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!!

You sound a bit like us so you are giving me hope! Been trying to move since 2021, had a break in 2023. Lost track of the amount of buyers, maybe 5?! 2 onward purchases that have fd us about.
Glad it sounds like it has happened for you!

My DSs survey only had a small number of matters which can hopefully be repaired and tests done rather than reneogiate, and the solicitors are now on the case doing their thing.

He usually takes a long lunch hour for a gym session but decided to run today and went to the house and ran around the area. I can tell he's getting excited now!

My DDs house went through a year ago and she tells me the money they've saved each month towards running costs were over estimated and they are making a £800 overpayment to their mortgage! Pleased for them!

Hi, im new. eek. We actually sold & completed on a property before Christmas but as it was a second home, there was no pressure.

We are now preparing to put our family home on the market. A bit of an emotional one - 2 of my children were born here! we've raised them. It's an ideal family home.

but we hanker after a slightly more rural life with a village type location.

we have a viewing booked to view what might be our dream home on friday.

In the meantime I'm frantically cleaning & lightly decorating our house with a view to putting it on the market. Does anyone have any tips on making a busy family home crammed with kiddie stuff (& 13 years of it...) presentable?!

Loft? Only place we could put stuff.

I dread it if we ever leave here as, like you, the children were born here and now we have inherited my Dad who has dementia. We've been here 30 years. It's relatively tidy and still nowhere near EA photo marketable!

My DH has said once DS has his house if he and his sister don't want anything we are getting a skip and it's going out!

We thought we were very close to exchange but had a massive spanner in the works today. Hopefully, it will just result in a delay rather than a chain collapse, but a huge ball has been dropped elsewhere in our chain and pieces now need to be picked up. I don't want to share too much on here, but feeling massively deflated.

Also the plan was to exchange today but some last minute outstanding enquiries popped up.

I'm 7.5 weeks until I move. All being well.

I need to organise tv connection and broadband but don't know where to start tbh.

I've got my removal firm ready.

WimbyAce sounds like exactly the same situation!

Having been pressured by the agent into a Feb move date and then getting our heads around a Feb move date it materialises that our buyers solicitor has sent a load more enquiry’s so they aren’t even ready.

Feeling frustrated as we were told ready to exchange this week. I really really want to exchange now.

Can I just ask, when they proposed the first dates to you, how far ahead they were? I'm still awaiting from any document really from our sellers and I'm worried that once our solicitors dump all the batch on us they might say something along the lines of 'Right, read all this quick as the chain wants to exchange in 2 weeks time'.
That can't happen... can it?

This is what's happened to us. Found out yesterday they want to exchange next weds and complete on 5th Feb.

Ah 😅That's quite scary, and I'm sorry this happened to you! I seem to remember you are not in a rush as you still need a place to move to, right? Did you try and postpone?

@HavenSprings yeah that's right, we've made an offer on a rental but I've also told my solicitor that we can't exchange until we've found somewhere so the buyer needs to calm down.

@kirinm good luck getting the rental x

Brain is on overdrive at the moment, chain complete - aiming for everybody moved by 1st April, lots of activity this week after weeks and weeks of nothing. Thought of this evening being - when you move into your new home do you change the locks?

It can happen but you can also say no. Our buyer was silent for a long time then called our Solicitor in the morning wanting to exchange that same day. We said no and exchanged and completed 3 weeks later.

@HavenSprings our dates only started getting discussed end of last week, for completion next Friday, so it can happen quickly! We probably could've delayed it but tbh just want to move now and get it done!

Thanks @sillysausage92 and @NormallyAwkward ! Fingers crossed for you too!

Enquiries have turned out to be:

1. various confirmations of stuff we already told them, boundaries, Japanese knotweed, neighbour disputes, that kind of thing.

2. request for an info pack from the ground rent company. They had the pack from the management company nearly three months ago. Why not ask for both at the same time FFS. Hoping this won’t be another three week wait like the management pack!

3. request for a new boiler service (electric boiler). In a move I like to think of as aggressively helpful, DH managed to find an electrician who was willing to come in on his way home, so we’ve returned the service cert the same day we received the request.

4. request for a £150 retainer to come out of the mortgage pending the release of the latest service charge accounts. The final accounts for our estate have never been released earlier than May, and our mortgage offer will expire before that. Our mortgage provider does not like retainers. DH is a mortgage advisor so is going to speak to our solicitor about it (and thankfully understands the whole mortgage situation better than me!) If it comes to it I will give the man £150 in cash in an envelope! Surely his solicitor wouldn’t risk the whole chain for the sake of £150? Surely?!

Still stress eating and have come out in a rash.

I would say the common response is yes, change the locks!

And thank you everyone who got back to me with examples on exchange/completion dates! I feel like I should really start to (mentally) prepare and actually do something, but at the same time I'm still worried something bad might happen! I'll start with things I will have to do regardless of which house I end up in - decluttering mostly. If you have any other suggestions (of things I can do that are not strictly related to the house, so no picking specific furniture), do let me know!

I am hopefully exchanging this afternoon, to complete 21st. We’d confirmed completion at start of the week but no word on exchange. I finally emailed my solicitor and he said he was working to same day exchange / completion. My stress levels are through the roof so I asked please, can we exchange before the weekend… fingers crossed for this afternoon.

I've never changed the locks @Limeandsober and we've moved quite a few times. Don't know if we are unusual or not.

Still no word on if we will exchange today or not we were supposed to exchange yesterday

@The3rdWatermelon my purchase also involves a retainer for management charge, it didn’t throw up any issues with the seller or lender. I think the retainer was out of the sellers pocket rather than the mortgage,

After 7 very long stressful months we finally exchanged and move next week. The system really needs changing the whole process has been horrendous!
I can definitely say I will never be moving again, the not knowing what’s happening and the constant feeling that the chains going to fall apart has really been awful, I haven’t slept properly since we first put our house on the market 10 months ago! But for everyone who’s currently going through the hard times, it will all work out and will be worth it once you get the feeling of knowing it’s 100% happening.

Can I join. Think i'll be exchanging soon. I'm a first time buyer, buying on my own and literally no Idea what I'm doing!
It's been a long road, I was looking for years and got stuck in a best and final nightmare a million times, so now buying in an area I don't know at all, but needs to be done as mid 40's.
Can I ask about arranging buildings insurance? It seems quite a hard thing to do when not living there as I have only visited property once so not sure I'm going to be able to answer a lot of the questions around construction/lock/window type. Is this something I should be asking the estate agent to ask the seller or just making a best guess for now?
Thanks!

Hiya

My DD bought last year and DS is buying at the moment - he is on his own too so I understand from him how lonely it feels. He calls me or his sister, do you have a trusted friend or parent that can help with moral support and share your excitement?

My DD did a compare the market with what she knew and then gave a short list of th other things to her solicitor (I remember one thing was had the property ever been flooded). The solicitor got the answers from the vendor and then she filled those in on compare the market and did her buildings and contents insurance that way.