The all new buyers/sellers waiting room (9) the one where we start to wonder if we'll move by Christmas..

[NeverGoingToMove]

Huge apologies if I have missed this thread, I have searched high and low but don't think another was started after number 8 ended in May.

After a seriously stressful encounter with building control, I think we are almost ready to exchange. After going on the market last July, I'm hoping we'll move before our year anniversary!

How is everyone else doing?

@ErlingHaalandsManBun. You have got way more patience than me. I would have just told them to book their survey or I’m putting the house back on the market by now! I cannot believe the audacity of people that think they can call ALL the shots when there is so many other people to consider. And then their solicitor is taking the time to sort it out

Sending you positive vibes.

@moving300m oh believe me, a few weeks ago we were more than ready to tell them to just piss off. To be honest, if the market here wasn't so awful and we thought we could resell it fairly quickly we would have done just that.

It took 9 months to find a buyer and as things are so crap and slow here we would be cutting off our noses to spite our faces I think to pull out at this stage. But we have been VERY close to it. We may still do it at some point. Their excuses for not financially committing to this sale will run out soon. Once the title applications are in there is nothing more to do but wait for them to be granted so the survey is the next logical step. If they insist they wait until they have been granted I think we will have reached the end of our tether. But its just so sad we are starting not to care.

What should have been a really good positive move for us has been totally blighted by our buyers and their solicitors being unbelievably slow and collapsing our chain. The whole process is draining beyond belief. It has made us wonder if we really want to move at all. We put our house on the market excited for the next chapter of our lives to start. A move to live by the sea. This process has just beaten us black and blue emotionally. 😕

@ErlingHaalandsManBun yes that is a tough position to be in. We are fortunate where we are that houses are moving and ours sold in 2 weeks so no where near as stressful to be stroppy and put pressure on that you will pull out. Keep thinking positive thoughts about that move to the seaside, which sounds amazing by the way. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for everyone that we all get positive news this week 🤞

@moving300m thank you! You too and I hope you don't have long to wait for news from your survey and that you will soon be good to go. xx

@ErlingHaalandsManBun i know, I really feel for her and thank goodness we aren’t in that position, she was getting divorced and moving closer to family so was desperate to move! I just cant believe this has happened again, I had a good cry this morning now the shock has worn off but I barely slept. We’ve decided to call the developer to see if they would part ex the house (doubtful) or will they wait for us, we are signed and ready so they won’t have to pay the solicitors for us again and our buyer wants our house still and hers is back on the market already. I just don’t know, feel so helpless!

I can’t believe your buyers are still dragging their feet, I know what you mean about slow market though, ours sold in two weeks both times but equally it seems a lot slower now and I’m worried it would take time, if we end up re listing we won’t be accepting long chains again that’s for sure, even if it takes ten times longer!

@unicornpower the whole process of buying and selling is stressful. I never want to do this again. When we lost our forward purchase I had a good cry. We really liked that house and I had pictured us there. Now it won't happen. But onwards and upwards.

I think the worst part of the whole thing is everything being out of your control. Having to rely on other people to do their job or be quick and responsive. Our solicitor still hasn't had the email from our buyers. It has been almost a week since their zoom call and she was supposed to email our buyer with instructions. STILL waiting. Honestly, I have never known a solicitor so slow. They are wanting these adverse possession applications in but then holding everything up again by not communicating with our solicitor. We have practically zoned out now and are just leaving the solicitors to do their thing. We literally don't have the headspace for it any longer. Its so painful.

I really hope that you don't lose your house. The waiting to find out, and hoping your buyer sells again quickly will be a tense time for you. Keeping everything crossed for you that somehow it still comes good for you. xx

Well here I was thinking things were going smoothly only to have my solicitor ask when I'd be sending over the paperwork they'd requested. When I told them I'd posted it two weeks ago and provided tracking info did they realise they had miss filed it and lost two weeks of time.

Minor bump in the road all things considered

Our purchase seems to have stalled. Searches have come back and shown there is no completion certificate for the extension sellers built 10+ years ago. Our Solicitor is insisting they get one. We've no idea how long that'll take, or even if the LA will issue one.

Sigh, what we thought would be a fairly straightforward process (we're in rented and they've no onward purchase) is proving anything but.

Anyone else feeling like you’re continually being strung along by sellers and estate agents?

We were buying a property this time last year. Had an offer accepted and were then gazumped. Those buyers then pulled out and our offer was accepted. After we’d paid for surveys, the seller said he was no longer willing to accept our offer.

Second purchase. Lied to about probate. Lied to about progress with probate. Ended up paying for lots of surveys and then pulled out because a lack of any communication re probate. Didn’t even get a response.

Contacted about a house we had offered on a while ago due to the buyer not selling their property. Increased our offer (in the end) by £100k, promised that would be enough. Finally got through to agent and no it isn’t enough and can we add another £50k (no we can’t),

Seeing a house tonight - got a horrible feeling they’ll use any offer we make to pressure other buyers.

We have a very healthy budget but the level of money wanted for housing - increases of £200k on some roads in a year - is just insane.

Yes definitely feeling strung along. Not to the level you're at, that sounds awful I'm so sorry 😣

I rang the estate agent for our purchase on Monday, told the one I'm dealing with is on leave this week (which makes me cross that she dropped a potential bombshell on me at 4:30pm last Friday with her voicemail then went on leave), and was promised a call back by someone else. Didn't happen, chased this morning. Got an apology, promised another call back. Nothing yet. I'm concerned that this 'probate holdup' is bigger than the agents are letting on, since nobody is telling me what it is.

Probate houses are a nightmare - they shouldn’t be allowed to market them until probate has been granted.

@unicornpower any news? Did you get hold of your developer?

Our sale is still currently stuck. We thought we were practically all sorted now with enquiries and that we could finally proceed. Our buyers solicitors has made more demands this morning and honestly I could cry. It feels like this debacle will never end. I gave it to my DH to deal with this morning because I just feel so deflated and so done with the whole thing. It is honestly making me feel a bit ill. I have had to step away before I say something I might regret!! The torture feels never ending.

@ErlingHaalandsManBun no news yet, the lady dealing with us was on leave last week and my husband is dealing with that so we are just waiting. To be honest they will help where they can but it’s their boss, if he says they remarket then they’ll have to. We did book a holiday last night though so we have that in two weeks! Very excited to be living some life. I totally feel your pain, it’s a horrible stressful situation. What is it your buyers need now?! Still no sign of a survey?

Can I join?

We have been really lucky that our house sold before hitting the market - agent had someone with them ready to view when they came to take the pics and that viewing offered asking price. So the sale part (so far) has been far easier than I anticipated. We sold almost 4 weeks ago.

Purchase is harder. There has been zero on the market for us that's suitable. We've viewed 9 homes in 3 weeks. Viewed one last night that was brilliant though and put in offer there and then. Been waiting to hear back all day.....

Really hope it gets accepted, but also nervy that those sellers haven't found anywhere themselves yet (they had been sold before, and recently that fell through a week ago so they have been proceedable for ~2 months). Also very aware the chain will likely be looooooong and slow. It's our third time doing sale and purchase, and its always been hideous! I'm not looking forward to the next year.

@unicornpower that sounds a little hopeful for you I think. I can't see they would want to lose the sale for the sake of what will hopefully be the short amount of time your buyer finds a new buyer. There would be nothing for them to gain really from starting again. I have everything crossed for you that they will wait.

Our buyers solicitor has asked for us to apply for easement of access over the land that runs the length of the back of all the terraced houses. The land is unregistered (they wanted us to apply for adverse possession but we can't as we don't have sole use so we don't have grounds to apply for that) Apparently though our solicitor says we would have to prove that we have had access over it for 20 years but we have only lived in the house for 13. But of course we have access over it. We have no other way to get from our own back door to our own garden or our own parking spaces or outbuildings if we hadn't been using it. Or the people who lived there before us since the houses were built back in 1860!!! What do they think we do? Hover or fly from our back door to the garden 🙄It has honestly become so ridiculous that even our own solicitor is starting to get really pissed off with them. They are still refusing to book a survey until all this is sorted. So it continues until the solicitors sort it out. When that will be, god only knows.

@ErlingHaalandsManBun they have called and said they are re marketing the house, so disappointing to be honest, I honestly thought they would at least help us a bit. But nope, so that’s that. Back to the drawing board and now I’m like wtf. I don’t really know what to do now.

aghhh ffs and how many months are you in now? It’s so infuriating and horrible I really do feel for you. But the market does seem to be terribly slow.

@unicornpower oh no! I honestly didn't think they would do that. I am shocked. I am so sorry. That sucks. Its hard isn't it? When we were told our sellers were pulling out we were devastated. But its out of your control and you can't do anything about it. You can't force them to sell to you.

I tried to stay on the positive side and think that at least we still had buyers. Even if they are a massive pain in the ass. We won't be looking again until this has all been sorted out. Its too painful to go through the process of finding and losing a house that you love.

Our buyers offered back in May and here we are, late August, still faffing and farting around trying to make everything perfect for them and answering enquiries. about the title. It honestly shouldn't have taken anywhere near this long to sort and agree on but the solicitors are painfully slow and painfully picky.

I just keep thinking that hopefully this time next year I will look back on all this and be able to laugh.

What will you do now? You still have your buyers don't you? Will you wait for them to resell before you look for something else?

I'm so sorry you are in this position. There have been so many people in similar positions on these threads, either months in with no progress, chains collapsing or struggling to sell. Its a nightmare out there at the moment!!

@ErlingHaalandsManBun i know, I’m so gutted as it took us 4 months to find this house, we were moving to the next town over and I have to apply for my daughters school place this year and I just don’t know where I should even look?

we still have our buyer, but our chain isn’t complete now, she’s re marketed her house but her buyer is still keen so I’m hoping it all sort of ties together soon but equally we’ve now lost our onward so I’m not sure. I need to sit down tonight and have a chat with my husband and figure out what we do. I said we shouldn’t have said anything to the developers and just let it fly under the radar as long as possible but he wanted to be honest.

I think what we might do is re market and see if we get a chain free person, but level with our buyer and just say if she sells then she can have ours? Might schedule a meeting with our estate agent and just see what happens. Maybe the universe is trying to tell us something? It’s all just so gutting isn’t it.

thank god we are getting away soon!

@unicornpower I agree. Its difficult to know what to do for the best. But if things are selling quite quickly, and you had little trouble finding these buyers I would be tempted to relist too. If your buyer ends up in a position to proceed then you can still sell to them.

Have you had a look round to see if there is anything else you would want to buy? This is one of our worries. That we finally get to a point where we can start to look at what is out there again and there won't be anything that we want to buy!! 😬I have a list of possible homes for us saved on Rightmove and last time I had a little peek at it, which was a while ago now, most of them had now been marked at SSTC. I have an alert set up to tell us if anything else that meets our requirements comes up and only 2 others we would be interested in have come on, and one of those has already sold.

I just can't believe that this is the position we are in. It feels so bloody unfair when we have jumped through hoops and done everything we possibly could to hold this sodding chain together.

I’ve not checked in for a while, I didn’t have the emotional capacity. It seems everyone else is in a similar boat really!

We’re getting nowhere fast with sale or purchase. Every time an issue gets sorted it seems another crops up. We’re having boundary issues with both sides, on our own property it’s a total non-issue but buyers solicitor is being very pedantic. Purchase we’re still waiting for land registry error to be rectified with no timescale. Our mortgage valuation came back as nil because the NHBC warranty can’t be produced and sellers solicitor doesn’t seem to be taking responsibility for it. Despite paying almost 15% over asking seller is asking for more money for items on the fixtures and fittings list which has really p*ssed me off. Buyers still haven’t had their survey either and if they try asking for a reduction while still pushing for a completion date I think I will just sack the whole thing off!

Our house has been on the market for over a year. Apart from one person they've all liked it. DH told me that there are 2 prospective purchasers but they're still waiting for their property to sell.

We are putting our house back on the market today. Spoke to our agent and she agrees, if our buyer sells then that’s great and she can still buy ours, but we have two small children and have to do what’s best for us as a family. They are going to amend the advert to reflect its back on the market due to chain collapse. I just don’t have the heart for viewings again, they’ve given me so much anxiety.

Ive said I don’t want feedback unless it’s an offer. Last time we had people say it was ‘too small’ which doesn’t help me as the size is in the floorplan and I can’t change the size of my house! And we aren’t accepting chains longer than 2. If it slows down the process then that is absolutely fine!

@Hermioninny sorry to hear that, I think it’s an utterly shit system as you know, how long these things take is ridiculous. Hope you get answers soon!

@Hermioninny we are in a similar position. Boundary issues, incorrect titles and all sorts of faff. Our buyers also have a solicitor who is being really really pedantic over an absolute non issue. Our houses have been here since 1860 and things have always been the way they are but its not good enough for the solicitor. They are making us jump through hoops making statements of truth, applying for adverse possession over pieces of land the size of a postage stamp (slight exaggeration) taking our indemnity policies when one already exists and just raising issues that are just NOT issues.

Its been going on since May and we have lost our onward purchase because our sellers were fed up of waiting as we are still trying desperately to sort all this shit out. Our buyers have also not booked a survey. So we are doing nothing until all this boundary stuff is sorted and applications to LR are in and our buyer has had the survey on our house. Only then will we look for another forward purchase. I can't go through losing another house!! I feel for you. Its a soul destroying process.

@unicornpower I really hope you sell again and soon. It really sucks to be back at square one but I am feeling much like you. If we end up losing these buyers we will come off the market, sort things out, have a holiday and we won't go back on the market until next year. We will then not be interested in getting into long chains. I am just NOT going through it again.

Our offer on onward purchase was accepted, which is great. We really like this house, and it's the only one we viewed that meets our needs.

We know the seller hasn't found anything yet (they've had 2 months) and when accepting our offer made a point about asking if we'd happily wait till Jan for them to find somewhere. It's perfect for us, and I'm in no rush to move myself and would happily wait.... but my own buyer, and their buyer aren't likely to be as happy to do so! I also found it a bit odd that the seller stated Jan as a particular timeframe.... I don't know. It does take time to find the onward purchase, we know that (and have struggled ourselves!) but the phrasing of it rang alarm bells for me a bit.

EA is obvs pushing me to get solicitors sorted, mortgage application in etc. But that seems overly optimistic given sellers haven't even found anywhere and chain above is not yet complete. Did anyone here do these steps prior to complete chain?

@moving300m did you get any news following the survey on your house yet? Hope all is good.

@HouseHangover it feels a little premature instructing solicitors and getting mortgage applications in when your seller could take until January to find somewhere and then you may have to wait for their sellers to find something. If your mortgage offer comes in too soon then you may find it expires before completion and you will have to do it again. We only had 6 months on ours. I would definitely wait on that for sure.

I think have everything ready to go, all the info and things in place ready to apply for your mortgage, and have the quotes from solicitors so you know who you are going to instruct so you can proceed quickly when your sellers are ready and the chain is complete. But I wouldn't be pressured to do too much just yet. I guess if you have buyers, your EA is maybe thinking that the work can be done on your sale so the bottom of the chain will be ready. I don't know. 🤔