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

@Littletreefrog our buyers had their level 2 survey done on our house yesterday. I asked the chap before he left and he said it would be with them the beginning of next week. I'm not sure if that's standard?

Thank you, our survey was done yesterday as well so I won't chase him until beginning or next week.

Do they mention an SLA on their website? When I was loooking at surveyors some said they’d get a report within 5 working days, others it was more like 10.

Nope no mention on the website he is a one man band who has a great reputation locally but his website leaves a lot to be desired.

Glad some of you have movement and manifesting movement for the rest!

I'm completing Friday and have to buy every single stick of furniture from scratch, as well as travel 90 mins each way to paint and take in all the deliveries. My blood pressure can't take it!

@Littletreefrog we got ours the next day, and also got a call on the day of for him to give us an overview. But we paid a bit more to go with the local recommended people rather than the cheapest quote so maybe this is a factor too?

@Littletreefrog Thank you for the info, That's good to hear it is likely to be in October. I have a mortgage offer in place from a mortgage broker, however I am haggling between a bank I contacted directly, and the mortgage broker. I contacted them both simultaneously not sure what the bank was to offer at the time, the rate the bank offered was higher than the mortgage broker. However the bank has contacted me now with a cheaper rate. Trying to get the cheapest rate before I completion. All banks appear to be reducing their mortgage rates.

Nice that the bank contact you @RightStuff . For our mortgage we have to keep an eye on the rates ourselves and then call up and amend the application. Needless to say I will be keeping an eye on the rates until about 2 weeks before exchange!

@TheEnglishSystemSucks The mortgage advisor at the bank has contact me with once a week with new rates and the illustration. However I would need to send in them the necessary information to seal the deal with their underwriter. Not sure I want to go with them though waiting for my mortgage broker to get back from holiday and see if they can get me a lower rate via the same bank they got my initial mortgage offer from,.

I might be wrong but that doesn't sound like the mortgage offer the solicitor wants in terms of progressing your purchase so I may have been hasty in saying end of October was realistic.

Hopefully some else will come along with more knowledge but sounds more like the offers you are getting are basically agreements in principle. The mortgage offer your solicitor will want in order to progress your purchase can only be received after it has gone to the underwriters I think.

Can I join? FTB, shared ownership. Searches paid for, valuation done, various forms filled in. Employer should have completed work reference today. What else should I expect and how close are we to exchanging? Company selling the houses thinks could be w/c 2nd September, financial adviser says can't see there being anything else to hold it up. I'm still nervous we might not get the mortgage, they've been so picky about paperwork!

The enquiries allowed us down with our s/o house. The HA's solicitor took 4 weeks to respond. There was also an issue with the plan which needed amending. They took forever over that!

You need to ask your solicitor how close you are to exchange, to see where they're up to. You can always chivvy the HA if they tell you that the solicitor is being slow.

I posted on the previous thread not realising this was the most recent one.
My buyers have pulled out after wanting 7k off because the survey came back to say the chimney had vegetation, some wall ties needed replacing and some plastering work.
We has offered 1k even though none of the work was urgent it was just recommended and that was the quote we had.
So back to square one and don't know what the sellers for out dream home will say now.

@Nevergonnamoveagain oh no, so sorry to hear that - we also had the same thing with our buyers wanting to pull out. Did you have an onward purchase secured?

Sorry to hear that @Nevergonnamoveagain I'm anxiously waiting for a call after our buyers had their survey done earlier this week.
I reckon the roof will have been flagged as a problem - it's never leaked or anything but to my knowledge it's the original one and the house was built in 1930. Also our decking is a bit crap but I reckon the buyers will have noticed that anyway.
Luckily we have got a bit of wiggle room because they offered full asking price and we had been considering reducing before we got their offer so we can afford to knock a bit off if they ask to. I'm more worried they might pull out (irrationally worried because I'm not actually aware of any problems. I'm just a bit of a panicker)
Anyway I guess worrying won't help and I just need to try and keep calm and see what happens.
I think we've found our onwards purchase though. Going back for a second viewing on Saturday and hopefully will be putting an offer in straight afterwards.

Hiya! We were meant to exchange yesterday, everyone in the chain of 4 gave approval but it was too late in the day to get it done…. So we go again today! Does anyone know how long the it roughly takes?

Yes we'd secured an towards purchase @fujiwisteria , God knows whatll happen with that now.
@0hshutupshirley hopefully it goes well for you.
I now understand why moving is thr most stressful thing on the planet!
Our estate agent tried to explain to the buyer that the survey hadn't flagged anything as urgent and obviously they have to cover their backs, but she's not listening and good luck to her finding another house in this area.

@Nevergonnamoveagain gosh your situation sounds exactly the same as ours. They also pulled out due to a few roof tiles that had slipped, our estate agent said that we were willing to negotiate as a local roofer had given an estimation of costs that were negligible, but they wouldn't even entertain it! Our house is over 100 years old as well so it's expected to have some faults. Luckily our onward purchase is happy to wait but they do want us to find a buyer asap... I'm really hoping your buyers will wait for you too. Have you listed your house back on the market?

Exchange is a 5 minute (tops!) phone call. They agree the method they're using and confirm exchange. They'll then date their respective contracts. And that's that!

@NoWordForFluffy oh wow super quick then! I wonder why it couldn’t happen yesterday then… they had a 2 hour window. The wait continues!

We are asking our sellers today if they will consider purchasing the freehold of their house. I don’t really want to go ahead anymore but my partner wants to see what they say before making a decision. Even if they did buy the freehold for us to progress the sale, it’s going to add another few months onto the process. Cannot believe how complicated our no chain purchase is becoming.

Could I have your experiences with estate agents? Ours is frankly awful and we only signed with them on Saturday. So far:

1. I've repeatedly asked them to copy my partner on emails and they've yet to do it once
2. They asked me to let another agent who will do the viewings to see the flat so I told them yes and said I was in all day Tuesday. Got no response and nobody turned up
3. They told us they'd do an open day on Saturday - off market - so far they've confirmed there is one viewing.
4. I asked for a copy of the contract to be sent to me - it hasn't been.

Is this the norm?

How many viewings should you expect off market and then how many viewings is 'good' once it's on Rightmove?

Can you tell them you don't like the photos / descriptions given before things go on Rightmove?

Can I join? Been watching this thread for ages but never thought to actually post! Does anyone know roughly how long to exchange when receiving the title report back? It's been 16 weeks since we accepted an offer to FTB and reserving our new build. New build wanted us to exchange in June (was never going to happen 😂) and we're only just now getting the title report sent to us today/tomorrow from the solicitors (even though searches came back 2 months ago for both sale & purchase! It's been 7 weeks of waiting/answering enquiries on a freehold house for both sale & purchase!). Our new build is on track for completion in a month but I'm just so worried I'm so close to exchange but the buyers can still pull out until then! 😬

Sent our money today to our solicitor. We were hoping to exchange tomorrow but now seems the buyer's money isn't quite with their solicitor yet and as they're an overseas buyer it might not all be there tomorrow!
So we still can't firmly book a removals for Friday 30th... despite most of them now being booked up on that date. Waiting to get removals sorted is now causing me more stress than the actual exchange!

I would book anyway if you have the option to change it. We were supposed to complete in the 29th but had to be moved to the 3rd sept because vender couldn't book the removals - they were all fully booked. Good luck!