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

This was where I got stuck a week ago.that’s what I did - contacted the EA and they contacted the vendor, things got done after that !

Thanks, woke up thinking about it so thought I can only try! Think everything else is done this end.

Can I join? Accepted an offer on ours two weeks ago from FTBs and had an offer accepted last week. At the moment we’re the only link in the chain as our sellers are planning to go into rented but that could change if they find a house they want to buy.

We’re going all in on this purchase and actually hoping we’re not moving until June so that we’ve got 3 more months of pay to provide a cushion.

Though reading through this thread I’m now thinking I’m being massively naive to think it’ll only take 3 months😅

Yes I would initially go through the agent, but if all else fails then speak to your solicitor.

Yep, we're literally chain free, first time buyers purchasing our house & we're buying an empty house. It's been 6 months.
I never knew you could even find 60 questions about just one house! They've decided that they're done asking questions now. Thank the lord. We're just waiting for details from our onward purchase, it's such a slow process.

I mean our solicitor updated us Thurs and said she'd gone back with 2 more enquiries on the Weds. Just don't want them sitting on them for another week!

Wow 6 months in!! We are only 2 months in on this occasion, not even quite that so I know I can't moan but as we are so close would be a shame to miss out by a week or 2.

That sounds mad and maddening! Is it your solicitor who has asked the million questions?

I think it’s the money aspect that’s making me feel like it will be Sod’s Law for it all to go through smoothly. But also aware that the process is rarely smooth so it could be a while!

Still trying to find a house clearance date for the week after next, if we crash through this Friday coming.
My solicitor has gone off sick… Can someone else in the firm generally step in and/or exchange, if we actually get to that stage during her illness?

@WimbyAce the agent for my DSs vendors has a "sales progressor " and she's been onto things like this. In his case she's independent but in my DDs estate agency its done in house by the agency staff.

She dealt with the repairs negotiation following survey (rather than price change), liasing on vendor documentation when there appeared to be a misunderstanding on who was waiting for what at the start, and more recently chasing one enquiry which is the most likely to cause a delay.

She did, at one point, ask my DS about "all the enquiries" and I told him she should talk to solicitors if she wanted that much detail. Simply because she appeared to be moving out of her "poky stick" role and potentially into running a separate enquiry process! But, if you think there's just the odd sticky thing, then yes the agent or his sales progressor is where I would turn as they appear to be able to.hold a conversation with all the parties and they've got a massive interest in the whole thing completing.

Usually there’s someone to step in, but depends on how large your solicitors is ?

gahhh it’s maddening

Re moving costs, we are paying £4,800 to move a 4-bed house 250 miles. That includes packing and because of that and the distance it's a 3-day job. We had 7 quotes so have a good idea on costs :-D. The cheapest was £4,300. Dearest was £9,400! The second most expensive ones (£7,200) kept contacting us to ask if we had a completion date yet - they clearly weren't very busy quoting those prices!! The others were mostly between £4.5 and £5K so I'd say that's probably about the right price for this sort of move.

We are now 12 days away from moving. We are trying to do some deep cleaning, even though we are surrounded by stuff. My partner is currently cleaning the inside of kitchen cupboards. Hoping to get to the point where once everything is out, we can just do a quick whizz round with the hoover as we'll need to get on the road for our long drive north.

Other than that, a lot of our time right now is being spent on last minute get togethers with friends. We have our neighbours coming round tonight so I've made some puff pastry tarts.

It’s a reasonable size firm. Hopefully she will be back in on Monday. Probably the stress of this month!

But it would be bonkers not to have insurance, no? I still need buildings and contents surely?

No it's our buyers solicitor. I agree I think they're trying to run the bill up, I've never seen anything like it & so many repeat questions. Just stop!!

Make sure the enquiries are all needed, we have just answered 60 questions, mostly repetitive, clearly our buyers solicitor is racking up their bill...

Is that a nornal way of billing? We got a quote and that won't change no matter how much back and forths there are

Not sure, but I think mostly they're just a quote, there will be room for more charges though if they do more work I'm sure.

I would be so surprised if the buyers haven’t got a fixed fee quote.
Almost all conyenacers work on fixed fees and it doesn’t change based on usage - they win some they lose some in terms of profitability.
if your buyers have taken a gamble and gone hourly rate instead (on the basis of expecting a simple sale) WIP be racked up quite quickly but equally there’s an argument the solicitors are breaching the best interest rules in asking questions just to rack up costs.
More likely explanation is that the person running the file is either a huge stickler for accuracy or is relatively nervous or inexperienced - hense all the questions.

Our solicitor went on annual leave the week we completed but she just passed our file onto a colleague. So it doesn’t have to be the original solicitor who does exchange or completion as long as there is more than one in the firm.

Yeah I think you get a quote and then if it's particularly complicated they can charge you more. The hourly rate is quite an eye opener! We are working on a reduced rate anyway as initially it was a relative doing the work and they have agreed to keep that rate.

This convo just got me worried that I went and checked my solicitor fees again and luckily it's a fixed fee unless there was additional paperwork required which they would advise along the way.

But yeh 60 enquiries is mad... I had less than 10 and even that took about 6 weeks to clear up (mainly due to the seller's solicitor holding up and very late in responding).

Thank you @Twiglets1

Jumping in on here, 3 months in and we are having to pull out of our purchase when we thought we were a week or so from exchanging because we can’t resolve one of the survey issues. We were told one thing by local authority and then they backtracked after 2 weeks. Our solicitors have been utterly useless in Helping us resolve it, I can’t find any advice online anywhere and I’ve spent weeks digging to try and sort it. We talked to the estate agents last week and they are scrambling to try and resolve it but I’ve no hope to be honest - it’s just a big risk we aren’t prepared to take because we won’t have the funds to resolve if it goes wrong.

I’m so disappointed, and worried we will lose our buyers now and be back to square one. Honestly can’t find anything else on the market we like. Also feel really shitty letting the vendors down last minute.

That sounds frustrating @LibrariansGiveUsPower - is the problem something that anyone here might be able to offer any advice about? Is it something that might have arisen for others? Understand if you don't want to be specific though.