The all new buyers/sellers waiting room (x 6!) thread

[Champere]

Welcome across everyone!

We’ve got six nights until we move and the insomnia has set in!

It’s taken us three threads to move and I hope this thread is the one I graduate on….

Best of luck to everyone! May your agents be truthful, your conveyancers responsive, your lenders generous and your chain reasonable!!

Completing on 20th and can't find anything on Rightmove to buy - looking at lower end of market so, say, Victorian terrace at £270k, nothing coming on. Does anyone think that this is indicative of "something" not great on the horizon, or does the market just take time to warm up in January?

God help me offer accepted early dec, memo of sale received etc.

Still waiting on contract packs to do searches, my vendor is old and diddery. Anyone think we have a cats hell of a chance to get in before 31 march deadline ?

It's not really a one size fits all as location and type of property play a big part. However, January is traditionally slow due to the bad weather and dark evenings. People just don't want to venture outdoors in January as much as they do in spring. The market was also very sluggish last year, throughout the year. We are hopefully nearing the end of our house sale and purchase, but where we were looking there wasn't a huge amount on the market. People aren't really moving unless they have a pressing reason to do so, e.g. they need to relocate, are separating, desperate to move before the start of the school year etc. Fewer people are moving because they fancy a change or a trade up, because the cost of moving is high, mortgage rates are higher than previously and the cost of renovating is high. It was like that last year and I expect it will be this year.

We ended up having to be pragmatic. We are buying a 'head' house that hopefully we can transform into a 'heart' house.

I think it will pick up in spring but don't expect miracles.

My son was looking at the 250 - 300k mark since May last year, looked at so many even one agent gave him grief for not having offered yet! In reality he hadn't viewed that many (about 14, I think) but most were with this particular agent who seems to get the majority of that price point property.

With 8 months of looking he's only found 3 to offer on. One, needing a lot of work, they couldn't agree a price. Second fell through after a dreadful survey. Third is in process now having had a pretty reasonable survey with just a few points which hopefully will get addressed (they need doing but hopefully wont need renegotiating.)

We are hoping to get to the deadline as well . But is looking less and less likely we have completed everything on our part but the buyers are still not arranging survey ( they said they will) . We have done all we could for out purchase did the survey and got the searches back etc !

House is 1930s

@hotandpermi we had offer accepted mid November...have had survey done. Still waiting on conveyancing paperwork from seller. We wanted to be in Feb half term

House we were meant to be buying went back on market today. They kept us waiting from June and we lost 2 buyers in the meantime! So starting all over again.........Annoying!

Oh no! Do you have to move and have a sort.of deadline, or is it just a preference?

I think the people talking about the date deadline are referring to the stamp duty threshold change 1st April.

How long does it usually take an engineer to produce an EICR report after inspection? Someone in our chain has had one carried out and it's holding up exchange. I'd have thought this is the sort of thing you get back the next day but is it more involved?

You were sold stc and they put it back on the market ? Can that happen ??

Yes, we lost our buyer ironically due to lack of progression at the top so they have remarketed to find a new buyer.

Our offer was accepted end of October and our provisional completion date was Feb half term. Still hoping we'll make that. Our buyers survey was done the week before Christmas and mortgage valuation tomorrow.

How much effort do people go to for the mortgage valuation? We're trying to neaten the place up but we've got two poorly children out of the three, I'm working at night and we're just sick of the constant tidying!

We had a desktop valuation to banks actually come around ? The one we are buying was also desktop valuation

Is it a drive by or are they coming in to look inside? I wouldn't spend any time neatening up. The surveyor for the mortgage lender won't care. They are literally just checking it's worth the price that the buyer is paying. I.e. is it structurally sound and in line with other market sold prices?

The mortgage valuer came to look at our house for our buyer, she literally stood in the middle of each room for a second or two then went she couldn't really have cared more than checking there were 4 walls and a roof. The house we bought they just looked at it on Google maps.

I’ve never gone to a huge amount of effort for a valuation. Just a basic tidy up that’s all.

Im still none the wiser about the chain & where we are. I asked our agent to chase for an update last week & heard nothing, asked again today & they said our buyers agent hasn’t got back to them yet. The initial conversation we had about this was the 19th December. Is this reasonable or are they messing about?

DH chased our solicitors and the estate agents today. We are just waiting for our buyer’s solicitor to send their enquiries and they said it would be sent through today. The rest of our (short) chain is ready to go.

I briefly felt better that things were moving forward, but the spectre of the previous buyer dropping out because of the leasehold conditions is looming large in the back of my mind. Half of me thinks there’s no way an experienced buy to let landlord would get this far without having checked the leasehold conditions, and half of me says this could still all come crashing down all over again.

We bought boxes and a few bits that we’ll need straight away for the new house (mostly to make it safe for the toddler)… and then hid them out of sight. If I can’t see them, they can’t jinx the sale. That’s how it works, right?

Edit: spelling

Following on from my 85 year old FIL sale of his house and completion in November he's now due to exchange in next 5 days on the bungalow he's bought ( offered mid October) and he transferred his 10% today , so hopefully in by end of month- at moment his stuffs in storeage and he's been in the holiday lodges reasonably close to us ( very nice they are too and a bargain for the time he's needed it - with his house sale earning interest he's getting them essentially for free and no bills) !! his seller needs to move some stuff out too between exchange and completion as it had been very lightly staged for sale. I'm going to help with setting everything up once his stuff back with him -

We received today an email from the vendor's estate agent - complaining (politely) that our solicitors have not responded to his emails, or to emails from the vendors solicitors. It's taking so long for our solicitors to respond to our buyer's solicitors, too. And the buyer's solicitors are so slow too!!
It is not reasonable, but seems to happen all the time...........

Just adding my moan about the process. We sold at the end of July on the first viewing. I wasn't expecting it to be so fast and we hadn't viewed anything but had a shortlist. It took 10 weeks to find somewhere, as the market went dead, and have an offer accepted (start of October). Our buyers were fine with waiting as they're landlords. My solicitor has flown through the paperwork for the sale of my house and it's all ready to go. A different solicitor at the same firm is doing our purchase and has gone silent! There's an app but according to it no queries have been sent (it might not be up to date but who knows) but I've heard nothing from them since November! I asked for the fixture and fittings list in Nov, which they sent, and said they were preparing to report out to us. I've not had the contract pack, reports etc although the reports are supposed to be back. I can't get hold of them and they refuse to talk to my estate agent. The other solicitor at the firm said they would go and talk to them but still nothing. I text the lady of the house I'm buying to let her know and she said she's been trying to get hold of her solicitor since before Christmas! Hoping to complete for Feb half term. EA is chasing them again tomorrow. Seller's EA doesn't seem to be chasing anyone. It's such a broken system.

Sympathy to everyone struggling

EA called to say vendor can now do this week but I cancelled my train tickets as we'd agreed a video and the train tickets are now £185 instead of the £90 I'd paid so I've gone back to my solicitor for advice.

However, the solicitor has sent a one drive with all the docs from enquiries I was expecting a one page summary of findings and whether it's a fine purchase we're supposed to exchange Wednesday am I asking for too much?

I'm joining you all. Selling a flat and hopefully buying a house. I have a buyer for my flat.

I will ask my solicitor but I would welcome some advice on "dispute declaration". I haven't had any disputes, but I did notify the managing agents about my upstairs neighbour cleaning the roof above my property with a jet washer. I asked if they could ask her to desist, as there was spray and dirt coming on to my property below. She obviously shouldn't be on the roof of the building and I didn't want all the spray an debris coming down. Is that a dispute? TBH, I'm happy to mention it, but I wonder if I should.

I also complained at one point to the Managing Agents about how long it was taking them to rectify a bit of communal work that was necessary. They gave me a very reasonable answer as to why it was taking a long time and I wound my neck in. Again, is that something I should declare? It isn't a dispute but I guess it could fall into the category of "issues".