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

[JoyfulSpring]

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

@WimbyAce that's a shame if you need to have 2 policies for home insurance. I was just looking at mine last night and they'll cover my existing home and the new one for 2 weeks between exchange and completion. All I did was click the button for change of address and all the info popped up. That's Ageas in case it helps at all.

I've just spoken to my solicitor, apparently no outstanding enquiries and they're waiting to hear from the vendors' solicitor about completion dates. So off to prod the estate agent so they can prod the solicitor. Then to ring the new school to change the kids starting date!

Good luck, everyone, for the coming week!

Hmm I was just reading and if the buyer is responsible from point of exchange then presumably I just transfer my insurance to the new property on exchange date? Maybe I am overthinking this?!

Congrats everyone that has exchanged or completed. Crossing everything for my exchange.
I asked my broker this early on and apparently, you only need insurance in place at exchange if not new build otherwise it's needed on completion. My solicitor has also reminded me 2 weeks ago that she'd need confirmation of home insurance 48 hours before completion. We are hoping to complete by month end 🤞🤞🤞

Also interested in the insurance question, as we are buying a new build we won't need to insure until completion as the developers insure until sign off by the NHBC.

If my buyers have a long exchange to completion they will effectively need to insure my current house for, say, 3 months. I've got no plans to cancel my insurance as I have buildings, contents and 3 cars in an all in one multi policy with Admiral. It would likely cost me more in admin fees to change my policy. Can you have two policies on the same house?

If the house gets struck by lightening whose policy would we claim on?

I’m wondering this too!

How often do you chase ? We were ready to discuss dates on the 29th of January ! Still nothing from our buyers solicitors ? Were chased last Monday from our solicitors ! Would you expect them to chase them every week ?

I would to be honest. Although my EA said a few weeks ago they chase weekly but last week it changed to they chase weekly/fortnightly. I think they just do what they like.

@movingtoreading I chase all the time. If I haven't heard anything for a few days, I'm on to my solicitor to see where we are. I ask them if they need me to do anything too. So, I've chased up my painfully slow managing agents to get the pack sent out and I've chased up my EA to get on to my buyer about where he's at with his mortgage. I am very annoying but it seems to be working so far.

I work on the basis that everyone in the process has lots of clients all wanting their time, whereas I am my only priority from the house buying / selling perspective. If I want to be kept fairly far up the top of everyone else's priority list, I need to be a bit noisy.

With regards to buildings insurance, I think there was a change in the law or guidance a few years back and now when you exchange contracts, part of the legal terms of the exchange pass the responsibility for insurance from the seller to the buyer. It has something to do with protecting your financial interests and is something I'm fairly sure mortgage companies will insist on, if you need a mortgage to buy.

It depends where the whole chain is in the process. When you say, you are ready to exchange, what do you mean by that? I ask because I've been ready to exchange for months - both on my sale and purchase. However, others in the chain are not yet ready. So I can ask to discuss dates (and have) but it's unlikely to progress until the rest of the chain is ready.

Early in the process, I chased once a week. Now I chase every 2-3 days, depending on the last response and whether I think people need a prod. We have suffered from incompetence elsewhere in our chain so I don't trust the people involved. As a result, I use every angle I can to apply pressure to keep things moving forward. My best advice is to get ALL the EAs talking to each other - not just to the next EA in the chain, but the top talking to the bottom. They can get more specific updates than you normally get from the solicitor and will contact the solicitor, EA and buyers / sellers directly to get information.

Our buyers are first time buyers and our seller is not buying he is moving into rented property. Sellers estate agent says he is ready to w change asap buyers solicitor said end of January that all enquiries are satisfied so i have no idea what else is left but to discuss dates !

We've exchanged! 😍
Completion is set for next week.

Well done @EagerHouseMover. Love seeing that it can happen! :-)

Radio silence from everyone here - land registry should have updated sellers solicitors today but they haven't.

So it looks like we may be in for at least another week of waiting...

Now entering week 17 of conveyancing and officially fed up with it!

We are picking up the keys to our rental on Saturday and will gradually move our stuff until completion day on 21/02. Still haven't found anywhere to buy.

Thought we were ready to exchange last week, all enquiries satisfied, then Friday afternoon our buyers solicitor came back with a HUGE list of outstanding enquiries. When top of the chain heard, they relisted their property yesterday. I’ve chased so much, been so on top of everything, returned all enquiries within 24 hours, been as communicative as I can, and I know from living here this final batch of enquiries just won’t be an issue but the solicitor is like a dog with a bone. Absolutely heartbroken that it might fall apart so late in the process, and feeling really misled by my solicitor that things were more resolved than they are :(

Gah @WittyOchreBird how frustrating. It is such a hideous process. I don't understand how could they be "outstanding" queries though, if all the queries had been answered?

@WittyOchreBird thats so shitty ! This is the exact situation we are in enquiries were supposed to be satisfied 2 weeks ago and have been trying to get them to discuss dates since !
I have a feeling they will come back with a list of enquiries like you and our seller will put it back on the market !
Are the enquiries easy to answer at least ?

Me neither - I think it’s partly my solicitor being overly optimistic and partly their solicitor pushing on things that as far as we’re concerned are resolved. At least half the list are things we’ve already provided.

@WittyOchreBird if you are quick with the responses you may be OK. Keep fingers crossed that the re-listed house doesn't get another offer. You may still be the quickest rout to them selling.

I can see how it may happen. We just sent enquiries to our sellers. But there were some deeds missing from the original searches. So until those are back we cannot be sure that the list we sent will be all the enquires needed. The missing deeds may raise more questions.

It is all so slow and complicated though. I wonder if we would be better just paying more insurance and getting our houses sold as seen and face the consequences.

Some are, some are things that I can’t change (eg lease states potential for ground rent to rise - but we residents vote on our own ground rent, so I don’t see how I can prove that at no point after I leave will everyone decide to raise the ground rent?!) and some are trickier - one in particular around access. Lots of neighbouring houses have sold without any issues (have confirmed with neighbours) so I don’t know what more we can say - either they’re happy with how things are or they aren’t.

This sounds very frustrating and stressful!

Our buyer had survey yesterday onnour house, hopefully all OK. We are just finishing mortgage app. All our papers for sale and purchase our with solicitor but not sure anyone else has done anything yet!

What???? Why have they relisted??

Our seller / their buyer had their previous sale fall through at a similar point so we are take two. Our offer was only accepted in December so from our POV we’ve been speedy but I guess from theirs it’s been a long process. I’m gutted for our sellers, they’re lovely and have been so helpful - they definitely don’t deserve this to happen again.

I can relate to much of what has been written above about thinking you are ready to exchange only to find there are more enquiries. We've been in this pattern since December with a related sale in our chain.

It seems like two things can influence getting everyone over the line. The first is due diligence from the solicitors. If they don't ask the right questions or provide the right information earlier in the process, issues inevitably come to light later on. The second is the motivation of the buyer. When you buy a property, you have to accept that it won't be perfect and there is some element of risk. At some point, you have to stop asking questions and decide are you going to sign the contract or not?

We have suffered from both issues at the bottom of our chain. First we had a solicitor who didn't do due diligence so a new solicitor had to be found. We also have a FTB who is clearly terrified of what she's about to do and wants everything to be just so. This has led to every test that could feasibly be carried out and queries about things that ultimately will not be solved and will have to be lived with.

I think once you start getting questions that have already been answered it is a red flag about lack of commitment. @WittyOchreBird I'm not surprised your vendor has put their property back on the market. I think sometimes you get to the point where someone has to give an ultimatum that forces a commitment. I'm anticipating that something similar will happen in our chain if things don't progress to exchange in the next 2 weeks.