The all new buyers/sellers waiting room (x 7!) thread

[JoyfulSpring]

Starting a new thread so we can continue the conversation...

Found out today that there's been a bit of toing and froing in my purchase about an indemnity policy that my mortgage company are asking for and my sellers don't want to pay for. It's not even £100 so why they can't just suck it up, god knows, but obviously I'll pay the money to get it sorted. But it's one more thing I bet the sellers are cursing me and blaming me about. I honestly had no idea mortgage companies could demand indemnities!
It's a relatively modern estate and although it's freehold, there's management fees for communal grounds, so I'm guessing it must be something to do with all that, and maybe these kind of details have just never come up for me in house buying before because I've always been in much older properties.

This sounds a bit like the deed of variance that our mortgage company demanded - that was related to the management fee for communal grounds. We've ended up paying for half the cost of getting it, even though my solicitor reiterated that it was entirely for the vendor to fund - but it wasn't enough to quibble over and I didn't want it to hold things up!

@Skandar - this is reassuring to hear it's normal for the mortgage companies to be picky about this stuff. It's only £90 so I can't see why the sellers wouldn't just agree to it, but it's not worth fighting over. I'll just pay and keep things moving.

A deed of variation isn’t unusual and it’s to do with the management company wanting an assurance that their fees will be paid if there’s a financial issue. Since the mortgage is vastly more than the management fee, it’s just one of those annoying things that gets in the way.

We’ve got a provisional completion date!!! Hoping to complete on the 25th Feb.

BUT (of course there’s a but!)

We don’t have an exchange date, and our buyer’s solicitor hasn’t accepted the proposed completion date yet. They’ve been so slow throughout the whole process. Our buyer is a buy to let landlord, so what’s the problem? Surely it doesn’t matter to them what date we complete?! He’s not moving house!

We have the same on our sale, but I agreed straight away to pay the £130 for the policy to move things along. Can't understand why your sellers won't pay?!

Last time I was selling, my buyers were a nightmare. They were quite young and inexperienced (being charitable) and practically wanted to biopsy the house. There were literally hundreds of queries, some of which just didn't really have answers as it was an old house with a few oddities in the paperwork, and no one can really give cast iron guarantees about the fabric of a place. I thought we would never get over the line. No sooner had we answered one lot of queries and dug out ancient paperwork, plans and certificates but there would be something new that they were anxious about.

I think there comes a point with a buyer like that when someone has to say, look, do you want to have a house or don't you? Often this is where EAs earn their money imo, or occasionally a buyer's own solicitor or a parent gets blunt with them and explains the realities and limitations of the process. With our buyers I was about ready for the funny farm when suddenly it all stopped and they started talking dates, so I really hope it goes that way for you too. Perhaps knowing the chain is about to collapse might focus minds. If your EA is any good, can you appeal to them to apply a bit of pressure? The buyer's solicitor takes their instructions after all. I really wish you luck.

what stage are you at currently for a 25th completion date? If you don't mind me asking.

In our case sellers have our list of enquiries, searches all but one complete. Mortgage is ready. We are hoping for a completion day of the 25th March. As we want it before the stamp duty changes, but close as possible to Easter so that we can use the holiday's to move. (No same day sale of property for us) We thought our sellers were also able to move any time, but seems they now have to sort a same day purchase themselves.

Estate agent just inform us that the buyer solicitor has send them the contract to sign ! Does that mean we are ready to exchange next week ?

As long as they sign and return the contract in time yes. If they raise additional enquiries off the back of the final report, it could delay things.

Totally agree with this. We feel this about the bottom of our chain. It's not our sale but from what we can gather it's been query after query. I think the time for questions is over. Like you say - it's do you want a house or do you want to carry on living with your parents? Because the reality is that you cannot mitigate every risk in a house purchase. That is life.

They are pushing for 28th completion so i am hopping there is no enquiries after this .
Its too early for us as we need to exchange before applying for schools so i said either 7th or 14th ! Does jt always need to be a friday ?

No and it really shouldn't be a Friday if possible. I've specified that for us it must absolutely not be a Friday. We are relocating so it's a 3 day job with packing and removals have said that completion day (day 2) can't be a Friday as day 3 has to be a weekday so they can finish unpacking and drive the 250 miles back.

The other reason is that if anything goes wrong with the banks, you are left waiting until Monday for it to be resolved. Look at what happened a few weeks ago with the Barclays outage. It caused chaos countrywide and left people between houses as completion on their sale happened but not their purchase.

@Gekko21 i haven't thought of that ! They are proposing just Fridays so i thought thats the norm !

Ok so survey results and quotes indicate roughly 20k worth of work. Not sure how to broach this!!!

Anything but a Friday! As @Gekko21 says, all kinds of things can happen with the finances and then you’re stuck for the weekend.

It was over 20 years ago but on the day I bought my house, and I was the start of the chain, my mortgage company didn't release the money till 4.30 on a Friday and there's were 4 others in the chain. I've no idea how they got on on that day but I can imagine it was very stressful!

@DaringlyDizzy well ours had Alot of "works" thats doesn't mean you can negotiate down . Are these things you couldn't tell well viewing ?

@NormallyAwkward gosh i need to get back to the solicitor for another date then ! I guess people want Friday because they only need to take one day off ?

@movingtoreading I wanted a Tuesday but that's not happening now. I think it's going to be a Friday so we'll just have to see what happens.

As far as I know, my solicitor has everything in order. They've not asked for any money though yet. We're selling our house so I guess that acts as the initial deposit and then between exchange and completion, I pay them the rest? I've no idea! I've had no update since Monday so I've just emailed the estate agent we're buying through but she's rubbish. She runs the firm with just her and her daughter so there's no dedicated person for the sales progression. You ask for an update and she just emails the seller rather than the solicitors. It's painful.

Well they said it was a combi boiler but hard to access and now it turns out it isnt! Also the damage internally to conservatory we couldnt see as they wouldnt do viewings before nightfall and there is no lighting out there

@Hoolahoophop all enquiries are done, we’ve signed the contract to sell, our seller has signed her contract, the bank has checked proof of funds for the deposit and confirmed we can proceed. Just waiting for the buyer’s solicitor to accept the date!

@DaringlyDizzy did you offer asking price ? We knew the house needed work and offered 20k less than asking . They accepted . The survey brought up the issues we suspected nothing more so we didn't need to ask for a further discount . It will depend on what you negotiated at the start

It’s so good to hear people are progressing 🎉

I’m still in limbo waiting for my mortgage to be approved before I can start anything - so frustrating how long it takes. Last week I was told I would know by Monday gone. Today I’ve been told 1-2 working days but they don’t work weekends - argh! I’m desperate to get moved too

Me too! Apparently my lender is "having IT issues". I mean really.