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

[MovingToPlan]

The previous thread is almost full! We've had lots of completions, exchanges, offers accepted, maddening conveyancing teams, strange requests, and worries to last a lifetime. Welcome welcome.

Catch up here: The all new buyers/sellers waiting room (continued) thread

My update is that everything seems to be lining up and we're looking at exchange next week. 🤞 Hoping to complete a few weeks after that.

Good luck to you, whatever stage you're at in the process.

Congrats @KatVal I can't believe how efficient you were! I imagine we will live in boxes for months!

@Wobblyhousebuyer @sugarbyebye
thanks both, maybe I’m being impatient! I’ll leave it another week or two and give them a chase to see where we are at!

So they do searches and then the buyers solicitor sends enquiries to the sellers, there’s usually a bit of back and forth regarding the enquiries. This state can be quick or can go on for ages, particularly if there are any issues.
then when the enquiries are completed and the buyers solicitor is satisfied, and the buyer is satisfied, then you can plan for exchange of contracts. Once you’ve exchanged you can’t back out without consequences and loss of money. When you exchange you agree a completion date, if in a chain it’s the same day throughout the chain, and on completion day is when the full funds are exchanged and you get the keys and move!

@Turniptracker congratulations

Hope you've slept well

Feeling a bit deflated today. My vendor apparently did get the draft contract May 20th but that’s over a month after sale was agreed on his onward purchase! That is so slow when I’m sure you can get it within a week. How is he not chasing this and asking questions of his solicitor? There are still enquiries outstanding on his part and now my solicitor says she’s got more from my buyers😩 even though she sent through the ones from the survey, so worried there’s something difficult there.
Solicitor won’t even entertain asking the others in the chain ⛓️‍💥if they’ll aim to exchange in July though my EA says they all know.
Anyone else feel like they’re the only one in the chain pushing and giving a s* about when we move?!
sorry, just a bit frustrated by it all

Thank you @Sunnyday89

This is how it’s going on our sale (chain of 3). We’ve had no discussion about dates yet. There are still enquiries going back and forth and I’ve not seen anything from the searches yet. Until the enquiries start drying up and the searches come back it seems pointless to have any dates in mind as they’d likely just get moved. We’re 5.5 weeks on from the chain completing and it feels like everything is proceeding at the correct pace. I’ve not emailed my solicitor at all except to respond to enquiries. She usually sends one update per week if there’s anything to update (at 5pm on a Friday). The last update said she was informing my lender that the house we’re buying doesn’t have a builders warranty even though it’s a recent construction so that may add a delay. Who knows what the searches will throw up as it’s right next to a stream and is an old stables recently converted We’re not makes any plans or getting any removals quotes until a few more hurdles have been passed. I’m too superstitious!

@sugarbyebye I wish I had your patience! Our house sold mid Feb and I had my offer accepted a week later so at the bottom of the chain it feels like it’s been forever! Chain of six completed early April yet I’m not seeming urgency from anyone apart from me!
I’m a teacher so I’ve used this half term to start packing (I’d declutterred the last 6-12. Months since my husband left the marital home) and getting quotes just because if we don’t move on in the holidays I can only have 1 day off to move and I’m doing it all alone (2 teenagers may help but likely in bed most of the day 🙄), so I want to be ready. That does mean though that I’ve got another 8 weeks of waiting 😬😝

How often is too often to chase solicitors? On 14th May they said they would try and find out about this court order thing and get an idea of timescales for us, I chased her Friday and havent had a response yet. I know there was a bank holiday but its been nearly 2.5 weeks since she said she'd find out..

@runningmom if I was in your situation I would be the same. The bottom of our chain are at least a month ahead too so I imagine they're itching to move, although no kids in our chain at all and no real restrictions on move dates, so it's much easier. I think my stress levels are at a really high level at the moment anyway (someone mentioned starting their own business up further up the thread, I did that last summer and it's mega stressful, so I can't handle much more!). Trying to stop myself from going insane. Also, my partner is no help as it's my house I'm selling, we're buying together which is the easy bit, so all the stress is on me, and he never knows how to talk me down. I'm also still training and have loads of assignments due. Really regretting taking so much on at once!

Also this shitty weather is getting me down.

Another day, no exchange. We were told they are ready, then nothing again. If we don't exchange tomorrow, we're going to pull out and give up on moving for a few years. Infuriating situation.

Really sorry to hear @MovingToPlan I can't imagine how frustrating that is. Have they given any reason why they keep letting you down? Rather than pull out perhaps give an ultimatum. Exchange on x day or we are out. But you'll have to mean it. Wishing you the best of luck x

I'm so sorry to hear this it's so disappointing when it doesn't happen. We've been told our buyers buyer is still trying to resolve their mortgage issue. Our buyer even considered breaking the chain so we can complete tomorrow. Our solicitor told us at 16:30 after having to chase (he was on the phone to a client for an urgent matter, erm we have a moving van we've hired sitting on the drive ready to move TOMORROW?!) he informed us the buyers solicitors have now confirmed good to exchanged he said he will call me back as soon as he spoke to them. The call never came. My partner sent a shitty email to his boss who then informed us due to the buyers buyer not communicating it's highly likely completion will be set back. She said a break in the chain was discussed but didn't go any further. So why did our solicitor say they're ready to exchange?! It'll be another morning of naturally waking at 6am due to stress then on the phone first thing.

really sorry to hear this @MovingToPlan and @Buyingahouse2024 , that is really poor form.

There is just utter confusion on our vendor side of the chain, similar to you @Buyingahouse2024 . We are hearing different stories all the time, and the EA can't get through to the vendors either.

We've had an incredibly difficult family situation over the past 18 months, not to mention a sudden redundancy earlier this year, and I am genuinely feeling like I have nothing left in me to absorb the continued stress this is causing. We have schools to sort out, a 100-odd mile upheaval to adjust to, a huge lifestyle change. This isn't their fault of course, but I now feel there's just no sense of good faith from them. We've looked past some obvious lies they told about various things, nothing deal breaking but now we're reflecting on the amount of trust required to get a sale over the line and what little they've had with us has been squandered.

We really wanted this house, but at the moment it all feels tainted. Maybe this is just the way things work in a chain? Messages get garbled along the chain, people don't do what they said they did weeks prior, and it doesn't come to light until the committed date has been and gone... I wasn't bothered either way to exchange mid-May at first, but the vendors pushed and pushed for commitment and I saw the benefit to us, so agreed. And now this nonsense!

If we do manage to exchange I've got very little hope that completion day won't be a terrifying event somehow. I don't know if I can take it!

Crossing my fingers for you that you exchange today @MovingToPlan

The sense of relief when you exchange will be huge and then they will be committed to a definite date for completion.

@MovingToPlan I know exactly what you mean the excitement goes and it's just a dread of waiting all day for nothing to happen. I genuinely wondering if we have the same solicitors how they can just lie about different things is beyond me! We have one solicitor who works at the firm she starts replying to emails at 5am but then stops at 2pm so I've emailed her already to try and get some answers. It's just so bizzare how your vendors pushed for exchange now nothing I can never understand when your this far into it how people can start going silent.

Thanks @Twiglets1 - I am hoping we have that feeling soon.

That's a very similar pattern of working with our conveyancer @Buyingahouse2024 ! Are they based in York?

We are going to hang in there for now. It feels awful at the moment but losing that house after everything we've planned and prepared for would be worse. We can't be the ones to walk away.

Thanks for letting me vent here!

@MovingToPlan no ours are in Sheffield but I honestly would never recommend them. We live in Surrey so if this ever happens and then we decide to move again I will be using a local firm that I can just pop into if things are going south!

I think hanging in there is the best option it's so frustrating and sometimes by saying you're going to pull out it causes people to actually do their job but you've come so far it would be so disheartening and also a lot of money wasted.

I know this may be a little insensitive, but does anyone here have experience of divorce? So our seller hasn't disclosed any of the separation to the solicitors, and when i emailed the estate agent asking for clarity they replied with this

"We have to wait until the 26th June before we can apply for our conditional order. Once we have received the conditional order (hopefully mid-end July) we can then apply for a financial order, which is taking around 3-4 weeks at the moment. Ours is a simple case as we are amicable, the finances are agreed and I am still in touch with my husband, so I am hoping it will be the shorter end of each time scale, however this does depend on the courts. Until we have the financial order I am reluctant to exchange/complete as we won’t have the order to protect ourselves."

So I read that as we've got absolutely no hope of completion/exchange until at least end of August, and that's best case?

I'm livid, we told the estate agents from the start our tenancy expires mid August and we'd like to complete mid/end of July, and they just said that mid July realistically won't be possible but absolutely no mention that end of July won't happen or even that it's likely to be past the end date of our tenancy. They've known this timescale from the start (as the seller actually works at the estate agents!) and no one thought to tell us until i've asked!?

@AGirlsNameIsAryaStark so because they have a property together it gets a bit more complicated. When you apply for a divorce the court have to accept your divorce you then have to wait 20 weeks (it's almost like a cooling off period) then you can put in your conditional order this is where you set out who gets what. In a divorce where there's no shared assets it's really simple and you then have to wait 6 weeks for the divorce to be finalised. However, in this case it's clear they share the property so I'm not too sure how that works but sounds like they have to then put in another bit of paper work and the judge has to agree with the split. I'm so sorry this sounds really stressful divorce and house selling sounds like absolute hell. Sorry I couldn't be much more help than that.

I would start a contingency plan now, @AGirlsNameIsAryaStark - they may say they are amicable at this stage, but it could very easily go south and take ages for them to sort. They had no business selling a property before the finances were sorted from their divorce, it's beyond unreasonable of them. I'd be very frustrated in your position.

Yes I agree. There’s a lot of risk there. Can you extend your tenancy? I’d also start looking at other houses to give yourself some options. They have been pretty shady here, I think.

I just can't get my head around it, they've known those timescales from the start so why not be honest. We've proceeded at risk, paid for the survey and instructed solicitors all on the basis that things we're all in order and ready to go.

@sugarbyebye We're going to have to try, but i don't know how long we try and extend for? I'm guessing if we extended for a month and then miraculously they were ready before then we could always push back? FTB so have absolutely no idea about the processes!

@AGirlsNameIsAryaStark i know how you feel. We were in a very similar situation when we bought here. The exchange dates were agreed, we handed our tenancy notice in, then something higher up the chain went south, and it was all delayed by months. Our landlord already had another tenant lined up so we had to move out (with all our pets) into a really bad rental that we were very lucky to find!

can you move onto a rolling monthly contract? If I was renting I wouldn’t give notice until we’d actually exchanged, even though it ends up costing a bit more.