It’s ye olde buyers/sellers waiting room continued thread…

[ibelieveinmirrorballs]

The nail-biting wait continues….

Thanks all it's been brutal but we've stuck with it as we desperately need the space and to be away from noisy neighbours!

Good luck today @MercyNursey hope all goes smoothly

Happy completion day @MercyNursey and @Brotherlove . Good luck and hope everything goes smoothly today. @onthefence23 bloody hell, what a nightmare, well done for keeping your sanity through it all and sticking. I agree you deserve to be first across the post! Will keep everything crossed for you.

Just checking in from our new home! We moved Friday and omg what a stressful day! So so glad we had movers as there’s no chance we would have made it on our own. Been so busy trying to unpack and clean. The people who lived here before were definitely not house proud 🤢 But I’m so glad excited to be in our new home and start changing it to how we want to.
Most of the solicitor/chain stress is now starting to seem like it was already a while ago so hang on in there!

@Rapunzel91 yaay so pleased for you! We will definitely get packers and movers when it's our time. I am glad the stress is starting to feel distant now.

Hope you have a lovely first Christmas in your new home.

We’re all packed just loading the van still waiting for the call. Although DP didn’t get the van size I told him too so it’s not all going to fit in 🙈 he’s insisting we can just do several trips, I’ve told him that that’s not possible as once we complete the house isn’t ours and we’ll need to drop the keys in so the new owner can come but he is saying it’ll be fine 🙄. So I’m staying well out of it. 🤞🏻 we hear soon. His 3 brothers have come to help so at least we have a few more hands

@MercyNursey

We have completed and have the keys!!! Does not feel real. Our house is still not empty DP has just gone back for the third lot of stuff, I told him this would
happen 😬

Congrats @MercyNursey!!! Hope you get everything moved over soon

Thank you so much! It’s only a few bits left now but I feel terrible for the buyer who’s waiting. He’s a FTB and we’ve left lots of stuff (for free, we asked him if he wanted it) so that might soften the blow

I'm also in 🏡...I'm exhausted! Kids asleep after a very long day.

@onthefence23 to give you hope -
I first sold my house in October 2022...the house I was buying fell through for random legal reasons....looked for and couldn't find anywhere.
May 23 my buyers pulled out.
Aug 23 I found my house - and my former buyers re offered on mine.
Dec 23 - we are in 🙂

Pulling up a chair as nearly 5 weeks in to the dreaded wait. Short chain of our buyers being cash and the house we are moving to being chain free.

unfortunately we’ve got an issue that’s come up with our sale which will take a little while to sort and I’m lying here wide awake thinking it’s just all going to fall through!

we went under offer in May of this year, only found our onward purchase in November, so everyone very keen to move.

Thanks @Brotherlove feeling optimistic for Jan... or at the very least February!!

@MercyNursey how did it all go in the end? This is my nightmare that we won't get it out in time.

Hi everyone! I'm in the process of buying a leasehold flat, and my solicitor has just been informed that the freeholder requires that I provide them with (hard copies, no less) of

• A letter from my bank confirming that I will be able to meet the service charge
• A reference letter from an acquaintance I've known for at least three years
• References from any landlords I've had in the past three years

As evidence that I'll be a 'good resident and neighbour'. And I have to pay them £100 for the privilege of reviewing these.

I'm totally new to all this, but is this not a bit...extreme? There's no way my bank will provide that letter, so apparently I can swap it for a general letter confirming I've an account with them and three months of bank statements - but I'm not sure I feel comfortable sharing my bank statements with some random person at the management company, especially given that I've had to provide evidence I can afford the service charges as part of the mortgage application. I've been renting in London; I've had at least 3 landlords in the past 3 years, all of whom are a nightmare to get hold of and I can't imagine will be too willing to respond over the holiday season (and the sellers are super keen to move but I've only been informed of the above now).

Can anyone shed any light on whether this is normal? It probably is and I'll just have to suck it up, but I am feeling a bit miffed...

Congratulations @Brotherlove !

@tangerinesegment If a freeholder's consent is required to a sale, they are allowed to attach conditions to that consent and the documents you've been asked to provide aren't completely out of the ordinary (although very annoying and query the actual value of them!) This article sets out similar conditions.

Query though whether you should be paying costs associated with having these reviewed - I'd argue that if this is a consent which the seller would need to sell this property to anyone then the cost should really be for them to pick up. That said, you may feel it's not worth the fight...

@onthefence23 oh my goodness!! You deserve a medal for getting through all that.

Well the estate agent has done photos this morning.. DH and I nearly came to blows over how to arrange the books on the savagely decluttered bookshelf 🫠 and the dishwasher is crammed with a mix of clean and dirty because SOMEONE thought it would be easier than putting the clean away first... 🥲 he's off to his Xmas party tonight and suffice to say I will be putting a duvet on the sofa for him!!

BUT it is all positive.. the house is immaculate (and strangely echoey) and I am pretty sure the photos will look great based on the agent's other listings...!!!

Roll on the Christmas chaos to make it all cluttered again 😆

Hello new thread.

We are still on for completion 12th Jan. Looking forward to getting in. Will have a month of paying both rent and mortgage which stings, but the vendor was kind to accept a decent gap between exchange and completion.

Hoping everyone manages to get a bit of a rest at Christmas 🎄

Survey has come back, faster than I thought! All very cautious advice, as you would expect, but nothing terrifying or awful. Whew.

We just need the lenders to be happy with our agreed price and we're golden.

Hey! Just thought I’d pop on to say my goodbyes! We are in, a long and busy day, especially with a baby in tow!! Feels surreal. Also feels like we are living in someone else’s home (our previous houses were new builds so different situation!).

Now I’ll probably go and find some threads on buyers remorse as I have the typical feeling of oh my god, there’s so many jobs to do here, how will we do it all? Is this home?? Why did we buy it??

I already have been loving it; but it is a project house (totally liveable), and it’s complete chaos atm with boxes…

Good luck with the unpacking / house, @Ellswells3.

We're down to about 10 boxes to unpack, then a few more jobs with curtains / blinds / towel rings etc to sort. We're fully-Christmas'd now too, thankfully! 🎄 🎅🏻

@NoWordForFluffy whoop! The boxes here are madness, I’m on a mission to at least get them organised so the things we don’t need now aren’t in the way - that way we can get Christmassy x

@tangerinesegment I’d speak to your solicitor and see how you can reasonably push back a bit and negotiate into giving things you feel are of value and that you feel comfortable with. I can see from their perspective mortgage affordability checks are one thing but the service charge is another. I hope you are also pushing for lots of evidence as to previous annual service charge costs and assurance that costs will not appreciate beyond inflation, and what the process is for agreeing large outlays for maintenance. I once lived in a large Georgian building separated into flats and the freeholder would announce he wanted to do external renovations and then terrify us by appending a quote for some ludicrous amount - but we had the right to respond and query before anything went ahead.

Congrats @Ellswells3 and here’s to a lovely Christmas in your new home!

Hi all. We’re currently in a rental after having to complete on our sale. Our first purchase fell through and we’re hoping second will exchange in Jan but it’s SOooo frustrating the solicitors are closed for TWO WEEKs! Aghhhh. Is that normal?

Having lined up our internet installation for the day after we complete (in January), I've just had a text from OpenReach to say they're doing works to prepare for the installation this morning and they'll be attaching a box to the outside of the property?! Had to ring them and tell them under no circumstances should they append a box to the wall of a house which we do not legally own yet!