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

@kkate73 I frequently feel like I'm losing my mind at the moment. I hate having to rely on other people at the best of times but relying on a total stranger who happens to be buying my house, for me to be able to move on with my life it just took much.

@Purplepepsi Same!! It's such a long drawn out process aswell with the potential for it to go wrong at any point, I just constantly feel stressed at the moment! I hate having to speak to anyone on the phone as my patience levels are so low right now!

Can I join? Our house is on the market and we have had an offer accepted on out new home. We re lucky in that we can move before selling our house but would need to sell fairly quickly as the budget for having 2 homes at once will not last long.

Can I join?

Buying as a FTB due to divorce. Offered (and had it accepted) on a house a week last Saturday

Solicitors asking me for more proof of funds then my mortgage company asked for.

Survey being done today.

I'm already bored of waiting.

Hi new to the thread.
We have very little idea how to sell a house. Last time was 30 years ago and we've lived overseas since then.
However selling FiL's house. He passed away in April. We have the inheritance tax code and probate was applied for two weeks ago. The house was put up for sale at the same time.
There has been 15 viewings. Too much work for quite a few people. A few very low offers. Yesterday we spoke with the estate agent as an offer had been made at a price we were prepared to accept. He said he would speak to the people who made the offer to see if there was any wiggle room. He also called the people who'd made an ok (but we didn't accept) offer.
So we are fortunate we will accept the higher offer this morning. There is no chain. The solicitor is the same practice as the probate (and they were excellent) so hoping that goes well.
I'm reading all the posts avidly hoping for the best for everyone and learning a lot. My mind is blown at the timings, people talking of hopeful for Christmas. Why so long? It's ridiculous.

I can't believe how much solicitor is charging to do conveyancing compared to three years ago. We used this solicitor before and he was really good but the costs have skyrocketed! I can't be bothered to shop around so my own fault really

As you only applied for probate 2 weeks ago, you are very lucky to have found a buyer willing to wait and the timings for this sale will most likely be determined on how long it takes to achieve probate.

In the UK it appears that this could be anytime between 6 to 20 weeks plus. But hopefully yours will be in the much sooner bracket!

Fingers crossed for a speedy sale. We are currently on week 14 of a very small chain of two houses and 4 parties. No mortgages involved and all freehold. It’s all rather maddening!

Can't believe it either! We had a quote last year when first on the market for £600 for sols fee on the purchase (not including all the other things they charge for) - then had to get an updated quote when things finally started going through 10 months later £1300!!!! We managed to negotiate to £1000, but still.

They said they had increased their prices in line with everyone else basically. I wonder if there aren't enough sales/purchases going through so they are having to bump up the prices to keep profitable.

Another day of waiting for this promised exchange date. Might have to see if my solicitor will actually answer the phone.

@Housebuying101 yes we are lucky. However we are using a specialist private solicitor and she has completed quite a few this year and suggests that whilst gov.uk say 6-16 weeks her applications have all been coming back in 6-8 weeks. Her thoughts are the system has begun to speed up. Obviously reading here on MN where someone has been waiting 2 years there is potential for issues. But the estate agent and the solicitor seem happy. Reading on here I knew that people were struggling in all parts of the chain due to probate so we did hold back until we had officially applied. So we are 2.5 weeks in and just accepted the offer today. Hopefully we will get probate before the sale is ready to go through. Fingers crossed.

Managed to speak to my solicitor... had no idea my sellers enquiries were done and didn't receive my paperwork with contracts etc. So I'm having to leave work early and schlep over to the other side of London to hand deliver new copies. Sigh.

I'm exhausted. Exchanged a month ago with a completion date for the start of September. My vendors insisted on the early exchange and threatened to pull out, so I agreed to the exchange on the condition that we complete in the first week of September (vendors wanted late September/early Oct after initially promising they would be ready by July).

Have asked to go in and take measurements in the kitchen so I can order my white goods but vendors have said no because it's the summer holiday and their DC will be at home. Guess I'll be living off takeaway for my first couple of weeks in the house.

Can't wait for this to be over.

I think I'm going to have a heart attack!

Left work and cycled the half hour to my solicitors to drop the replacement paperwork. Estate agent calls just as I get off the bike saying they want to exchange today!

Dropped the paperwork off and told the receptionist the importance of it, got a blank stare.

Emailed solicitor - nothing back yet.

Messaged estate agent - nothing back yet.

Been an hour since the phone call and I've had to take myself for a couple of glasses of wine before I have some sort of aneurysm.

@CleanShirt good luck. Fingers crossed.

We were meant to exchange today, but the whole chain is waiting for our buyers at the bottom of the chain. Funnily enough, they were the ones who wanted the earliest completion date, yet their solicitor hadn’t confirmed receipt of their signed contract! So infuriating!

They should invent a chain portal that everyone in the whole chain can see. Then everyone would know what their next steps are, what is being waited on and estimated turnaround times. It could be RAG rated to show where the holdup is!

There is understandably a lot of work involved in transferring property, but half the stress is not knowing what’s going on two transactions removed from yours.

It would save so much time and frustration as most of what comes back from the solicitors or agents is Chinese whispers half the time!

Great idea the only problem is it would only be as good as the people populating it with info and they would be the same people who can't keep us updated as it is.

My solicitor has an app where I am supposed to be able to track progress it hs never once been updated with the progress

My son's lawyers had a portal where everything that was sent for his sale and purchase (two different files) went directly to the portal so he occasionally saw correspondence from the other lawyers before his own lawyer did. He was then able to respond without being asked. It was an amazing system. It also meant we could find documents easily because everything was stored on there. His lawyers were amazing - would recommend them to everyone!

Sounds very similar to the company I'm using - they're great! Where abouts are yours based as I wonder if it's the same company?

They are in Woking (nowhere near where he was buying!)

Ah ok, ours are Northampton (nowhere near also ha!) so not the same - but the ones who have the trackable portals (and regularly update them) are great. Clearly they all have a long way to go to streamline the whole process, but this helps a little.

This is true but then at least everyone in the chain could see who the problem was 😂

I’m hoping to exchange next week, though my buyers have just had a structural survey done as they were a bit twitchy over the loft conversion- watch them pull out now 🙈 we have the building certificate and everything 🤷‍♀️

Ive sent all my documents back today so I’ll be good to exchange.

I need to get home insurance to cover flooding apparently- can anyone recommend anyone? It’s a bit annoying as the Groundsure report said flooding was a moderate risk but the environmental agency said low risk! It’s nowhere near water either!!

I recently asked how long it takes for a 'spot check' on a mortgage application.
Turns out they've declined the mortgage. Does anyone know How long it takes if they resubmit a mortgage app through a broker until it's approved.
Asking for my daughter who was due to exchange and complete next week and someone at the bottom of chain has had this happen.

Sad news everyone - so close to exchange and our buyers have pulled out due to their survey on our house. Apparently the roof is a major red flag and would cost £50k to fix! I call BS as it's a terraced Victorian house and 50k is an insane amount of money!