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

Thanks @BarbaricYawp I don’t know - I’ve lost sleep over it for the past 6 weeks. High risk of future subsidence issues but no ability to prevent it, and strong likelihood of having insurance invalidated before it gets to that stage anyway. We can’t afford to have an uninsured house.

I’m gutted, less because it was a dream house - I loved it, adored the location - but gutted because we are moving because my kid is being badly bullied in school and we want a fresh break before they start secondary, and now that’s kicked down the line.

@LibrariansGiveUsPower have your solicitors said asked if you can continue with the current provider of the vendor, so insurance is continuous ? I know a pal of mine did this with similar situation to you

just trying think outside of the box

Anyone in the exchange waiting room today ?

im not as you know 5 day waiting for the cheque to clear

@Limeandsober hi! I’m a single mum doing this on my own as well, it’s traumatic isn’t it?! I’ve told my ds that once this is done we aren’t moving ever again, I’m a ftb going from rented into an empty chain free house it’s still stressful 🙈

I’m hoping to get my mortgage offer this week, there was an issue with the house the lender wanted sorted before they would finalise. That’s now been done 🎉 so everything crossed 🤞

sending good vibes to all on this thread - hopefully progress this week 🤞🤞🤞🤞

We’re waiting for our mortgage offer this week. The lender will be valuing today & hopefully we will get our offer tomorrow or Wednesday. Once that’s done our purchase is pretty much ready to go but we’re waiting for our buyers. They’ve not raised enquiries yet as of Friday but they’ve been doing so since Feb. We were really hoping to complete on 28 March to save us stamp as we are moving into an empty house so there is only 3 of us in the chain. the buyers solicitors won’t ‘confirm’ 28 March even though they know we are hoping to beat the stamp duty increase🙃😭🤦‍♀️

Yes I am. We should have exchanged Friday but it was moved to today with completion set for Wednesday. Really dont want it pushed back anymore, I have taken some time off work this week to get sorted too. Hope you have some news on the cheque clearing asap.

Hi everyone. I’m new here so joining for some moral support because I don’t know what the hell is going on any more 😁how on earth does anyone do this?

We’re in the lucky position of not having to sell our current place first, so no pressure in that area. Had an offer accepted on a house where the owner is moving to a new build that may or may not be ready in April. Got a mortgage in principle, got a solicitor and searches are underway, got a survey booked… I’ve signed a lot of things and shown my awful passport photo several times to various different people. I feel so massively out of my depth with no clue what’s supposed to happen next and who is responsible for what. I can’t keep anything straight. All fun and games isn’t it.

Weirdly I can’t shake the feeling that the house we’re buying is too good for us and isn’t meant to happen. Anyone else had that?

Anyway, good luck to everyone waiting on hearing things today/this week.

Not today, but it needs to happen this week for us, so we'll call the EA and really try and get an update to know for certain if we can make it or not before 31 March. We need to know at this point!

Good luck to who's expecting the call today!

@TweezerMay funnily enough I had this with our previous house - did survey had it had subsidence so we had to pull out.

that said the tales of woe on this thread probably aren’t helping your thought process. I’m crossing my fingers for you and I’m with you on the passport photo thing !!

@purplesmiler well I’m crossing my fingers for you today lovely ! Honestly the 3rd circle of hell is waiting to exchange !!

@HavenSprings glad I’m not the only one in limbo !! Let us know what they say !!!

@LibrariansGiveUsPower I'm really sorry to hear that. I think, as @hotandpermi says, that you can insist the current insurer continues cover on the existing terms, but that doesn't help you with the actual subsidence risk, which personally would give me the heeby jeebies. I know you can underpin houses, but I imagine it's expensive and I know from bitter experience (as a buyer) that some lenders won't lend on them ever again. I really hope you can find a solution one way or another for your DC to get the fresh start they need. It's a really tough situation and one that hurts us in the heart as parents. x

@BarbaricYawp that’s a good point actually- our lender (which was Halifax) at the time valued the property at £0 so wouldn’t provide a mortgage on it.

There maybe others that do but I know Halifax won’t and underpinning a house is not fun (my partner is a tradie so knows how not fun it is)

also might be worth your solicitor asking if the current owners have made a claim for subsidence ? We were told we would need a structural engineer to confirm est cost to repair, whether it active or historic. I can also confirm they are not cheap so we noped out of that one.

worth looking at also if the house is built on clay because with climate change happening, it’s more likely to have problems in the future if so. According to the very lengthy and expensive report I paid through the nose for (which was money down the toilet)

Just paid deposit (gulp) my file all signed off so ready to exchange when all in agreement.

and now we wait.. again

I am in the same position - need to know this week if we can make it next Friday.... the stress 😫

@hotandpermi oh no, I’m sorry that you had to pull out over subsidence. I guess it must have been pretty bad to force you to pull out? One of my stresses with the house we’re buying is that it’s underpinned (somewhere, some part of it, around 30 years ago) and I still don’t know what that will mean for us. Mortgage advisor didn’t baulk at it when we told her, and the estate agent only mentioned it in passing after we told them we wanted to make an offer. I await the day someone tells us that it’s fucked everything up.

@TweezerMay ah now if the house has been underpinned I assume the subsidence isn’t active. I would get a level 3 survey to confirm that it’s historic and therefore shouldn’t effect your mortgage abilities in theory

If enquiries haven't been raised yet I don't think you have any chance of completing this month. When was your chain complete? It's taking an average of 6 months from chain complete to completion at the moment. I complete on 28th March and it will be 7 months in by then. That seems to be the norm at the moment.

We are good to go, exchanged Friday, ready to complete now, the only thing that has prevented our completing earlier, is that removals cannot be got for love nor money. So at exchange we agreed on the 31st March the ONLY day our sellers could arrange removals. Against the advice of our solicitor as 31st doesn't give any room for mistakes if we want to avoid the increased tax. Another thing for people waiting to exchange and complete to worry about.

If a house has been underpinned there shouldn't be any further movement. The whole of the rest of the road could collapse around it but it will stay in place until the end of time pretty much, or that's what a surveyor told me when I was in your position. But the lender wasn't lending, and wouldn't budge. So in your shoes I would specifically check this before you spend much more time or money, in case you need to find a new lender or a new house to buy. (Tbf, this was some years ago, so lending criteria may have changed.)

Exactly the same here - vendor could only find removals for 31st. I suppose now that you have exchanged they are legally bound to that?

@Limeandsober I would hope so, but my solicitor is not happy, just in case....

Then again in my view we have contractually agreed to the 31st and we are able to make that and the seller cant they would be financially impacted not us. Its my pesky solicitor that made us sign to say she bares not responsibility as she warned us it was a late date that worries me. And if there is another banking hitch that hits us. I will transfer all funds this week so that they are definitely with her, then there is nothing else we can do at least.

Hi please can I join!

We are 6 months in, 4 in a chain. We were aiming to be done in March. bottom of chain is FTB and they said they can't afford the stamp duty increase. I doubt we are going to make that as our solicitor keeps sending more enquiries to our vendor, whose solicitor is slowww and we are also waiting for Land Registry to amend a restrictive covenant. I don't know if the whol chain will collapse due to the stamp duty issue ☹️

I so feel everyone's pain about the stamp duty increase. As if all the whole will we/won't we get to exchange wasn't bad enough, plus peripheral things like school places or booking removers etc, and then on top of that this awful deadline that everyone is working towards. I'm not affected myself but I so feel for those of you who are.

Any luck? I've got a reply such as 'early next week the latest', which is really not what I was aiming for nor can work with. I think I'll need to reiterate in a couple of days that we need specific dates or it's an issue.

Still waiting. The last I heard, the seller still has outstanding queries in their onward purchase and is trying to push the file through—whatever that means. My side is all done and ready to go. I think I need to find out from my solicitor when the latest we need confirmation from the seller to meet the date.

Exactly the same! Apparently they are sorting the very last enquiry and they think they are 'almost there'. Very worried to find out by our solicitors that we are already out of time, although they didn't say.