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.

• completion

I’m new to this thread but we have exchanged today!!!

Our house went on the market back in February and we sold within a week to a cash buyer. This buyer messed us around for 8 weeks until we pulled out of the sale. We then lost our onward purchase and we sat on the market again with no interest for another 8 weeks.

We were so, so fed up of a few viewings here and there from people who weren’t serious, and the stress of the chain collapse had made us wary. We’d always said we would never buy a new build but we viewed one which had the part exchange incentive and we absolutely fell in love with the house…to our surprise!! We reserved on the 18th May and are due to complete on the 28th June. 6 weeks from reservation to completion!

It took so much stress from us and we’re really glad we went down the part exchange route.

My fingers are all crossed for you on this thread waiting to exchange and complete! It’s such a stressful process and I really hope something is done to change it soon!

@MrsB94 congratulations and glad it worked out in the end, and speedily!! Gives a bit of hope for me that ours might not take forever 🤞🏻

Hello everyone. We put our house on the market yesterday having lived here for almost 20 years. When we bought it was a new build and we were ftb so all very straight forward.
Now, I have no idea what I’m doing. Can someone explain to me what to expect, the different stages of the process and approximate timelines involved. The house we are hoping to move to will be another new build so that part should hopefully be straight forward.
Please help this novice out!
🌸

How often is too often to chase?

I have been called by the EA almost every day this week to chase our solicitors on when we will get our documents to sign and exchange. I have emailed 3 times this week and called this morning. When I called I was left on hold for 10mins to be told he was on the phone and I asked that he be given the message to respond to the email chain, or call me back, by end of day.

Itching to also send him an email this afternoon but worried I am being annoying too.

All we are waiting on is paperwork to sign. Vendors wanted to exchange this week. It seems they want to complete before end of the month which we are also ready to do if we could get documents to sign!

Make a nuisance of yourself. This is just their job, but this is your life. You owe them nothing but good manners.

Thank you for the reassurance.

They have been so reactive until now. If there is a hold up I'd rather know and I'm sure the vendors would too. They said they were finalising the report Monday morning and would send documents shortly. Since then, radio silence.

Surely you would want to get an easy case done and be paid!

@Unexpectedbaby honestly who cares if you annoy them? Solicitors are paid - by you!! - to do a job, they should be doing it.

I'm being too nice lol.

I have emailed them again and mentioned in the email that I had called this morning so at least there is a paper trail. If I hear nothing today I will find another, hopefully more senior, member of the team to loop in.

@Unexpectedbaby I hear your pain! I’ve just started putting read receipts on emails and my solicitor hasn’t even read the email sent at 09.00 yet. It was basically me being her line manager giving her a task list 🙄 of what needs doing!

Honestly it's ridiculous. My office job is no where near as important as this and I'd have been sacked if I was repeatedly as unresponsive as most of these people seem to be!

This is what I don't understand. How are they allowed to be SO crap? Why don't they get fired? Is it because all conveyancers are crap?

I presume it's because they have a lot of these emails coming through every day and their responses need to be thorough and accurate so they don't get sued? I have no idea how many cases they work with on a daily basis but my assumption is quite a few. I definitely feel like I am a small part of a big pile of cases and my conveyancer gets to me when it's my turn that day/week whatever. It helps me keep my demands in perspective.

If I was working through legal stuff I'd only be looking at my emails periodically as it takes quite a bit of concentration to check all these kind of docs.

But maybe I'm giving them too much leeway?

So, not heard back from the solicitor yet, but the mortgage broker has replied on the email chain asking if I have heard from him.

Apparently they are having issues with The Co-Op getting the mortgage offer over to the solicitor. A systems thing apparently. Because the solicitor could not have replied at any point this week just saying that.

I also didn't realise they hadn't had this yet as I received the mortgage offer through the post weeks ago and told the solicitor that I had.

I cannot wait until this is over.

Just been directed to this thread and it's good to find a big group of people also going through the shit show of buying and selling!!

We are under offer and have had an offer accepted on our potential new house.... but vendor is being sketchy telling us he won't move to rented, telling EA he will, he had an offer knocked back on house he wanted (2 weeks ago) since then been told he has had a bereavement. He hasn't sent papers to solicitors and isn't picking up the phone. Makes sense if he is bereaved but I have a nagging sense he is just stalling for time... we've said we won't do survey or checks until the chain is complete. Our morgage has been approved this week but downvalued the house by 30k.... and there's nothing else we like the look of on the market atm.

Meanwhile had to dig out all papers for our house today... saga of no building regs for some work we had done.... which i cant even bring myself to get into right now. Basically stressed to the max 24/7 at the moment which would feel worth it if I could allow myself the luxury of imagining being in the new house - but as I'm starting to think it isn't actually for sale anyway I'm not even going there!!!
Ah! Need to switch off my brain!

Vendor’s fuckwit solicitor strikes again.

The rest of the chain is ready for exchange.. but wait! There’s an issue with the title documents for our vendors purchase and they can’t possibly proceed until it’s sorted out and they can’t give us a time frame…

Solicitor will have known this from as soon as they had the title documents (my solicitor had them for my purchase within a week) but didn’t bother to tell anyone. This idiot was pressing for exchange by the end of this week!

Now I’m doubly pissed about having to take the indemnity (due to the same useless solicitor) and paying extra to expedite the rest of the process.

Been a busy week for me with work, as I've been on a course and having had my dog put to sleep so just catching up!

Yay @MovingToPlan you made it 🎉🎉

My buyers have come back asking for money off for cosmetic things after we refused to give them furniture they asked for 🤣. Absolute twats. They have been told to fuck off by me but I'm sure the estate agent will have phrased it along the lines of 'just because you don't like the peacock blue paint in the ensuite wont be grounds for money off I'm afraid'. She seems to think they have appeased them. We are basically in the vinegar strokes of the conveyancing.

So sorry to hear about your dog @fromtheshires - and good on you for telling the CFs where to go on the cosmetic discounts!

Oh @fromtheshires so sorry about your dog. 😞 Well done holding firm with your buyer's nonsense.

We had similar issues @TiredCatLady when we were ready to exchange, it's absolutely infuriating dealing with it. Hope the vendors sort it out ASAP.

I'm still keeping an eye on the thread and cheering everyone on. It shouldn't be such a saga to move house but here we are.

Anyone? 🙏🏻

https://hoa.org.uk/advice/guides-for-homeowners/i-am-buying/how-long-does-conveyancing-take/

is a really useful website

So many variations to house buying depending on your circumstances .....

When your offer is accepted you instruct a solicitor. You then notify the EA who your solicitor is and a memorandum of sale is issued.

Your EA and solicitor will ask you if you are having a mortgage etc to buy the property. They may ask for proof of funds for a deposit etc or if you're a cash buyer.

Then you instruct your solicitor to carry out searches on the property you're buying. Your mortgage company will send out a surveyor to check the valuation is correct. You may wish to have a structural survey carried out, there are different types which are more detailed and more expensive, if you're buying a new build there's probably no need.

Your solicitor will then begin enquiries where they ask questions about the property you're buying.

Once all enquiries have been satisfied, searches are back they will request the money from your mortgage company.

They will then discuss with you when to exchange, this is when it becomes legally binding. Contracts are then exchanged between the different solicitors.

Completion can happen anytime after exchange, it could be the same day or a week, 2 weeks later - this is when the money moves up the chain. Once completion happens (you will get a phone call to tell you) you can then collect your keys and move in.

That's a very brief summary.... other posters please add anything I've missed.

It can take anything from 6 weeks to months and months but I think the average is about 10-15 weeks.

Our sale took 13 weeks.

Thank you both so much, that’s a great summary @BG2015, I really don’t remember much about the process 20 years ago!
Appreciate the website recommendation @runningmom I’ll have a good read through this weekend
Wish I could just fast forward six months or so

We completed last Tuesday 🥰🤩🥳

official moving in day today - we have hired a van and we’re doing it all ourselves 🚛🏠