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

[IWasBornIn1989]

The other thread is full 😏

Still trying to find out the details of the forward chain on this house!
We will have completely on ours separately and moved out, the vendors for our sale are buying but then who knows hope many people are involved. The last time I bought I was a FTB and the property was as chain free and even then it was an 8 month long nightmare.

I feel like solicitors at least in our area aren't that busy, mine got the contract out the same day that we gave her the paperwork. She also generally replies to emails same day. When we purchased this house in 2018 using the same solicitor it took days for anything. I am hoping the EA will also be keen to get their money if the market is slow, so hurry our buyers into getting survey etc done if they want one. Wishful thinking!

It does rely on all parties being quick with the paperwork and any questions and I can see how easy it is for some people to get an email and then take nearly a week to reply to it and then if someone else takes a few days to reply or provide something the weeks just pass by. Wonder why people bother selling though if they aren't motivated to get it done but equally I do feel like it's taking up such a large chunk of my time and some people are just so busy. Hope things get moving for you all soon.

We have nothing except a sales memo, and a complete chain. So either someone isn’t doing their job properly or something has gone wrong with the sellers we anre buying from and no one is telling us yet. I’m sending a strong email this morning so will find out either way hopefully!

good luck everyone. congrats @Everintroverte ! have you found somewhere to move on to?

we are chundering along with our conveyancing. had some insane removals fees - £5.5k! we're only moving 3 miles. got more companies coming today and tomorrow

fun and games with searches. ours shows house isn't connected to mains sewage (it is, but sellers have never had a bill either, so that needs sorting). Still haven't seen a copy of the covenants.

We thought our sale and purcahse was all going along nicely, but the enviro seraches has thrown a massive spanner in the works with the house we're being being high flood risk from surface water flooding depsite being built less than 10 years ago and never flooded (last time was 1993 when it was an industrial land) Struggling to find any insurer who will offer flood cover depsite going to specialist brokers so lookling like we''l need tp pull out. Really struggling to see a way forward, but the whole street of 33 houses is in the flood area, so don't know how anyone has bought there without flood cover (around 7 houses sold in the last 3 years!) Literally devatstated as there are no other houses in the area that even remotely meet our criteria which means its likely we'll lose our buyers and have to start all over again😭

We were provisionally told the 13th and have spent over a week trying to get confirmation of that date. As of yesterday still having emails like “13th should be fine - awaiting confirmation from xyz” is it normal to be potentially moving next week and not know for sure ? We’ve booked the van anyways. All the contracts are done but not formally exchanged yet … when is that happening!!? 🤣 this is all so ridiculous long winded. Then the mortgage company texted this morning saying they would release funds to our solicitors next week. So they know more than us it seems😬

I would instruct your solicitor to wait until you’ve exchange before your mortgage release funds. With our first buyer everyone in the chain was “apparently” all good to exchange and complete 31st March. It got to a week before and I was getting extremely nervous with our buyer as there was a few enquiries left outstanding, my solicitor requested release of funds 5 days before but then called me to say she looked through the documents and hadn’t realised the buyer still had a few enquiries outstanding, asked me if to continue with funds release or to cancel, I said your more knowledgable than me, you do what you feel is the right thing to do, so she cancelled release of funds. It was a good job she did because the sale fell through a month later and if she hadn’t cancelled release of funds, we would have been liable for the mortgage interest for date of release funds until today which would have been a lot of money.

it might sound a bit strange but could you maybe knock on the doors of those houses, introduce yourself and explain your situation briefly, then find out who their flood cover insurance is with?

That’s helpful thank you. I will follow up with them today. As far as I am aware all queries are done and there is nothing to do but exchange formally.

We are now on the market and have two viewings booked which I'm very pleased about.

As we've found our onward property already then I'm hoping for a quick offer so we don't lose out.

Also this thread is very helpful as I don't really know what I'm doing, our 1st house was a new build and we were ftb so buying and selling in a chain is very different.

We now have 6 viewings lined up so from nothing for a month to 6 this week! All bar two are FTBs - one that booked in yesterday called the agents again today to see if there was any further interest and when told we have other viewings over the weekend she asked to bring hers forward to tomorrow! Have everything crossed for us 🤞

That’s actually a really good idea, I’ll try and do that over the next couple of days

Hi! I was briefly on the last thread before life went crazy for a few weeks.

We went on the market in March, had a prolonged bidding war between 2 buyers and eventually sale agreed after 4 weeks. It’s now been another 5 weeks and we haven’t got an onward purchase. Our buyers were adamant they were flexible but are chasing the estate agent for updates which is making me nervous. It’s not for lack of trying. We have viewed 15 houses and been outbid twice. We’re now viewing houses above our original budget which will stretch us to our limit but we need to move by end of year so we can apply for school places in the new catchment area.

We have a second viewing on a property this week which we love for its location and privacy but it’s smaller than our current house, no utility or downstairs toilet and is top of our budget so no money left for doing any work. I think it needs to be a head over heart decision. We do have another 2 to view at the weekend as well but nothing that ticks all the boxes on paper. Also worried that none are chain free, it feels as though the chain could go on forever.

I would definitely be chasing! What about the sale of your house? I would be asking where the contract is if the chain is complete.

@Hermioninny we were in this position. We found a house two weeks following our buyers offer but then the vendor struggled to find anywhere, pulling out around 5 weeks later as he took the house off the market. We looked slightly above our budget, barely had anything to look at and finally found one with no chain which we are now going through the process with, so it's a short chain thank god. Costing us more money but it ticks more boxes. Our buyers did wait around 8 weeks in total but we were feeling the pressure to find, we only looked at 4 other properties as there was just nothing to view.

We are up to date on our sale, close to exchange. I sent a stroppy email to the seller agent today and the contract pack is now with our solicitors. So hopefully we are not moving forward.

Glad your sale is nearly there! Ah just makes you wonder if they were literally just sat in the office with it there! You would think they want to get paid!!

Hopefully we are now moving forward I mean! 😆

I suspect the sellers and/or their solicitors have done very little until the email sent today. We highlighted again that we want to complete by August which is 9 weeks away and gave them 48 hours to provide an update so it seems they read the room and realised they needed to pull their finger out!

We are 3 weeks post offer being accepted and no huge progress yet but we have heard the seller has another home and we will move out as soon as our conveyancing is done which is ideal because we will be relocating and staying in temporary accommodation with 2 kids.
Survey is happening tomorrow after seller taking a week to commit to a date so not great news in how responsive they are but if we see the only chain it should still be fine. It’s an old house in nice condition that they bought 6 years ago so I’m hoping conveyancing won’t pull up anything weird.

I'm now 3 weeks into purchase and just playing the waiting game now for my solicitor to do her thing. Waiting on searches at the moment, and the vendors solicitor has only just sent the contract pack to her this week.

My sale is actually ready to exchange apparently, but needs to wait for my purchase to catch up - I had waited 8 weeks for the vendors of the original house I'd offered on to find somewhere, then gave up and found this new (better and cheaper!) property which is chain free.

My buyers had always said from the outset they were aiming for end of July, which still feels very possible given that's 8 weeks away, although now they know the sale is ready to exchange, they're asking if it can be sooner!

I can't move out sooner as I am porting my currently very cheap mortgage and don't want to lose my rate, nor pay an early redemption fee which you have to do even if you are porting.

Fingers crossed the searches are all ok and no issues. Also waiting for my survey which is booked for next week.

I forgot how bloody frustrating buying and selling property is. Got news the chain completed last week, great, now we can all get on with everything. Solicitor sorting searches and contract, great. Our buyers are supposedly having a survey on our house but we haven't had an appointment booked yet and no sign of a surveyor coming. We have asked our agents today if they can contact them and ask if they are still planning on having one. We are feeling a bit nervous that we haven't heard from a surveyor yet as surely that is the next step from our buyer? What is the hold up? Waiting for replies to emails is really frustrating!!!

We are reluctant to spend £500 on a survey on our forward purchase until we can see that financial commitment from our buyers has been made. Does that make sense?

So our viewers that moved forward from Saturday made a couple of offers yesterday and this morning we accepted and they want a second viewing the weekend but we’re keeping our other viewings going ahead also at the advice from our agents. Looks actually possible now we could move!

Being ghosted by solicitors is my new hobby. They kept suggested we could complete by next Friday. We keep asking about exchange …. No reply. And our mortgage company said they have requested the funds. However we are still sat waiting to exchange. How can I possibly move house next Friday if I haven’t been given any time to redirect my post for example. Or notify utilities etc.

Our buyers hadn’t organised a survey and we have reached the stage where we are almost ready to exchange. They’ve been waiting a long time since their offer and us finding our next house. We then had a survey done on our next house but there was still no survey booked in for the house we are selling. So we asked the agent to find out if they planned to have a survey. Not a hard question but took the agent 2 weeks to ask them. The agent didn’t seem to understand why we wanted to know. In the end I bluntly said we don’t care if they do or don’t, we just want to know if there are likely to be any delays if they spring it on us just before exchange. Oh right they said. So they asked the buyers who hadn’t even thought about it at all. Didn’t even know that people had surveys done (first time buyers!). So then they went off to think about it. Came back and they’ve booked a survey which is next week. So a good month since we originally asked the agent this question. I don’t expect the survey to be an issue. But it’s just another part of this process where I feel I’m doing the work that everyone else is supposed to be doing!

God its annoying!

I mean why isn't someone asking them these questions? Why has it taken for me to make a nuisance of myself today to get the agent to make these enquiries. I feel like someone should be saying 'are you having a survey done? If so, when?'

Like you say, we don't mind them having one, we fully expect them to, but why wait? Why isn't someone just making that suggestion to them to get it booked.

We just want to try and stop any unnecessary delays happening so I do feel like I have made a bit of a nuisance of myself today trying to get my agents to find this information out. Turns out they are having one and will instruct one tomorrow. They have someone lined up just waiting for them to instruct him but have been waiting for 'the nod'. If I hadn't got involved today it would have gone another week with them just waiting for someone to tell them to book it.

I do feel much like I am doing everyone's jobs for them! I swear to god they should just give me all the phone numbers and I will sort it myself! 😂

Honestly, you are me! I’ve been making a nuisance of myself for weeks. With our own agent, the sellers agent, our solicitors. Everyone. We waited a month after the sales memo and complete chain confirmation and received nothing for our onward purchase. Chased and chased. A stroppy email this week has finally produced our contract pack, fixtures and fittings etc tonight at 5pm. Just the local authority search outstanding. It seems being a pain in the arse nag does pay off 😬