries and all enquiry responses as soon as these are received / sent. Once the MP is paid for this means you are close to receiving your fist set of enquiries. Raise this at that stage. Sols have a habit of sending you only the enquiries which they think you should answer yourself - everything else is kept secret. This way you have more control and understanding of where the enquiries are up to. I wish I had been more clear at the outset about what I expected to receive copies of. It is awkward to have to raise this only when it looks like it is going wrong.

Our buyer said he was a cash buyer. Four months on and three weeks before planned exchange, we discovered he was now in a chain - putting us in a chain of 5 too. Our EA never informed us. Since then, our buyers solicitor has been haggling over a retention sum to mend minor cracks in the render. The true cost would be a max of £2K. Our buyer asked for £10K. We agreed on £5K which still seems very high. Then, on the day we expected exchange, our buyers solicitor asked for a clause to be added that meant the retention sum could be kept in its entirety. We agreed, just to get exchange over the line. Then our solicitor told us that exchange couldn't happen anyway because there was an outstanding document needed from our developer. This should have been acquired months ago. Now we have removals booked but no exchange date as we're having an agonizing wait for this outstanding document. So, our buyer is breaking the chain up into two and completing on his end of the chain but leaving our end (ie. Us and our seller) until this document arrives. We have no idea how long it will take to acquire this document that our solicitor effectively forgot to get back in June. This puts out sale at risk as our buyer may get impatient and so might our seller. I honestly don't know how to cope with the stress. I keep crying and can't sleep. How can some solicitor put our whole future into jeopardy like this?

I am hopeful for you that the document from the developer will come quickly. Developers/ builders have acute interest in receiving your exchange money and contractual commitment. They will be delighted you are now ready to exchange. Tbh I am surprised the developer waited 4 months for your chain below. My sellers developer started trying to sack my sellers (and therefore me) after 3 months.

It probably wasn't clear in my post, but we bought new from the developer four years ago. We need a document from the developer in order for the new buyer to complete purchase of our house. Therefore, there is no benefit to the developer (Vistry) to issue this quickly. It's holding up an entire chain of five who were all ready to exchange last week ....but it was found that this document hadn't been obtained. Our solicitor should have acquired it months ago. We even gave her the contact details. I've given notice to my job as we were confident exchange would happen last week. That was a mistake!

Another week waiting, waiting for the mythical query to be answered

Like living in limbo this is isn’t it.

We are finally exchanged! So much relief.

Not exchanging this week after all - buyer apparently signing next week but who knows at this rate?

@Wednesdayonline And relax, congratulations!

I'd like to join :) after a very long 10 months (involving lost buyers, section 20 notices and all sorts of delays from my Leasehold property's management company) it finally feels like I can see the light at the end of the tunnel!

Completion date has been agreed on my all in the chain (6!) And we're hoping to exchange on Monday when one of the solicitors is back from holiday. I'm so nervous and hoping nothing goes wrong again.

I spent 8 months fighting the management against a £14,000 quote for works that was put in mid sale, I was going to have to leave a retainer for the money but just 2 weeks ago they decided to drop the whole thing and I have never been more relieved about anything in my life, never mind the joy of "winning" against a huge company 😅 it took a lot of perseverance but we got there so I really want to get on with moving out!!

We have also finally exchanged! The relief is immense. Aware that things still can go pear shaped but this has been such a long time coming!!

@Buttons0522 You all sound so relieved, I'm jealous haha. Congrats!! :)

Posting on this thread to have a rant. We are (supposedly) very close to the end of our house sale/purchase... we were mostly ready to exchange mid August but then our sellers flip flopped over whether they were going to move in with family or get a rental, and then after that was all resolved we find out the bottom of the chain needs to withdraw funds from a lifetime ISA and only applied for this last week!! The money is apparently supposed to come in today so we can exchange so I'm just sat here waiting for an email. The lower part of the chain pushed hard to complete next week (!) so I am really pissed off they waited til the 11th hour to apply for the funds, given you can return them if the sale falls through.
This process just seems so ridiculous, the chain is only 4 parties, 3 houses but it's so hard to find out anything if you're one away in the chain.

@curcurbita have you chased your solicitor to check the position and ask them to chase it ASAP?
I only ask because we exchanged yesterday and our solicitor didn't even tell us it had happened! We waited ages just assuming it had gone ahead and then today they sent us the letter saying yes it did in fact happen yesterday. Luckily I put insurance in place for yesterday.

Thanks Ash - sorry I missed your response on last visit - yes it was all just hot air / hard talk. They extended until next Friday. The sale appears to be moving now and it is just possible I make this next deadline. Trying not to get too hopeful / positive obvs

Well, we have absolutely had enough now. We were supposed to exchange last week. Our buyers begged everyone in the chain to delay, today they have revealed that there has been fraudulent activity against one of their names and so their mortgage is needing to be looked into before any funds will be released. We were supposed to be completing on Tuesday. We've now told our solicitor that if things are not sorted by Monday then we are pulling out and we will no longer be moving house. We will have lost almost £8000 in fees (two failed moves) and we are just done.

@Polito nps, think your mind may be heavily occupied!! thought so, glad it’s been extended and wish you the best of luck making this deadline! 😊🤞🏼

I’m hoping for just an offer at this stage, worried that another Xmas goes by with this darn house occupying my mind. Worried there’s going to be assumptions that there is something wrong with the house because it’s been on so long. Wish there was an ability to put up a board that says ‘we were messed about too often!!’😊. The irony is I love the house and decided to move because I didn’t want to bring my son up in East Acton or even any part of London!! 🤷🏻‍♀️

Here’s hoping 🤞🏼

@Wednesdayonline thanks, our solicitor is really good though so would usually keep me updated!
Money came through around 1, exchanged by about 4pm thank goodness. Weeks of stress now mostly over.

@TFMinx Argh - feeling your frustration. This would make me wonder. How long have the buyers known? Is it really fraudulent or have they bs’d on applications?

I’d normally say hang fire but honestly in these circumstances I’d tell them you are re: advertising and to comeback when they’ve ‘sorted themselves’ out, if you want to sell but I’m with you in just not moving. We ended up moving out and renting. House is vacant and the stress of costs is awful but in my situation I needed to move.

I hated that I lost 3-4 months (that’s 5 let downs and so over 18months) because of people not telling the truth, etc.

@AshRJ there's no way we could afford to move out and rent until we had a buyer. The rest of the chain and us are ready, hence due to exchange. We're now thinking of just remortgaging our current house and building an extension with extra bedroom, which is why we were initially moving. This whole process has seriously affected my husband's mental health and I don't think we'd cope if our buyer came back for a third time with an "issue" at the eleventh hour.

I'm so very very sorry to read this. It's beyond belief that this can happen. The system is completely broken. It must be awful for all of you. I don't understand why we don't use the same system as in an auction. You have a pre prepared legal pack, you have a survey and then you buy it. The amount of suffering this current system is causing is completely unacceptable. Our house sale is held up due to an outstanding document, but the chain want us to gamble on the document arriving next week and release funds to our removal company before exchange. If we do that and the document doesn't arrive in time, then we lose £5K. Just instructed our solicitor to insist on an exchange/completion gap of six days to avoid this, but the chain will be baying for our blood!

Really need some opinions from you all out there in the waiting room from hell. Would any of you even consider paying £5K in removal fees without a definite exchange date? Our chain via our estate agent want us to confirm a moving/completion date for next Thursday when our solicitor cannot even assure us that exchange can happen in time! Would you gamble with £5K knowing someone could pull out before exchange?

@Goingslowlybonkers , no I would not gamble £5K on the exchange going ahead as planned. TBH, I don't think it's typical for reputable removers to demand money upfront; I think you only pay on delivery. Unless I have misunderstood your situation - apologies if so.

Two of the removal companies down here in Cornwall wanted the full fee paid up front when we booked a date, which was impossible for us. We found a local firm who want payment two days before the removal date but our estate agent is putting pressure on us to commit to that date even though our solicitor cannot guarantee that exchange can even happen this week. Basically, we're number four in a chain of five and we were told on the first attempted exchange date a week ago that a document still needed to be obtained from our original developer before exchange could happen. Our solicitor had the information 8 weeks ago but never asked for this document. So the entire chain is held up. The developer won't say when the document will be sent (we've been waiting a week) yet our estate agent wants us to commit to moving out/completion next week. We have given a deadline for exchange on Monday as we will have to cancel our removals on Tuesday to prevent us having to pay the full amount later that day for a removal that cannot happen on Thursday. Our estate agent called my husband 'narrow minded' because we didn't want to gamble £5K if the document didn't arrive and exchange was delayed again. Our solicitor remains as cool as a cucumber and cheerfully says that the missing document 'should be here soon'! She's been saying that for a week! I guess no one in the chain wants to change their removal dates either but it's kinda been missed that you cannot move out until exchange has happened and you have a completion date. It's all really surreal and stressful.

@Goingslowlybonkers sounds such a stressful situation! No, I absolutely would not gamble with £5k. Are there really no other options with removals? I would be standing firm about not paying for anything until exchange, but I’d be on to the developer myself hourly for an update on said document, asking for a named contact, to be cc’d into emails etc. I’d also be making my solicitor aware that I was very unhappy with their work!