The all new buyers/sellers waiting room (8) lies lies and the stamp duty deadline

[hotandpermi]

Continuing on the convo- title based on the theme of the last thread

Can't believe we have been in a week already! Am now fully recovered from my illness and getting the energy back. We are slowly getting unpacked, it's hard with 2 young kids and day to day life but no rush. Have also picked up some 2nd hand drawers for youngest and a desk for me to wfh, can't believe I finally have my own space! Going to enjoy the Easter holidays now with the kids.
Will be signing off the thread now as I have officially graduated. But I leave with positivity and the reminder to keep going, it will happen! We had the longest journey from 2021, 6 buyers, 3 offer accepted houses, 1 huge fall through at exchange which broke me for a time. But eventually we were granted a little luck and have ended up in an amazing house that we could never have dreamed of affording in a beautiful, peaceful area. So good luck to all, I wish you all a happily ever after xx

Lovely post Wimby. Wishing you many years of happiness in your new place.

@WimbyAce congratulations and I'm so happy for you. Your story has given me hope. I'm on my third buyer, my second house I'm trying to buy and five weeks over when I expected to move in. July was my first offer accepted and received. Current buyer offered in September and my offer was accepted in November.

@WimbyAcewell done and congrats!!! You must have nerves of steel to stick at it through all of that. Agree has also given me some hope 🙏🏻
Sometimes hard to believe it will ever happen.

Yes, and it's goodbye from me too.

Here as a proxy for my DS who has now left his furnished rental officially. His landlady gifted him his mattress so one fewer thing to buy! He's slowly unpacking and we are off up there to stay over Easter.

See ya all around. Good luck everyone!

Wondering how long until I get a bit concerned by non action. I think our offer was made nearly 4 weeks ago and we still haven’t had anything from the sellers solicitor.

We sold in September! To first time buyers. Had a house we wanted to buy falling through, the seller changed their minds very late in the process, so we've been scouring the market & have just had a very positive survey on another property, but have discovered that the seller hasn't formally instructed their solicitor yet. Is that normal?

Also our buyer wants to visit again, for the 3rd time, nerve wracking isn't it. All conveyancing done on our sale.

Yes that's not normal. Chase up the estate agent that are selling the house & ask them what the sellers are waiting for.

We have a similar thing but we think our buyers were waiting for us to do a survey etc, have you started searches etc?

No searches won’t happen until we get some evidence of motivation from the sellers. It is a probate property except some of the executors also occupy the property.

My solicitor wanted to speak to their solicitor to see how far into the probate process they are - as basically everything we’ve been told to date has turned out to be untrue!

We’ve had our mortgage valuation done and are waiting for a survey date to be agreed.

@Nextdoor55we sold September too! Chain complete middle of Dec and bottom of chain done ready to exchange it's just our onward property that is difficult and their solicitor is just so bad.

@WimbyAce and @Feelingstrange2 congratulations and goodbye enjoy your new home Wimby.

So long from me as well, not quite moved in but definitely graduated from the buyers thread. I'll be hanging about in DIY and back here for the high's and lo's once our old house hits the market.

Best of luck to everyone waiting and hoping.

Frustrating isn't it?! I cannot understand why the seller hasn't instructed their solicitor properly yet.

That's really poor, definitely put the pressure on , what's the EA saying?
You need the forms they send out via their solicitor.

We're making some progress. The new build we are buying planned for April completion actually looks like it will be on time! We have a completion date from the developer of 28th. We still haven't exchanged contracts. We were not pushing to do it too early as didn't want to agree a completion date and risk making ourselves homeless if there was a delay to the build.

The house had been plastered and wired, trades are in with for plumbing, fitting, flooring and decorating in the next two weeks and it will be inspected in the next week or so.

There's one little niggle which is related to a change in the retaining wall in the garden, we have a flat patio then a wall with steps up a level, and apparently the wall has been built taller than plan- I'm guessing because the garden levels were higher than planned. I'm waiting for the construction director to call me to say why this has happened and implications, if any.

Hopefully this will be nothing material, and we can go ahead and exchange in advance of completion. I've been very clear I don't want to exchange and complete on the same day.

We've started some light packing a few weeks ago and have around 12 full boxes in my ILs garage. We are hiring a van to do our own move so I've been looking to get non essentials out in advance, we are getting hard floors done by the developer but sorting our own carpets locally so don't want a house of unnecessary stuff that we have to move from room to room for carpet fitters to access.

My vendors new build was due February. Still not signed off. Good luck @TheCatCameBack112

I joined the previous thread but I have good news..we viewed in late November offered and was accepted 2 days later.
Exchanged in February and we delayed completion till the new tax year but we complete on Monday.
Yeay It can be done.

We are on the verge of walking away. Our rental situation is precarious and for absolutely nothing to have happened on the sellers side for 4 weeks just isn’t acceptable.

We were initially told it was chain free. Then that it hadn’t got probate and the sellers were going to be in a chain. Then that the EA had encouraged them to move into rented. That probate would be granted at the end of March and then the end of April.

I googled and can see in the Gazette a notice that all potential creditors have until the end of May to make a claim on the estate so presumably no probate until then?

It is all just lies. Estate agents own guff says by week 4 we should be dealing with enquiries but we haven’t even started the process!

And now the same EA is coming to value the rental we are in so there’ll be no chance of us extending our time here which means we will need to start looking for a new rental next month.

So, the main issue raised in the HB survey was moss on the roof, which could lead to damp. Very worried this would cost a fortune. Well the roofer has come back and quoted £1000.00 to clear the moss and give the roof a moss treatment.

As the roof is shared by three flats, that is £333 each.. major relief

Honestly I was going 🙄 at the mention of moss on the roof. That’s not a big issue but surveyors do like to scare home buyers with all their caveats of what small things “could lead to”. Glad you got it resolved anyway.

Thanks, @Twiglets1 Survey made it sound like it would cost £1000's.
At least now i can relax a bit and hopefully move forward :)

@kirinm this just isn’t good enough. You must be so fed up.

We now have a completed chain of four with only two of us both selling and buying so that sounds like it might be more straightforward? I am now worrying about the survey on ours - haven't sold a house for years and can;t remember what surveyors do. Anything I should think about to prepare?

Hadn't sold a house for over 30 years and currently under offer. Survey was best part of 3 hours - believe it was RICS2 survey. Took best part of a month to get feedback on survey. I wasn't sure who was holding up the feedback- but all adds to the conveyancing delay as your not sure whether buyers are going to want to negotiate price. Whole bloody process is so slow!

This is so true. I posted a few weeks ago about our survey and how worried we were - supposed issues with the windows and the roof which were marked as urgently needing attention. Surveyor claimed there were signs of mould and damp.
took our builder round last week and he couldn’t see the issues which were raised at all. The roof is purely cosmetic and the windows can be fixed in isolation if we want to. No damp and some of the “mould” was dust!
honestly relieved but frustrated at the anxiety the survey caused!

Our estate agent brought a builder around after our house survey and reassured the buyer that it wasn’t what the surveyor claimed (illegally extended) but a solid, well-built house with a perfectly legal, adequate and safe loft extension. We dropped £10k rather than £40k on the price to keep him moving towards exchange and it worked.