The all new buyers/sellers waiting room (continued x4) thread!

[TheEnglishSystemSucks]

As @fromtheshires is in their new abode, and we've almost filled up the last thread - hope people don't mind me starting a new one.

My situation: waiting on survey reports before enquires/searches can start - so expect i'll be here for all 40 pages.

Hope exchanges and completions come quickly for all and no-one has the christmas 'will we won't we'.

Old thread here: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/property/5105250-the-all-new-buyerssellers-waiting-room-continued-x3-thread?page=40

Eh? Do you need to use a particular solicitor that your lender chooses? We're not. Are you sure thats correct?

Some lenders will only work with solicitors on their panel or may work with others but charge you a fee to do so. Others lenders aren't bothered which solicitors you use.

I'm joining! I've had three valuations this week. I found a house I really like at the weekend. It's in another area about an hour away and I can't drive at the moment.

So it's a bit complicated, but it feels right and I'm really excited!

I have some crunching to do because I don't want to put all my cash into the place, but it is quite a bit more than my current one although I could get a bigger Mortgage as my LTV only about 30%.

Feels very scary doing this on my own for only the second time in my life and relocating at the same time!

Can I join too? We have recently had an offer accepted on our house and also our offer has been accepted on another. I'm just hoping everything works out okay as we live in a Victorian house and I hope our buyer has realistic expectations about the survey...

I too can't work out how long our chain is. Our buyer has a cash buyer and our vendors are moving into rental. Is that 3 or 4?!

To @justlurkingaway who was worried about offering on a first house. When we were looking for our first house, the first viewing we did was a lovely house. We didn't put an offer in as I thought I was over excited at seeing a house - in hindsight, it was the best we saw and I wish we had offered. Hopefully puts your mind at ease a bit if you were still concerned!

@kkate73 sending solidarity to you.
My solicitor is a nightmare. We offered on a house, accepted then 2 weeks later they took it off the market. My solicitor said' your lucky no costs incurred'
Fast forward a month and I get a bill for the buyers pack. I emailed and said what I'd been told and heard no more about it. Fast forward and we find another house. Pay £350 for searches and send copy of survey through. 2 weeks later my sale falls through. Everything on hold. Re sell again and notify them. Ask if searches have come back and whether enquiries raised on survey. Reply is 'please send £350 for searches and if you have had survey done send a copy' !
So asking for money and questioning if I've even had a survey done. She'd even acknowledged receipt when I sent her the bloody survey!
Refused to pay and resent survey. Took them another 11 days before they raised any enquiries.
Unfortunately I ended up having a blazing row with her on the phone over her incompetence, delays, and repeatedly not answering questions and general rudeness.
I am now communicating via my lovely estate agent who is also at the end of her tether with her.
I've also had bill from her showing incorrect price of house we're buying and a charge of £200 for dealing with the leasehold. The house is freehold.
God knows when this nightmare will end😢

Good luck to everyone moving today!!

We exchanged yesterday, due to complete today. 95% of the house is in storage and my diamond of a SIL came by yesterday and cleaned absolutely everything downstairs, my job this morning is cleaning upstairs! Feels so odd to be finally moving out. DH left for work this morning and I think it suddenly dawned on him we wouldn't ever be returning. Sad really, but we're selling for a reason!

Nothing ever goes to plan for us, and in last 36 hours our toilet seat (painted oak matching whole vanity) snapped in half. Then when moving, furniture fell into our fridge that we're leaving for the new sellers and broke the display. Luckily, DH is superman and drove to to the only place in the UK with this toilet seat in stock to replace it £100, eeeek!) And we have accidental cover via a care plan with currys in place for the fridge, though the soonest they can send someone round is September 4th. Hopefully the new buyers will be fine with this. We have contacted them to advise but haven't heard anything back. To be fair, the fridge is 6 year old and not in great shape, it's likely they'll get an entirely new fridge so hopefully that sweetens the deal! Hope everyone is progressing ok.

Congrats @Yemelade hope today goes smoothly.

@Yemelade oh no! Moving day is so stressful. I hope everything is. Clear from now on!

We're due to complete two.weeks from now and the dog has been sick on our carpet three times in two weeks. It stained each time. You couldn't make.it up.

After all the stress we had, we didn’t actually exchange until yesterday late afternoon. Our packers had taken most of our stuff away in the van so it was such a relief to finally find out we had. We’ve now officially completed so just waiting for the removals to finish off and waiting for our keys to new home. Good luck to everyone else completing today!

Mortgage valuation and building survey are two separate things. Some mortgage valuations are just done via desktop with no physical inspection and the valuation is for the lender’s benefit, not the borrowers. A valuation is very unlikely to reveal any structural defects or things that might bother a buyer, like a boiler needing to be upgraded.

Always get at least a basic building survey done.

Ask for details of the partner at the firm that handles complaints and make a formal complaint. That’s appalling service. If you aren’t satisfied with how they deal with your complaint then take it to the Legal Ombudsman. It’s conveyancers (I won’t say solicitor as it doesn’t sound like she’s qualified if her work is that poor) like this that give the profession a bad rep. Sorry for your awful experience!

Update from us is that there is no update still! Offer accepted by our seller a month ago and he’s still to drop the paperwork off to his solicitor. Almost forgetting about the whole thing as it’s taking so long. Agent is fairly useless and seems to have no impact at all.

Anyone else having a money laundering nightmare? My parents have very kindly lent us the deposit until we can sell our house and pay it back as we need to move and dont have an offer in our house yet.

Mortgage company were fine with this, just needed a form signing by my parents saying they wouldn't have an interest in the property.

Solicitors on the other hand have been a nightmare. They have had my parents ID, a letter from them, a form signed by them, bank statements showing where the funds have come from. But because the funds have come from a savings account they now want to know how the money got into the savings account. I.e bank statements for the source of funds not just showing it entering the savings account. They have suggested last 6 months current account statements. As you can imagine they haven't just saved enough for a house deposit in the last 7 months, it has been decades.

Do they actually need this or is this over the top?

Solicitors can get into a lot of trouble if they don't do their due diligence with money laundering but it does sound like quite an exercise.

@Littletreefrog we were in a similar situation with our daughter. Had to do all that you have but fortunately our money was from an inheritance. Still had to provide information from the solicitors dealing with trust that the funds came from.
I guess money laundering is a huge problem. I would explain that the funds are from savings accumulated over their lifetime and ask them what paper trail they require to illustrate this then get in touch with your parents bank and forward a copy of their email requesting the information and see what they can do.

@Champere looks like solicitor is the only director there from info on Companies house.
There is a complaints procedure which says if you're not comfortable speaking to the said solicitor just put your complaint in writing. No one else would see and deal with it.
I'm worried about raising anymore now with her as it might affect even more our sale/purchase.
Do I wait until we've moved?

I'm in the waiting room, I'm in a rented house and I'm buying a probate sale so no chain. Mortgage approved, actually just got a cheaper deal as my lender has dropped its rates twice since my initial application. Survey done, searches are back, just waiting on probate. I haven't been able to get a straight answer as to when the vendors applied for it although they said in July the forms had been submitted. I'm not in a big rush but would be nice to have a rough timescale. Hopefully I'll be in by Christmas!

Update today, vendor has confirmed that he will renegotiate but hasn't got a report on the floor joists (our survey said we needed one and vendor said he would do this but now just says a structural engineer has looked and everything is fine but nothing in writing...so obviously we are sceptical/unhappy). We are happy to pay for one but need to arrange access but unhappy about the delay this is going to cause. He should have told us weeks ago that he wasn't going to commission a proper report... estate agents have been on trying to convince us that they know the structural engineer and should trust it which seems crackers to me. Now waiting for vendor to confirm we can get access so we can book in the survey.

This is the last piece of the puzzle as once we agree new sale price we are v close to exchange. But the vendor has been such a nightmare, so far we've had: delayed memorandum of sale, told us "take out insurance in case I pull out", delayed paperwork to solicitor, told he was going to offer on another property, then he wasn't, then was, then wasn't. Uncontactable due to family bereavement (not sure if genuine), delayed survey by 3 weeks, threatened surveyor with legal action, threatened to pull out all together and said wouldn't negotiate, then said needed to check with ongoing purchase (meant to be no on going chain!), MIA for another week, now found out hasn't done joist report... If we exchange it will be a bloody miracle!

We've instructed the conveyancer! Still waiting on a DIP from a new lender, but the conveyancer can work with both potential lenders so all good.

Mildly terrifying, this whole process, but it will be worth it won't it? I've always known people say house buying is one of the most stressful things, but I didn't realise it would be this bad!!

Sorry that sounds a nightmare. I’d note everything down and then submit a complaint when you’ve completed and had any funds (if any) due to you returned to you.
If they’ve handled things this badly so far then there’s no guarantee a complaint to them now won’t scupper things.
The Legal Ombudsman won’t deal with your complaint until you’ve exhausted the firms internal complaints procedure.
Write it all down now, focus on getting the transaction complete, then submit a complaint afterwards would be my suggestion.

Thanks @Champere I'm logging everything and think that's the right course of action.

Anyone having an issue with share of freehold?

We had a problem with money laundering regulations. The bank manger asked where we had obtained the money. She said we needed our bank to provide a statement as to where the money had come from. DH said 'would you provide that for a customer?' She said no, so he said we will not be asking our bank for that information. We requested she put earnings over the last 40 years - therefore consider it accumulated wealth. That was the end of it.
Good luck.

We applied for probate for IHT In June and then Grant of Probate immediately we received the IHT code. Both IHT and GoP took exactly 4 weeks each. HTH.
The estate was close to the IHT threshold so I had anticipated it would take longer.

So...I'm selling my apt which is a share of freehold in a property comprised of 3 other flats. On the declaration of trust it has the previous owner of my flats name. We now have a Deed of assignment of equitable interest which is signed by her and I passing the share of freehold to me and then another which passes it from me to my buyer.

The buyer is not agreeable to this. She wants my name on the Declaration of trust even though the deed of assignment of equitable interest literally states that she will own the freehold once she signs.