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

[JoyfulSpring]

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

Week 22 here and it's like tumbleweed with our EA and the solicitors. A date was suggested from lower down the chain last week. We counter-suggested within a couple of hours, but my attempts to get a response since then have met with brush offs or silence. I'm starting to lose hope we will exchange before the stamp duty increase, which will be a pain for us but probably a bigger pain for the bottom of the chain who is a FTB. The communication is just awful.

Yep it's the same set up — so when I keep getting requests to 'ask the freeholder' or 'ask the management company' it's even more frustrating because it's like the solicitor fundamentally doesn't understand our set up. Only three of us are registered as directors on companies house so everything is going through one of those three (I'm not one of them but half tempted to stage a coup and deal with all my own enquiries).

The chimney didn't need permission, there's nothing in the lease requiring it — so that's another brick wall I keep hitting. It was literally just repairing flaunching and pointing, nothing dramatic — ironically I was trying to be nice and speed things along by just fixing it rather than trying to negotiate post survey. More fool me.

I think I'm going to have to do as you suggested. The two solicitors clearly hate each other and are getting nowhere resolving things. I had a good call with my EA this morning who's going to speak to my buyer and give them a bit of tough love in terms of deciding if they actually want to live here, or if they want to go pay 10x more per year to live in a leasehold with a proper management company. If the former, they need to tell the solicitor to get things resolved asap and stop creating issues — not holding my breath.

@Gekko21 how frustrating for you!

Another week where we are no closer to exchange 🤦🏻‍♀️ we were supposed to be ready at the end of na January ! Still waiting for confirmation on dates from our buyers solicitor our solicitor says she has to her from them in writing ? According to our estate agent they are fine with the date proposed but their lawyers do not let our lawyer know ! Its so annoying seriously

My understanding is that you need to have completed. Done and dusted by 31st March. So in less than 6 weeks.

Im still waiting on enquiries back from vendors Solicitors’s and I have no idea what stage everyone else in the chain is at. I don’t know who I’m meant to be asking - my solicitors or the EA?!

it’s either going to go like a rocket any day now and we get it over the line or fall apart because I do not know if the rest of the chain has budgeted for SDLT change.

DS has started packing, I haven’t but I must say that the anxiety is bubbling away.

Thank you! I am at the same stage as you (no enquiries back yet) and honestly I've made both our solicitors and the sellers' EA aware that we really need them back ASAP if they then want to push for completion by 31 March. The EA responded that they chased the sellers & their solicitors yesterday, so you could try and 'attack' them on both fronts, too.

For an update on the whole chain, I would ask the EA. And you could also ask them to let you know if the rest of the chain is working to beat the 31 March deadline!

I'm afraid completion by 31 March doesn't work too well for us, as our rental goes from the first to the first of the month and our sellers want at least 2 weeks between exchange and completion, so that would mean exchange mid-March and us having to pay rent to cover till end April. We'll have to think of something. We won't be affected by 31 March but our sellers will, so I'm hoping they'll try and work with us on this.

We have the same issue. My vendors solicitor doesn't answer my solicitor ever. And then obviously we've discovered they've suddenly advised her to get a survey done on her purchase 🙄. A week before we were planning on completing! So all dates have now gone out the window and we're back to not discussing dates until this bloody survey is done on Friday. I need to exchange by 28th for the school place. I'm soooo fed up and angry at my vendor. She could have had a survey done any time from August last year. What is she playing at.

@WittyOchreBird I think you've done the right thing with getting the estate agent involved now - this is the kind of thing where they start earning their massive commission fees. Clearly your buyers and their solicitor need to accept the situation is what it is and either accept it or pull out - not just keep asking questions that you can't possibly answer. When an estate agent sees their commission start fading away, that's when they'll pull out all the stops to sort things out.

@JoyfulSpring thats so weird surveys are usually one of the first things you do ! I feel for you its so stressful ! I also think there is a push for many to complete before April so this month will be a bjt manic for solicitors !

You must be so fed up, @JoyfulSpring.

Empathise with all those here struggling to get visibility and drive things forward. Following the earlier tumbleweed, we finally got a response that didn't actually answer my questions but was a one liner stating that there were some outstanding queries (which we had thought were resolved previously). Following a 'come to Jesus' conversation with the EA where we said we were getting close to issuing an ultimatum, we finally got an update with more context. Apparently, bottom of chain has now signed their contract and deposit has landed so these queries are the last thing outstanding. We also got a response to our completion date suggestion. Why the original update couldn't contain this information in the first place I do not know. It's honestly like trying to get blood out of a stone.

And from me too.
With you in the trenches.

Oh dear, on a knife edge here. Just come home from a couple of days away to find an email from my broker saying the lender isn't happy about some stuff related to my ex. Ex is an utter financial liability, which is one reason he's an ex, and also why I'm so desperate for this purchase to go through so I can put some distance between his approach to admin and mine. I thought we'd been through all this when the mortgage decision in principle was done but there's always a sting in the tail with my ex. I can't afford to buy the house - or probably any house - without the mortgage, so I'm hoping all my answers to the extra questions will be adequate, but feeling really despondent tonight. Have had a little weep, which hardly ever happens. It's been such a hard process moving on from a catastrophic relationship and it feels like there's forever something else to deal with and I will never be free. Nearly everything else with conveyancing is sorted. It was just the final mortgage offer. Keep everything crossed for me MNers.

@BarbaricYawp 🤞

Fingers cross for you @BarbaricYawp.

So tired of being in limbo not being able to organise things for a few weeks in advance 😩 like should i pay for my kids school
Trip or would they be in another school? ! Why does it take so long for people to communicate there is literally nothing left to do but for the layer to reply and say i am ok with the completion date ! We know the buyer is fine with it but their lawyer is not replying to our lawyer ! Trying to save money on these online lawyers that cost half is really not worth it !!

Totally with you @movingtoreading!
They shouldn't take on so many cases. And what someone up thread was saying about the two solicitors batting the same questions back and forth to make a point makes me so angry. If they just spoke to each other on the phone these things could be resolved in a 2 minute call. They seem to forget our lives are on hold while we wait and they have the power through being so incompetent, to completely change the course of them for us. Like with schools, if they'd got their arses into gear when first sent enquiries back in October I'd have been able to apply for a school in time by the cut off of December 31st. It's like they've done nothing for the last 4 months until I start chasing daily. We've asked to exchange on 28th and complete on 17th March now which gives the people at the top a couple of weeks to find a rental or temp accommodation. I'm sick of waiting and extending...

@JoyfulSpring gosh you would have thought you would be done by now since October ! i think i will start being a pain now and call them everyday ! surely they will want to get rid of me and finish it then 🤣

It's worse than that @movingtoreading, our chain was complete in August 2024! Our mortgage offer was agreed on 13th September last year! And I have been chasing daily for the last month, they hate me trust me haha. I even called the EA at the top of the chain yesterday, so my vendors vendor, to find out what was going on. I discovered the people at the top are now 12 months in after their house went on the market in February 2024. Can you imagine for them a week before agreed exchange 12 months in to find out your buyer wants a survey?! They're probably as angry as I've been!

This is so crazy.

My DS had his offer agreed late November. Christmas got in the way a bit, understandably, but I think he's just at the stage of searches being back and enquiries starting.

Turns out because his mortgage offer had a new valuation done in December (the September house chain fell through) he has a June 25 mortgage date so he's not under any pressure as such but his vendors want to save a bob or two on their onward by completing in March.

My DS would like to be in as well. He's desperate for more room and to get his life back on track.

Although I'm getting pretty scared at the house price falls I'm seeing in his area (what would have been coming on at 300 and going under offer within weeks are coming on at 280 and still not selling fast).

I think because he's got a good 5 year interest deal, can take a lodger, agreed a few percent less on asking, could walk to work to save money, and has a decent LTV he's less worried but he's also of the generation that thinks prices always go up! We've had negative equity in the 90s so we know that not the case! He sort of listens but he works with people younger than us and they influence him too.

I'm buying a holiday let property, a very small 2 bedroomed house but directly overlooking the sea. I had to do a sealed bid but my offer was accepted, DIP good, have found a solicitor, I've had to get 2 income projections for high, mid and low season which I've got. The first one is back and good, now waiting for the second one to come back to proceed to the full mortgage application. I'm so excited, I've always wanted to wake up and look out the window at the sea and sand.

Our solicitors sent ours through to us in dribs and drabs as they received them. We got them all before exchange of contracts though.

Thank you! I am very curious to understand what my solicitors are waiting for... They keep saying they will send the searches 'in due time'. As in, 5 minutes before exchange, or will they actually give us some time to read them through?! How odd.

Anyway, very envious of you! I'm not buying one at the moment, but my long term plan is also to buy a house overlooking the sea. Hopefully, one day. I hope it goes smoothly and happens quickly for you 🤞

Thanks @Abra1t @Gekko21 and the others who reacted. My broker is being upbeat about it but of course the final decision is the underwriters, not his. I've no idea how long the decision will take either way, so I'm just trying very hard to stay calm, get on with work etc. Deep slow breaths. It would be so great to get good news just for once. x

We overlook the sea! I was brought up with grandparents who lived at the top of a beach slipway and my grandad was a fisherman. The salty air is something I'd completely miss if I moved. I wouldn't miss the shaky windows when it's a direct wind though or the costs of needing planning every time I sneeze!!

Good luck! Dont wantvto put any damper on it but I hope you manage to get the bookings as the whole market here has become sooooo saturated with lets since covid (Cornwall and Devon). Not so bad if you intend to use it for yourself though and just fill in around bookings. That's what our nearest neighbour is doing - we only see them when they haven't managed to secure a let.