The all new buyers/sellers waiting room (continued) thread

[sweetpickle2]

New thread!

Oh pooh! Broker told me that lender will put my application on hold till I can send my Apr payslip as it will have a specific work payment they need evidence of. That's the last thing they need so would get my offer after that. Or I could slightly modify terms of my mortgage which would mean a £70 extra each month BUT get the offer this week. Part of me just wants to be done with it and change the mortgage terms so it's one less thing to worry about. But DP is sensible and points out we haven't even done searches yet which takes a few weeks so rushing the mortgage for no reason won't speed things up. I just worry that anything could change for the lender between now and then, don't know if just locking an offer now is better than waiting to save a few '000 over 5 yr fixed term...

Our solicitor wants us to start searches only after the mortgage offer but I think I'll ask her to start them once Ive seen they survey report, hopefully next week. Since our mortgage offer is on hold for a few weeks anyway. As don't want seller to think we are dragging our feet or getting gazumped by cash buyer.

Surveyor has been and gone, so hoping to see his report soon. Agent said he'd been there for a good few hours which I guess means he's thorough? It's only a level 2 and a small terraced house. We know the current owner's dad has lived there for the last 40 years so no doubt things will be old and need repairs. But it looked well maintained and homely so I'm hoping there isn't a major problem with damp or roof timbers, subsidence etc. We can deal with most other things as already factored it into price.

Finally got through my solicitor and went through the boundaries and queries with her. It mostly looked fine, and has planning permissions for the extension which is good. Seller is abroad but has been responsive as have his solicitors.

There really should be something to try and prevent gazumping people, fingers crossed for you

I spoke to the managing agent again this morning and she said the roof repairs need to happen because there's been a leak in a top floor flat, she did give a rough quote of between £5-10K+ and said it could be much less for the works that need doing on the property. She said she tried to do them last year but tenants resisted, so she is definitely doing them this year and I wonder if that's why the Landlord is selling

Ah, maybe the landlord is worried she won't get tenants in because of the inconvenience or they will stop the repair work which could cause problems to the property later on/invalidate her insurance? I guess if you don't mind the cost and any inconvenience, it could be a good deal (would definitely reduce price of the roof works if it wasn't already factored in).

I have to say I didn't realise tenants could stop major works! Thought it was the decision of the leaseholder alone as it's their mortgage and insurance that would be affected. In my block, tenants wouldn't get a say unless it was cosmetic/non essential - but leaky roof is pretty essential.

I'm waiting for my surveyors report which was done last Thursday. They said 5 days so expecting it any day now. It's a 1930's semi so I'm hoping nothing major comes up.

I'm hoping searches have now started too after I paid an initial £350 to my solicitor on Friday.

Surveyor (& trainee) have just left. They have been here for 2 hours so quite thorough. We're in a relatively new property (20 years old) so I can't see there being any problems. I did ask her but she was cagey and said "just general maintenance " which I suppose is ok.

May ring my solicitor toward the end of next week just to see where we are. Then we're away for 2 weeks but contactable.

Hoping when we're back on the 8th April things will start moving. We'll be 8 weeks along by then.

Congratulations to everyone that has exchanged and moved.

It's called a section 20 if there's a little pushback they can re-look at things. I think it's just scary knowing I might have to pay for a new roof plus other planned works (5-10k) plus a new kitchen plus a new bathroom (20k) and the survey report could crop up even more things
The fact that the seller hasn't been honest about any of this has also irritated me my gut is telling me to pull out so I'm going to let myself think on it for one hour and then come back to work.

edit: to be clear they stopped other planned work not the leaky roof the leaky roof has just happened. I can't get building insurance on the property on the leasehold that is included in the service charge. I would get contents insurance, but I don't need buildings insurance.

No news here, but just a tip which may be of help... If you set up a property alert (either on your own home or the one you are buying) with the Land Registry, you get a notification email when searches are conducted, or any other activity related to the property, such as a mortgage being taken out. I already had an alert on my house, so I knew when the searches happened. I'm not sure how quickly the notifications are sent, but the timing was consistent with them being done more or less straight away after I accepted an offer on two occasions.

Thanks for this

Having just sold a flat with upcoming major roof works @MotherOfRatios (I can finally say that!!) I may be able to shed some more specific light on your issue...

In our building certainly, they tried to do the works a few years back but were unable to collect money from everyone. The live in leaseholders (like myself) paid up, but the landlord leaseholders didn't. The tenants had no say in this- and indeed were keen for works to be done so the roof would be fixed.

A section 20 just requires the freeholder/managing agent to obtain at least 2 quotes, they then get to decide who they go with. Even the leaseholders don't get to push back on it (believe me!) so I highly doubt tenants would be able to.

I'm not saying you're being fibbed to, but I wouldn't trust my managing agent as far as I can throw him so maybe don't just take what she says at face value- you're only hearing one side of the story! If she's currently got a landlord who won't pay up for her share, it makes sense that she'd rather encourage someone new to come in who will stump up.

She wasn't encouraging me to pay and that she said to me if I wish you, I would walk away from the property because of all of the repair work scheduled on the block of flats, it's a new roof, plus installation of cctv and a new intercom system.

inside the flat it needs a new kitchen, bathroom and flooring. As a sole buyer it's looking like £40k of work and I don't have that money

If the managing agent is telling you to walk away then there's your answer!

Yikes! That sounds £££ and stressful if even your managing agent is warning you against it. You'd have to be someone who really enjoys (and has the money/time) renovating to be excited about the purchase.

Congrats to all those that have exchanged this week @sweetpickle2 @PC96

We are due to exchange tomorrow, with completion on Friday, 22nd. Finally found a removals company! We’ve been told if we don’t exchange tomorrow we can’t complete on the 22nd as a couple of the properties in the chain require 6 working days notice between exchange and completion. If we don’t complete on Friday, 22nd the chain will fall apart so slightly nerve wracking! 😬

This is all very stressful I am not patient enough!

Heard nothing this week. I doubt we will be moving the first week of April. I will chase again next week. Our buyers have only had their enquiries from their buyers recently apparently.

Congratulations to everyone that has got past the line!

Fantastic news for @sweetpickle2 @PC96
I went to the sellers EA yesterday to try to find out what this delay is about. It seems to be the leasehold on the childs purchase. Most of the terrace houses around here are on a 999 year lease with a peppercorn rent - my DPs is 97p a year. A lot of leaseholders don't even bother to collect or are even known, which maybe the sticking point. The property is vacant, so why didn't the seller sort this months ago? Given statute of limitations should apply the worst that can happen is a demand for a few quid in back rent. There's no mortgage involved so they could just sort it after purchase.

When I said I as a buyer I had little leverage given the child's attitude they made it clear that they wanted this sale and the mother and childs onward purchases sorted and that the boss has no difficulty using robust language. Let's hope so. I'm feeling lost in limbo currently.

I hope it's okay for me to join!

Offer accepted on our house on the 15th February.
Offer accepted on our onward purchase on the 19th February.

Our purchase is progressing well and our vendors seem to be on the ball with everything. They are buying a chain free property and our buyers are cash purchasers, so there are 3 properties in the chain. However, we received an email from our solicitor last week that our buyer has decided to change solicitors so they have had to send all the documents to the new solicitor!

Survey has been done on our purchase today so hopefully all is well on that front! We are now at the searches and enquiries stage so I'm not sure how long all of that will take!

This is our first time selling and buying and we're so stressed about it all! Trying to tie everything together can get overwhelming!

Really daft question but with exchange happening tomorrow, it has been like getting blood out of a stone as to whether we need to transfer any funds for the deposit. I’m assuming that we can use the 10% deposit for our property and top that figure up to 10% for our purchase … therefore transfer the shortfall. Is that right?

I've asked the question about 5 times over the last few days/weeks and I’m not getting an answer. My solicitor has just come back to me to say she’s not sure how much deposit our purchasers are making … surely she’s aware of that? can anyone shed some light on what they have done?!

@MrsB94 similar time frame to us.

Offer accepted on 14th Feb and onward purchase on the same day.

Surveys on both sale and purchase are now both done and I've had an email this afternoon saying that searches are underway on my purchase. Still not seen the survey report yet though.

We're also in the middle of a chain of three. Hoping to move early to mid May all being well.

Welcome @MrsB94 I am also in the enquiries stage. Been here 9 weeks but our buyers solicitors keep drip feeding enquiries that could have been sent weeks ago. It's been such a slog so far and exchange is still not in sight 😩

This stage just seems to be really slow. Fingers crossed it goes quickly for you!

@newbeliever I raised this with our solicitor as we don't have additional funds to top up to 10% and we have no idea what we're getting from our buyer either. The deposit moves up the chain, from what I've been told it's usually only the first time buyer that transfers the deposit. We had to sign something saying we'd allow our solicitor to negotiate the exchange deposit on our behalf but it could be less than 10%.

@newbeliever I've also asked several friends who've moved this year whether they topped up their exchange deposit and none of them did. The deposit just moved up the chain. If your buyer pulls out after exchange and hadn't paid a 10% deposit they'd still be liable to pay you the 10% is my understanding.

Thank you @Mrscharlieeeee it’s been almost 28 years since we last moved, I keep thinking surely if it’s urgent someone would say. We are the last few properties in a long chain of 8 so assume the deposit must be moving up from the first property as you say. Rather unusually the first property is £970k so I guess the people buying that are then covering the deposit for the rest of us as it moves up the chain??

If it’s anything like ours, it went from deadly slow to suddenly panic stations! No hint at all that we would suddenly be trying to exchange in less than a week and complete a week later, completely caught us off guard. Finding removals has been a nightmare. With benefit of hindsight, we should have pressed a bit more for a completion date, we were the last to find out as 5 properties in the chain are all with the same agent apart from us.

We went under offer just before Christmas but no one did anything until the new year. So I would say 9 weeks of quiet until suddenly we need to exchange and then complete before the end of March!