Buyers / sellers exchange waiting room continued...

[NoWordForFluffy]

New thread for those of us still waiting the dreadful wait. 😩

Thanks for the new thread

Fingers crossed by the end of this 1000 posts we've all completed and graduated the thread and it's a whole new gang on here

Thanks for making the new thread!

I thought I was nearly at completion - but there is a horrible nasty issue with a repair that the solicitor is saying needs a certification otherwise future mortgages may be refused (buyer is cash buyer) which is nearly scuppering the whole thing! Aaarghh!

Really stressed that I am ever going to sell the house. 🙁

We’ve been on the market for 3 weeks and not a single viewer. Market seems completely flat 😞

Hi, can I please join the thread? Our house has been up for sale a couple of weeks and we are being pushed very hard by our agent to accept an offer. On the one hand it's not a bad offer (15k under asking) but we have 2 or 3 more viewings still and a couple who go on the market in a couple of weeks who say they will pay asking price when proceedable. It's hard to know the best course.

Youvebeenfed Sorry it's a slow start for you. Have you had any feedback from your EA as to staging/presenting your house. Are the pictures good? Is your area generally slow at the moment? Fingers crossed it picks up for you soon.

Hopefulseller Oh no that's the last thing you need! What can you do to expedite it?

Good luck to everyone. It's a horrible place to be mentally and I'm so utterly sick of cleaning! 😝

You can’t wait for the couple whose own property isn’t even on the market yet. That could take weeks or even months to sell and they may get less for it than they expect, which will affect their onward purchase.

I wouldn’t want to lose the good offer that you have on the table. Just spend a few days thinking about it, which should give enough time for the other viewings to go ahead.

I'd love to join!
House went live on Saturday. I really was expecting a phone call from EA today saying someone wants to view but nope. I know I'm far too impatient.
I'm wanting to stay in our large village and had seen a house two weeks ago that would be perfect but it sold last week.
I've seen another which has just been reduced which would be perfect. Offroad parking which I dont have now and really want and two loos,which I'd like as teen son seem to sit in the loo for ages.
I'm hoping I sell fast and can put offer in. I keep driving past it and the other day pulled up and had a walk around at night to see if I could hear dogs bark etc. Arghh,I need to be patient.

We’re supposed to exchange either this week or next and the wait is nearly sending me doolally! It’s been a long haul to get here 🤞

Good luck everyone!

Our buyers had their survey done last week so waiting to hear if any bad news from that. The survey for the house we are buying recommended a few extra checks from experts so are waiting on those. Stressful yet exciting times.

Hi everyone, would like to join this thread too as getting to the nitty gritty bit!

We went on the market back in early July after seeing a property we liked come on the market in June. Had slow steady viewings, one a week on average. Had an offer by end August from a family who loved the house, offered £30k under which we were happy-ish with given the market but our agent was able to negotiate another £15k so only £15k under which was great.

Unfortunately, a couple of days later the bottom of their chain pulled out. It was a long chain, 6 properties. So we started viewings again, didn’t feel like we could wait in the current market, we were very lucky to receive another offer two weeks later, this time £50k under, top of their budget, agent was able to negotiate another £10k. We accepted the offer as hadn’t had any more viewings and felt we should go with this new offer as they were under offer to first time buyers so nice short chain and more likely to go through.

We we’re able to agree a price £65k under on what we’re buying which has helped a bit on accepting the lower offer on ours.

Everyone has done their paperwork, all mortgage offers and surveys done, now waiting to hear back from our solicitors.

Got removals quotes today, need to start thinking about clearing cupboards out and packing. We’re hoping to complete before Christmas, no idea if that is realistic or not. No exchange date agreed yet.

Yes I think for those of us, perhaps hopefully nearing the end of the process, it’s a rush to get in / out before Christmas!

@ZestFest ask your EA why they are pushing you so hard to accept this offer. If the next viewings are very soon, I’d wait a couple of days. But I do think waiting for more than a week can put people off, most buyers expect you to get back in a day or few days.

I had an offer and at first just got back saying that’s not really the ball park for me. I could have lost that person but I was also showing that I wasn’t refusing it outright.

Another consideration is, is it from a serious seller and not in a chain? Because that is worth a lot. I accepted within a day a revised offer, even though my house was priced low and it was hard to accept such a low one. But it was a cash buyer, keen and for the sake of a few thousand each way I feel it’s better to go with a good offer.

That's a nice but tough position to be in @ZestFest - I'm not sure what I'd do. However - the people who are saying they'd give asking when they're under offer are not being rational as they have no idea what they'll end up getting for their place. I felt the same way when I viewed the house I have finally today had my offer accepted on and told the viewing host it was worth the asking price (🙄) - I hadn't even put my place on the market at that point so it's not pragmatic to say these things. Did you put the house on at a price thinking you'd get asking? I put mine on at about £25k more than what I said I'd be happy to accept, and in the end accepted £10k under asking. Even though this is more than I said I wanted I still ended up umming and ahhing and wondering if I should push for more - I think the process does funny things to your thinking process. £15k under asking, to me, seems like a pretty good amount to accept but perhaps if it doesn't feel like enough go back to the agent and moot countering with £10k under and gauge the agent's thoughts.

Hello everyone! After starting this hellish selling journey in March we are finally nearing exchange and completion!

Our buyer's solicitor has gone a bit quiet which is annoying. The buyer has been chasing and apparently he hasn't been sent some paperwork that needs signing. We and our sellers have finished our legal work so we are eager to exchange and get this over with! I'm so over it I've gone a bit mad I think.

@ZestFest i would try to see if they can meet in the middle. I would tell the EA it's too low, but would accept 5/10k under the asking. I wouldn't wait for the potential people to be proceedable -- too much can happen.

@Doodgreen12 / @Skipskipperroo - At what stage do you class the process as nearing exchange?

The property I am selling is at the point of signing the Sale Agreement. Whilst my purchase I am waiting for the local authority searches.

@Jayknow so all of our legal work is complete including searches returned, contracts signed, enquiries replied to and agreed, mortgage offers received, land registry forms signed and surveys done. So now that is all done we can exchange contracts essentially.

@ Jayknow the searches usually take a couple of weeks I believe. All the enquiries also need to be finalised. Our seller is having chimney swept and boiler serviced for us before we exchange. We’ve signed everything and we’re waiting for the completion date to be confirmed by our sellers’ solicitor for early December so that we can then confirm exchange. Both my OH and I need to give 4 weeks notice at work as we’re relocating so we’re having a month between exchange and completion. It’s been excruciating all along but at this point I’m completely on edge!

Rejoining after a blip! In summary, found a house in July, quickly listed ours and had an offer 5k under within 10 days so accepted. All fine with surveys and mortgage offers etc. Chain of 5 moving forwards. Last month bottom of chain drops out (waiting too long apparently) but they find another buyer, however much lower offer so everyone in chain above takes a financial hit to continue - everyone agrees. Now all back in motion and hoping for a December/Jan completion - most of chain are sorted but waiting for the new buyer at the bottom to catch up! Trying not to get tooo excited about new house, but it's hard not to. How soon should we be getting quotes for removals? We've also got some bits of furniture to sell/donate but don't want to do it too soon!

@Skipskipperroo nice! that is basically there. Fingers crossed!

I'm impatiently waiting for the local authority searches. Only been a few days. But i've been told it's usually 2 weeks. How long did yours take?

Want that to come back and exchange ASAP for a completion early Dec. Maybe a bit too ambitious.

I've had an update today: enquiry responses (those missed last time; hopefully in full this time!) received and they've sent my amended plan to the vendor to get their instructions. I've WhatsApp'd my contact asking him to push it along so we can get exchange in by next Tuesday (our deadline for hitting November completion due to giving notice on our rental).

I must have subliminally moved them along yesterday when I was telling my shoulder surgeon how fucking useless everybody is! He said his theory is that the conveyancers decide between them at the start who's going to be the slack one! 🤣😩

Can I join please? Hoped to be moved in by now but no, of course not.

Viewed at the end of May and put an offer in the same day, negotiated a bit then agreed a price. THEN they told us they hadn’t applied for probate yet. Probate was granted a month ago so we set things in motion and now…. There is a septic tank jointly with next door and subject to a yearly charge to a housing association of £5 a year. It was an ex council property, bought 10 years ago. Trouble is the owner can’t prove the tank is compliant and has no idea what the charge is for. No one in the HA seems to know either. We are all remote to the house and can’t ask the neighbours. Owner refuses to get a repoert on the tank.

Meanwhile sat in rented accommodation waiting and waiting….hoped to be long moved by the cold weather.

We paid for searches yesterday and got lots of forms from the solicitor this morning so we thought yay things are starting to progress....then the EA just called to say our buyers' buyer hasn't been able to be contacted for a while and now they are back on the market. Second time it's happened so keeping everything crossed they get a good offer quickly.

Can I join this one as I'm finally allowing myself to get slightly excited that this might happen?

Put out place on the market at the end of August 2022 and had plenty of viewings but no offers. Dropped the price after 3 weeks and had an offer at asking...on the day of Liz Truss's mini-budget. The resulting rate rises meant that we felt it was prudent to park any move until the dust had settled a bit as it was looking increasingly difficult to find the house we needed for our newly revised downwards budget.

Fast forward to August 2023, back on the market at the same price as the previous year and miraculously we had three at asking offers after one weekend of viewings. Went with a chain free FTB and had an offer accepted on a place we liked three weeks later. Sellers already had an onward purchase in progress and top of the chain have agreed to move in with friends.

We're now two months in to the process, think most of the big parts on our sale have been done bar an electrical test (tomorrow) and signing contracts. Enquiries are progressing slooooowly on our purchase and we've now got our mortgage offer through (the bit I was crapping myself about most). Chat is a target completion date of 30 November which would be amazing if true but the last two times I bought it took over 9 months so I'm not holding my breath...

Also patiently waiting for searches etc to come back and for the nod to exchange. Can I ask, what has to happen between exchange and completion? If we are ready to exchange by the end of November, is it realistic we could complete before Xmas?

Starting to feel frustrated with solicitors on both sides.

regarding the high rise legislation, many questions are being asked, the answers to which are all in a 200 page document that no one on either side can face reading.

or I'm being impatient? It also seems that solicitors aren't using the time gaps to sort out stuff that can progress. Probably a way of reducing workload while they wait to see if things fall apart!

Theoretically you can exchange and complete on the same day, although often people like to leave a week or two in between so that you don't have to pack up your entire life/shell out money for movers without some certainty that your sale will actually go through. A month between exchange and completion would be on the long side.

Can I join in? Mine is a little different

Sale agreed June. No chain. The seller lives in a retirement home.
Searches, survey all come back without any issue so everything going smoothly
Unfortunately the seller sadly passes away Aug.
Exchange and completion was set for Sep.
Waiting for the grant of probate to proceed which looks to be 16 weeks minimum.
Mortgage offer expires at the end of Nov so not sure what I’m going to do after that. There isn’t anything else in the area so probably just reapply for another mortgage and play the waiting game