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

[JoyfulSpring]

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

Congratulations to all that gave completed !! @kirinm hopefully the market will pick up soon as we are entering spring ? I get Alot of notifications for new houses on right move !

We get one every few weeks if we are lucky. Unfortunately half of east London are moving here and they have a lot more money than we do so they're offering more than we can.

Rentals are so depressing. Mine suffers from a similar window problem and also has rising damp. It doesn't smell though - or at least I hope it doesn't as that would mean I've stopped smelling it, and maybe I smell now too! But I feel your pain @kirinm and hope you find somewhere to get excited about soon. At least you won't be in the middle of a long chain when you do.

Knew things were going too well! We got our survey back and they have found damp in one of the bedrooms. Q surprised we didn't see it actually as it is q obvious in the photo. Solicitor has suggested we get vendor to investigate. Will see what happens!

If it's only in one room, it might not be a big issue. Is it an older property? Do they dry washing in that room? Possible gutter issue etc?

It's not that old, built in the 90s. They have only flagged it in one room. You can clearly see it in the photo so I'm a bit cross with ourselves for not picking it up. I have emailed the estate agent in the first instance so will see what they come back with.
Rest of survey is ok tbh, typical there has to be something!!

So after agreeing to buy our house after one viewing on a glorious sunny day in July, our buyer wants a second viewing next week! They're landlords and ours is right down the cheaper end of the housing market in our area but it's still nerve-wracking! I said to the agent there's boxes everywhere and we need a tidy up. I'm hoping they're not going to a cheeky last minute reduction or worse! I'll feel sick now until they've been next week and had feedback.

Bet it'll be something basic and easy to fix. I had some damp spotted by the surveyor of my house I'm selling. It was around a window in a rarely used bedroom and I'd never noticed. Turned out to just be the sealant around the window - bloke came round fixed it with a tube of sealant, I let it dry out and fixed the decoration inside myself. In all it was fixed for under £100.

I hope so. It's not by a window though and in their main bedroom. Kind of middle of the wall so no idea where it could be from!

So today the assisted move company have come back and said that they are not prepared to exchange now unless we agree a completion date of no later than 29th May. They have been advised they can get a max 5 days extension on their mortgage offer and (understandably) don't want to put down 20k deposit if we don't complete in time and their mortgage expires.

Therefore we are basically blocked, we can't exchange as they don't want to risk their deposit conditional on mortgage. We can't comply with our developers requirement to exchange contracts within 6 weeks (that ship has sailed) and the developers won't guarantee to bring forward the completion date. So not a clue what happens now.

It doesn't sound impossible though does it? Did I misunderstand and a previous post said you think your house is 8 weeks away from being completed? I think in your shoes I'd probably agree to it and resign myself to at worst having to find some kind of rental or stay with friends/family if the newbuild wasn't ready. At least with being exchanged, and buying a newbuild, you'd know you were nailed on getting a house eventually once it's finished, whereas trying to push the buyers you risk losing them and then losing the house you are buying.

I agree, Tupster. I'd exchange and cross my fingers that it all fell into place for late May.

Thanks @Tupster and @NormallyAwkward. My hope at this stage is to push the risk back to the developers, and agree that we will not exchange until the house is built and approved by the NHBC. Give we are around 10 weeks from the house being finished, I doubt theyll be in a position to find anyone else who could buy our plot sooner

And we are in!!

Tears and happy dances all around.
We haven't seen the house since October and it's even better than we remember!

Hang in there everyone, you will get there x

Aw, great news @Icanflyhigh really pleased for you. x

If anything, today has been worse!

We authorised the exchange of contracts, solicitor still talking about completing on the 25th.

At 4pm we found out the estate agent had set someone on calling the buyer’s solicitors every 20 minutes all day, and they hadn’t picked up or called back.

At 10 to 5 DH rang our seller’s estate agent to ask for any updates only to find no one had told them about any of these issues! So the poor woman has had to find out at 5pm on Friday that we might not be going ahead on Tuesday. I feel awful for her. And obviously terrified she might pull out!

I cannot believe this is happening. We’re continuing to pack, because what else is there to do?!

I agree with @Tupster & @NoWordForFluffy that in your position I would agree to exchange with a completion date of the end of May & hope it all works out. If it doesn’t you may need to find a short term rental but it sounds like the end of May should be ok for your new build to be ready.

You’re not being fair to your buyers if you don’t agree to complete by the end of May and their mortgage offer expires. They may pull out & then you’re back to square one. Respectfully, you can’t expect others in the chain to dance to the tune of your new build company. They have their own pressures & need to complete by a certain date.

This is just awful.

Sorry to hear this @The3rdWatermelon . We are also at exchange and it seems just as bonkers as the rest of the property process. Our EA tried to force exchange yesterday - first from the bottom and then from the top. Our solicitor was up for it (we are in the middle of the chain), but it didn't happen so I'm guessing someone in the chain was not available. We will try again on Monday. To be fair, it was a long shot as nobody had agreed upfront that exchange would happen yesterday. Someone has to take the initiative though, otherwise I suspect the solicitors would just sit on it and I don't think the FTB at the bottom of the chain is pushing it. Sometimes, you really have to drive the deal over the line.

My solicitor is trying to drive ours through next week. We shall see! I have no great expectations.

@The3rdWatermelon sounds like my buyers solicitor have been trying to agree completion date with them for 2 weeks 🤦🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️ ! Non-picking up phones or answer emails ! This is what you get when you try to get the cheapest possible conveyancers. I am so annoyed at our buyers whatever they saved from these lawyers will probably have to pay back and note with the stamp duty increase

Hoping for good news for all of us this week. Still awaiting enquiry responses back from my vendor and 5 weeks until we all need to be completed.

I don’t know what happens if we don’t make it, what happens if the others in the chain don’t have the £ for stamp duty? I have mine but it will be coming out of funds I had set aside for work needed on the property so not ideal.

@Limeandsober good point about the stamp duty, I’ll be doing the same if we don’t make the deadline. I’m hoping we do, we should sign this week & hoping to exchange next week then complete w.c 17th. 🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻 for all of us.

I'm praying we exchange this week. We had been told all our sellers enquiries were finished a couple of weeks ago but last week they advised they were suddenly getting a last minute survey and eicr done on their onward purchase even though we had hoped to exchange or even complete this week. We've all signed our contracts including our seller so I don't know what her solicitor is playing at. Anyway hoping everyone gets good news this week and not another week of nothing!

Good luck to everyone waiting for news or progress, here's to solicitors feeling a renewed burst of enthusiasm for answering their phones and addressing their admin, and for last minute queries evaporating in the light of a new week.