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?

@HappyCrochetHooker - thanks been a right old roller coaster the last 6 months. So house went back to market at lunchtime today and first viewing on Friday. Spent the weekend shifting boxes out of the way and getting it back in a viewable state. I told my daughter when you have 3 sets of exchange dates in two months - your life end ups being in a right turmoil. Back to cleaning duties again. My conveyancer rang me back to let me know my abortive sale charges were going to be in the region of £2-3K!. I did take some insurance out so will be able to claim some of it back. Round two begins!

Hello guys! I’m still here, watching for your updates in the hope one of us gets somewhere soon!

we had two viewings on our property on Saturday, one of them I shit you not, turned up with three children and said they needed a 4 bed. Our advert clearly states it’s a 3 bedroom terraced property….. why even bother, it’s a waste of everyone’s time! I just hate this process. Our developers have sold our onward to someone else so we’ve lost that now.

on the bright side, we go on holiday on Wednesday! The children are so excited so that will be lovely. And then, we will review where we are when we come back.

hope you’re all okay and hanging in there!

@unicornpower the viewing stage is painful. I dread having to go back to that. We had a couple come view ours who knew the house and area. They were renting just down the road. Then it became very clear after a while that they had no intention of buying and had just come for a nose. He even said to me 'we love it but its way out of our price range!' Can you believe it? I spent all sodding morning cleaning and prepping for the viewing and my DH changed his work schedule so he could take our dogs out of the way while they viewed and the sods were just tyre kickers!!

Hope one of your viewings comes to something. At least you don't have to do them while you are away. I assume the agent will take anyone round while you can't?

Have a fab holiday! You deserve it after the last few months! I will most definitely still be here by the time you get back 😂In fact I will probably still be on these threads this time next year. 🙄

Hello all, checking in as my chain is now complete!

quick question - my buyers survey is tomorrow - am I supposed to be at home for it? If not, how will they know where things are eg meters, fuse box, boiler etc?

We’ve got our buyer’s surveyor coming today. We’ve sent some info on our house to our solicitor for preparing the contract pack but told them to hold off sending to buyer at the moment as our bloody seller’s still haven’t found anywhere. Wasn’t too worried until EA called yesterday with check in update and it turns out the seller hasn’t even viewed anywhere at all. They have been proceedsble since start of July so I’d expect they should have been viewing some properties. Also turns out their budget for next property isn’t much more than they’re selling for but they’re moving to an expensive area closer to our city. Madness. I feel they have totally unrealistic expectations! Not sure what we can do to incentivise them to start taking it all more seriously??

@LightCameraBitchSmile yes I would think you need to be there to let the surveyor in that’s my experience anyway.

@HouseHangover that doesn’t sound like a good situation to be in. Realistically you probably can’t make them view properties. If I was in your situation I would be reconsidering my onward purchase and whether there were any other reasonable options for me, because you may end up losing your buyer because the chain above you stalls. Seems rather impulsive of your buyer to be getting a survey when the chain isn’t complete.

@HouseHangover how long has it been since your seller accepted your offer? They should definitely have been actively looking for their onward purchase and viewing property. What do they do, expect everyone else to just wait for them? Why the non urgency? If I were you I would be asking questions. No-one wants to pressure someone but there is an etiquette to try and get things moving so not to hold up the sale.

@LightCameraBitchSmile yes you need to be there for the surveyor. Let them in, they may ask you how to access certain things and then you leave them to it.

@moving300mand @ErlingHaalandsManBunoh dear, I came to work today!

@LightCameraBitchSmile when our buyer's surveyor came he pretty much only said hello and goodbye to me! Didn't ask me anything and just took himself off around the house. When he had finished he just popped his head round the door and said "I'm off, bye" and left!

So yep buyer leaves survey to the last minute. Now wants to renegotiate despite nothing particularly significant being found and mostly cosmetic that was easily viewable in the three viewings you’ve had totalling at least 2 hours! How is this even allowed! Stuck between a rock and a hard place. Would like to tell them to F off but I don’t want to mess my sellers around and risk losing that house.

@moving300m oh fuck. I had a feeling this may happen and its bullshit. Its a really nasty tactic leaving survey that late and then renegotiating. This is why surveys should be done early and they shouldn't be allowed to have one that late. What will you do? How much are they talking?

@ErlingHaalandsManBun That’s the most frustrating thing I don’t know. They’re not making any sense and the EA is struggling to get a straight answer. Based on the survey recommendations can’t be more than 5% max, which we had planned for anyway. It’s the lack of communication, commitment, and straight talking that’s annoying me most and making me want to tell them to stick it. This process is making me appreciate my complete lack of patience and extreme impulsive reactions 😂

We had a small contigency built in also. A little wiggle room in case they wanted to renegotiate. I think you have to these days as so many buyers are pulling this trick now and they know they have you over a barrel this close to completion. Its just another shitty thing about the whole bloody process. Are they waiting for you to suggest how much? It seems daft. I think I would wait and see what figure they are thinking. Either that, or are you brave enough to ask them exactly what from the survey they are talking about and then push back and call their bluff 😬

@ErlingHaalandsManBun they accepted our offer about 3 weeks ago, but had been sold since start of July. They had a buyer start of July who got their offer in before us. That then fell through and EA knew we were v keen and so let us know it was going back on market so they then accepted our offer immediately - so not too long since ours was accepted, but have been in sold proceedable position since first week in July so I’d have expected them to be viewing throughout that time. We have told EA that we’re very concerned about their lack of action and EA has agreed with us that they’ll be more pressurey and push for regular updates etc. I said if they haven’t made any real progress by end of sept we will be rethinking entirely. We will keep an eye on RM during this time too but tbh market for what we’re after is v slow here currently.

@moving300msuch a crappy tactic for buyers to use. Do you know exactly what they’re stating needs doing from the survey that requires the lower price?

@moving300m thats what happened further down our chain, total shit move and I can’t say I’m not thrilled that it was their buyer who pulled out and their antics had delayed stuff so much the buyers got fed up. Horrible thing to do! It. Should be allowed, the whole system needs an overhaul!

I’m getting worried now- we have our survey next week and I’m sure the buyers are going to try anything to lower the price. It seems to be the norm now and it’s so wrong. We don’t have any wiggle room as they offered lower than we wanted, I have a worrying feeling they have maxed themselves so are hoping to reduce to the max

@ErlingHaalandsManBun hopefully the EA can get a straight answer today about what they actually want. At this point I just don’t want the chain to collapse but obviously don’t want to be walked all over either. Hopefully we get more info today and can make some decisions, but it’s like Chinese whispers with the buyer only communicating through the solicitor, and the solicitor needed to be doubly triply sure they understand the buyers wants via multiple meetings!

@HouseHangover no idea the survey doesn’t state any specific urgent needs and the things it does state aren’t costly.

@unicornpower I 100% agree that the system needs an overhaul. Should be committed much sooner in the process and rules around timelines for getting a survey or even better the seller gets the survey so you know what you’re getting before even offering.

@moving300m I hope you get some answers today. Its insane all this isn't it? We have found the communication between solicitors to be SO poor. Emails back and forth and then just not replying. I honestly don't know any other profession that operates this way. And what happened to actually picking up the sodding phone and talking to one another?? Good Luck today.

@unicornpower there definitely needs to be an overhaul. I do think sellers should have to do their own surveys before marketing, just like you need an EPC. You get your own done. Then everyone knows where they stand or if something gets flagged the sellers can sort it before it goes up for sale. It would cut so much time down. Conveyancing has got utterly ridiculous and something needs to change.

As a solicitor I can assure you we aren’t all terrible at communication. I feel like conveyancing is soooo slow and because they don’t charge much they have a huge caseload and you end up with overworked people fire fighting.

I feel like we are now thoroughly back to square one. Have to hope that the market picks up for sales but that enough people are nervous about interest rates and / or future changes to property tax that we don’t face a surge of buyers with more money than us.

@KimHwn it just seems to be a running theme on here unfortunately. That people can't get hold of their solicitors and can't get a reply to a simple enquiry. I think its those ones that give a bad name to all of them. Its a shame if there are some out there that do communicate well. For me its the length of time replying at all that is a bugbear. A week without any kind of acknowledgement at all is poor. A day, or so, not so much.

I think you meant this for @kirinm 🙂

@KimHwn oh yeah, sorry 😂I blame the menopause.

@moving300mits crazy that the survey didn’t reveal any concerns of issue and yet the buyer is still trying to use this as leverage for price reductions. I’d be inclined to stick to my guns tbh as the buyer will have spent some money already on the legals and survey and is unlikely to want to go back to square one finding a new place- I reckon they’re just trying their luck and it’s so bloody unfair that they’re doing it!

Conveyancing in England is mental now. So many unnecessary steps and duplication of work. I agree that it’d be easier for seller to prepare the home pack (sort of like in Scotland) to avoid duplication of things like surveys and searches. And provided an independent surveyor is used it should be reliable.

solicitors get a bad rep on here (quite rightly in many cases) but I agree with PP that not all solicitors are like this. I’m a solicitor in a different area (wouldn’t touch conveyancing with a barge pole!) and we are much better at communication with clients. However, we can be. Conveyancing is such high case loads and low fees for the actual firm. It’s pretty awful tbh and the small time I spent doing property work was enough for a life time. I’d pick a different profession entirely before doing conveyancing ever ever again!!!

Don’t get me wrong. I 100% agree that conveyancing / the lack of communication is just incomprehensible. It is beyond frustrating (I’m not a conveyancing solicitor)!

All documents signed and held by solicitors on both sides and now awaiting potential exchange dates from the buyer’s solicitor. I think this is our tenth week in total since our offer was accepted so not bad at all.

A property development company are buying ours and our onward property is already empty so v small chain. Hoping to have a date by the end of this week but then again I also thought this last week and then spent a very tense few days checking emails when I should have been enjoying a holiday. I just want everything locked down, the uncertainty of the whole process kills me!