Enquires - please tell me if these are difficult or easy ones to answer?

[musictomyknees]

My solicitor has raised enquires today and sent me a copy, 14 in total 🙃

I'm a first time buyer so no idea if these are standard, easy questions to answer or difficult/complicated and I don't have anyone to ask. My seller has been pretty slow throughout so as you can imagine I'm worrying how long it will take for her to answer these questions. I was hoping to complete by the end of October but I have no idea if that's achievable and my solicitor also goes on holiday for 2 weeks soon and I have no idea if anyone will be covering my case.

Can anyone advise on the below questions?

1.	Please confirm the Seller has had sight of the restrictive covenants set out in the title register and that the same have been complied with/not breached. Please note that a response to the effect that ‘no notice of breach had been received’ is not acceptable.
2.	Please ask the seller to complete sections 13(b)(c)&(d), 18, 22.2, 22.3, 22.4, 22.5(b), 23.1, 24.2 of the Property Information Form (PIF) 1, 2, 3
3.	We look forward to receiving the Fittings & Contents Form.
4.	In relation to boundary responsibilities, please advise as to whether any have been repaired, replaced or maintained during the seller's ownership of the property? If so, who assumed financial responsibility for the same
5.	Please provide us with the seller's address that will be applicable on completion for stamp duty purposes.
6.	Please confirm that if any Land Registry documents are signed electronically by your client that you will provide us with the necessary compliance certificate for HMLR purposes and assist us with any requisitions that may be raised in this regard.
7.	We note your client has stated there is no Japanese knotweed present at the property. Please provide evidence of the investigations carried out to determine this. Please note the Law Society Guidance for sellers’ states that if a seller answers ‘no’ to this question ‘they must be certain that no rhizome (root) is present in the ground of the property, or within 3 metres of the property boundary even if there are no visible signs above ground.’
8.	The public sewer map included indicates that there is a public sewer, disposal main or lateral drain within the boundaries of the property. Please see the extract attached and ask your Seller to confirm that the public sewer revealed on the map has not been built over or within 3 metres of the same.
9.	Please provide up to date office copy entries dated within 6 months and an amended contract to reflect these.
10.	Please also amend your client's name in the contract to reflect the office copies exactly.
11.	Please ask the Seller to revisit section 24.4 of the Property Information Form. We will require the Seller to answer yes to these questions.
12.	Please supply your replies to Requisitions on Title (TA13)
13.	Please confirm there is no bamboo growing within:

(a) the boundaries of the property;
(b) the boundaries of any immediate neighbouring properties?
14. Please provide the electrical guarantee referred to in the Property Information Form.

Very straightforward questions oops scrolled to the right and they are Hella long! Straightforward still though, nothing out of the ordinary

Might just ge me but the picture seems to cut off so I can't read them fully.

Normal questions - but do indicate that the seller (or their solicitor) is quite disorganised. Some of is chasing stuff they probably should already have done.

None of that is hard to answer, either the seller knows the answers or they don't, and there are a few technical queries for the solicitors to deal with, all look quite straightforward.
Talk the estate agents about proposed completion dates, and flag up to the solicitor now that a colleague might need to cover during her holiday.
Do you have a mortgage offer yet? Are the sellers in a chain? It looks like the searches may already have been done, but again get your solicitor to confirm that.

Thank you so much for the quick replies, it's reassuring to know that these are normal questions.

@DelphiniumBlue

The searches and survey have been completed and my mortgage offer came through a few weeks ago. We are 11 weeks in, first time buyer currently renting, no chain and vacant property.

Unfortunately the seller delayed things as she buggered off on holiday for 2 weeks after accepting my offer. It wasn't until 5 weeks later that I was informed that she hadn't completed the protocol forms (my solicitor was chasing and her solicitor was chasing her with no luck) so I had to ask the EA for support.

She said she was going to complete it but then we heard nothing and when the EA rang her a week later she told him that she'd had family problems so all in all it took 8 weeks for us to receive the draft contract which slowed everything down (luckily her solicitor sent the title plan separately on the first week so the searches could be ordered but they came back 2.5 weeks before the draft contract came through so there was no progress during that time)

The sellers solicitor sent the draft contract over 3 days after she dropped the forms off which might explain why things are missing as he probably didn't have time to review everything properly as by this point we were really pushing for the paperwork.

So as you can see, my seller has been a royal pain in the arse. Hopefully that makes sense and people can see why I'm worried about how long it will take her to answer these questions.

@DelphiniumBlue sorry, I forgot to mention that I've already told my solicitor that I would like to complete before the end of October and she's put the question to the sellers solicitor to see if that's achievable.

Sorry to say that sounds like a seller who isn't really committed. If you want to complete by the end of October, you'd really want an exchange a couple of weeks before, so you are right to keep pushing. The agent is your friend as far as closing the deal is concerned, keep in regular contact with them.

@DelphiniumBlue I agree. It's really disappointing as I thought it would be a straightforward transaction but I've had to do so much chasing.

I can't see us completing by then but who knows. She might surprise me.

"Unfortunately the seller delayed things as she buggered off on holiday for 2 weeks after accepting my offer"

I'm pretty sure she was on here not long ago complaining about her pushy FTBs! she got flamed😂

Some of those enquiries would pain me as a seller like having to provide evidence of no Japanese knotweed. Annoying to have to waste time & money trying to prove that something doesn’t exist. I haven’t come across that particular enquiry before & would be inclined to reply that the potential buyer can revisit the garden to check for themselves that there is no knotweed rather than me being expected to pay for a certificate.

However most of them are standard enquiries.

That's what I thought too 😂

I think the general advice is to answer "not known" to the Japanese Knotweed question. There was a fairly recent court case where someone got sued because they said "no", even though they genuinely thought that was the right answer. To cover your own back you need to know 100% that there is no knotweed, as the question says, even no rhizomes under ground or you leave yourself open to accusations that you replied incorrectly.

Yes I agree "not known" is often the best answer. But that enquiry question seemed to be asking for some kind of certificate which I would not be very happy about having to provide tbh because it's overkill if every person selling a property these days is expected to provide a certificate to say they DON'T have a problem weed in their garden!

I took at as the solicitor giving the vendor a very heavy hint to change their answer to that question!😁

I was just thinking that! Right down to the fact that it still took her a couple of weeks after her holiday to complete the initial paperwork 😂

Why no bamboo? We like bamboo what's wrong with that?
I've never heard of getting a certificate to prove japenese knotweed is not present. How weird unless you've already got a certificate or something professional has looked already

Agree, you can't certify something you can't know. Unless there was
JK identified previously. Bamboo I would guess is deemed invasive but not illegal.

The enquiries should be fairly easy to answer.

Don't worry about your solicitor being away, a half decent legal secretary will understand quite of a lot of the paperwork and can take to next stage or take to another solicitor in the practice for guidance.

Bamboo runners can basically demolish the foundations of your house. If it’s not in pots (to properly contain the roots), I wouldn’t touch the house with a barge pole.

https://www.loveproperty.com/news/131269/bamboo-causes-10000-worth-of-damage-to-home

That's certain types of bamboo, we don't have the running type 🙏

It's likely on their mind as running bamboo has been in the news a fair bit lately due to the damage it can cause. We bought a house with a huge contained trough of clumping bamboo, and made the same enquiry.

I didn’t even realise there are different types. I’m not sure I know enough about plants to trust a seller saying ‘it’s not that sort of bamboo’. Even if they aren’t deliberately lying, what if they have been lied to?

A surveyor would know & if they put it on the TA6 & it turns out that it's not true your conveyancing solicitor can deal with it too