Is there a new thread for “Anyone putting their home on the market in early 2025”?

[IWasBornIn1989]

The other thread is full 😏

@ScoobyDoesnt we honestly feel like this about our buyers solicitor. She was warned time and time again that we would lose our sale if she didn't act quickly. I mean, we practically begged her to act quickly or the chain would collapse. She didn't give a toss. Still dealt with everything really really slowly and with no urgency and its because of her and her lengthy delays that we lost our forward sale and our sellers pulled the plug. Our buyers have also not really shown any empathy that we have lost our house.

So frustrating having to wait for someone else but I really hope this is it for you now as far as queries go. It is so painful when they drip feed enquiries and then just come back with more and more really petty and silly questions which the answer to is bleeding obvious!!

Hope you get this document quickly. Keeping everything crossed for you. 🙏

My trouble is it's my buyer's buyer's solicitor that's causing this - so my solicitor doesn't even get 'the story' first hand as she has no access directly to her. So that causes delays too.

I've asked mine to ask directly if this is the final document and then everyone is satisfied and there won't be anything else.

I do think now this is all going to implode and not to my benefit, but I've sort of resigned myself to that now.

@ScoobyDoesnt I think we do this to protect ourselves somewhat.

Our buyers have a zoom call with their solicitor this afternoon and then we will know what their reactions are to the answers to this latest round of enquiries they have raised. But we are so done. We are just so fed up of this sale being held up due to enquiry after enquiry, that they then have to schedule a zoom call to discuss, only to come back with more demands and more silly petty questions. All the time not proceeding the sale further, and not booking their survey. None of the queries are big important deal breaker queries by the way so there is no reason why they should be holding things up by refusing to book a survey. Its nonsense!!

So we are ready to pull the plug if they come back with yet more stuff this time. Enough is enough.

So we have also just resigned ourselves to the fact that our sale is not happening now.

Hope for the best but expect the worse and all that.

Our belongings are being moved into storage as I type, yet we still haven't exchanged contracts, which was meant to happen two weeks ago and we were meant to complete tomorrow. I couldn't rearrange the removals, as they were fully booked. A fat from ideal situation.

We found out yesterday that the buyers near the bottom of the chain are missing deeds, so now they're trying to sort out an indemnity policy for that. Why this wasn't dealt with before now beggars belief. I am in despair over the whole situation.

Chain is about to collapse imminently. Kill me now 😑

Oh no @IWasBornIn1989 - that’s not good after all his time. I think pretty much same here, am expecting it all to go tits up anytime. My vendor is fed up.

@MovingABCs sounds like another useless solicitor - like you say, surely that should have been done weeks ago?!

Did you get anywhere yesterday @andweallloveclover

Oh crap @IWasBornIn1989 that sucks. Is this definite or any way it can be salvaged?

@ScoobyDoesnt we heard from our buyers following their zoom meeting with their solicitor. They have, thankfully, not come back with any further enquiries and we are now happy to proceed. However, some of the work that needs doing is easement of access and applying for adverse possession and they have said they won't book their survey until they have proof that those applications are in. So we have gone back and said that's fine, but we won't look for a new forward purchase until your survey is booked. So that is where we currently are. Now waiting for the solicitor to do the work required. We spoke with our estate agent and we have decided, for now, to continue with the sale. No point pulling the plug just yet. So we are going ahead with doing the paper work they request and then we need to see them fulfill their side of the bargain. Book a survey and commit to this sale or we are done. So we have a little more time to play with. But it sucks. We are just fed up but it took us 9 months to find a buyer as the market is so slow where we are, so we feel we may as well continue with this for a little while longer and see how it pans out. If it gets to a point where we do pull out it will be soon and can be back on the market for the autumn. Any news from yours?

Gosh how frustrating. But understand where you're coming from in you may as well wait. I'm lucky here in that the market is pretty good, I sold first time after 2 weeks, and when that didn't proceed after a couple of weeks, again after 5.

But I don't know if I've got it in me to try again now this year if this does fall through.

'Final' document was received yesterday late afternoon, and is being reviewed today. My solicitor has told buyer's solicitor (and to pass down the line) that we need to exchange by tomorrow. I just don't know....it's a marginally better position than yesterday morning but it's almost more stressful now just sitting here waiting for news (whilst I'm supposed to be working!).

@IWasBornIn1989 I feel for you the whole process here is so crap! Is there nothing to salvage in the chain?

@ScoobyDoesnt we was told enquiries were answered (the remaining ones) and received our contracts for our purchase and was asked to discuss dates so we put forward our preferred dates (end of August) only to get a further email from solicitors but a different person working our sale saying I don’t think the end of August is achievable your buyers solicitors wants the original planning for the house so our solicitors have had to call the local council for this as it’s so old now it isn’t live on the planning portal. We have no expected timeline for this but a bit frustrating we live on a normal street in a normal house not recently built not sure why they’ve waited until now to ask and didn’t bring up in the original enquiries! Back to living in boxes with no firm date for us this bit is dragging on…

Oh that is hopeful. I really hope you get to exchange tomorrow. Will be keeping everything crossed for you.

I know what you mean though, the wait and the constant checking your phone and messages for that 'good news' will be like torture. I don't think you will get much sleep tonight.

Absolutely no news today. It’s the not knowing that’s absolutely stressing me out.

I spoke to my solicitor earlier, she was chasing my buyer’s solicitor but it’s the one below holding the cards. She refused to deal with last week’s problem (a different one to this week!) last Friday as she had completions to deal with - so I’m fully expecting the same tomorrow.

My buyers have found new buyers. Apparently over a week ago! But estate agent was on leave and no one told me until I called yesterday. I was seriously considering auctions and researching that. Glad it’s all back on and hoping everything goes ahead smoothly now.

Hope things start going smoothly for all of you too.

Had to jump on here as got the news yesterday that our onward purchase won’t be available till January at the earliest! (Issue unrelated to the house just circumstances for the sellers that are out of their control :-( and won’t be resolved until December!)

Love the house and nothing else remotely suitable and although we can wait for that timeline as aren’t in a rush, think we’re going to lose our buyers so we’ll be back to square one.

our agents are doing their best to talk our buyers round to the delay and that if they pull out and look for something new it will likely be that timeline anyway, but I’m so disappointed as it’s we’ve been on this merry go round since March!

literally at a loss of what to do :-(

How frustrating for you!

We are in the process of wondering whether to switch solicitors. Ours has been a nightmare and he has practically driven me to tears with frustration (and I am a bit of a tough cookie and don't cry much) But I am not sure if we even can at this stage in the sale.

Honestly, we really need him to do the work required by our buyers to satisfy them but we just can't even get to speak to him to talk to about it, let alone get him to do it. I am so done with this whole process. The stress is monumental!!
I feel for you and really hope you do get some news today. I agree, the waiting is like torture.

My DH keeps saying we will look back on all this in a years time and laugh. I bloody well hope so!!

Is there anywhere you can stay if you go ahead with your sale and put things in storage ?

Oh god, there’s just nothing positive for anyone is there?! Solicitors are just the bane of my life.

As you say @Namechange13101 the timeline will be similar anyway - I’m a bit like that with my vendor, what’s he going to gain at this late stage by pulling out?

@andweallloveclover can you ask to deal with someone else in the practice maybe?

@jay55 that sounds positive further down your chain, nice of agent to tell you!

I can’t move out - if I break the chain, even if I can find somewhere to stay with DD and 2 DDogs, I have a £7k early repayment fee on my mortgage. If it was just me I’d sofa surf amongst friends and family whilst at least being in a stronger no chain position - but I’ve got others to consider!

Ouch that’s a hefty fee. Totally understand. I think as I took so long to find a buyer (and its probate property, I live in rented anyway) I’m doing all I can to keep them.

Really hope yours works out and you keep or find new buyers.

I’m breaking the mould to say that I’ve been really impressed with our solicitors so far, they seem to be very on it, even chasing the buyers up via the estate agent without us asking them to. Regular emails/texts to update and enquiries sent to us same day they are received. If anyone wants their details message me! We went for a local ‘mid priced’ firm. In contrast, our buyers went for a local firm that we also got a quote from (it was higher cost) and I think they’ve been pretty rubbish so far, I’m glad I didn’t go with them.

We are pootling along, managed to get removal quote to a more reasonable price by suggesting we hire a van and do some ourselves. Our plan is to move out the day before completion, removal firm to store the majority and deliver to us the day after completion, we take a van load to my mum’s, stay overnight and move in on the day, to do away with any key delay nonsense and extra charges. Gives me time to clean and leave the house looking reasonable too, just probably means we need a few days off work to do it all. Still no idea what timeframe we are looking at though - I’m hopeful for before Oct half term but that might be optimistic…?!

@Timwith2noses our solicitor's have also been pretty on it! We all agreed as long as the last query is satisfied with our buyers we would all look to complete end of this month. Then our buyers within one hour of this decided they wanted a Home Buyers survey so back to being in limbo. We have our whole house pretty much packed up. Everyone is baffled as to why they’ve waited to now but they are insisting it goes ahead.

That is ridiculous! So you will probably be delayed by about a further month now 😡

@Timwith2noses that's brutal and pretty shit really. I hope that they are not pulling the tactic of having one this late so they can pick fault from the survey and then try and renegotiate the price at this late stage. This has happened a lot with friends of ours and its shit because when you are this close to completion they pretty much have you over a barrel. I really do hope that won't happen. But I guess if they want a survey at this late stage then you don't have much choice but to go with it do you? But I agree, this could set things back another month now for you.

@canyon2000 yep will be end of September now if everyone hits the deadlines!

@andweallloveclover yes this is a major concern of ours! We told the EA to tell the buyers if we lost our onward purchase due to delays we would pull out they passed this on the buyers who just said ok fine and reiterated they can have a survey up to point of exchange. I’m convinced a reduction is the aim here but they have us over a barrel really!

@Vie8126 that’s crap, can probably guarantee they’re going to try and get a price reduction - shall we run a book on the likelihood on that?! But seriously, I hope they manage to get one booked quickly (my level 2 took 4 weeks from booking to receiving the report).

So - I did get an update yesterday late afternoon from my solicitor. Apparently the solicitor at the bottom is happy with the latest document and now needs to finish reviewing the file to then exchange, which hopefully will be Monday. Unless of course she then finds something else. It’s literally been one major thing a week for the last 4 weeks. Not quick things like ‘oh, do you have the boiler service record’, it’s been planning docs, estate management query that wasn’t in the pack, s106, then deed of covenant missing. All things that could / should have been sorted weeks ago.

I’ve decided to get away for a few days now as it’s been so stressful (I’m lucky to have access to a caravan by the sea!) and have said I will complete BH week, and not this week. I did check with my vendor and he’s good with that. My buyers have said they will see what they can do. I actually genuinely can’t get my preferred removals man this week anyway (family friend, doing me a massive favour with the cost, does do removals for a living!) so bugger everyone else, I’m having some time out and if we exchange then brilliant, but if not I’ve still had a break from it all.

After weeks of being told we're about to exchange, followed by disappointment and anxiety when it didn't happen, we finally exchanged contracts today!! Finally, I can breathe a sigh of relief. Completion next week.

Well done @MovingABCs - that’s great!

Still nothing concrete my end….solicitor raised two more enquiries this morning which luckily my buyers solicitor was able to answer straight away.

Waiting then to find out if that is finally it.