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?

We’ve still not received anything from our seller’s solicitor, not even a fixtures and fittings form, despite them being the ones who wanted a quick sale. It’s only been 3 weeks so not sure if I’m being impatient or they’re being slow. I’m wondering how long to give them before beginning to chase. I’m ploughing on with getting things organised as I’m back to work after maternity next week. Removals quotes are coming in at around £2K, was hoping to include packing but I think we’ll have to do it ourselves.

@Hermioninny where abouts are you?? Ours was 1.9k including packing last week with Britannia.

Definitely chase, you've nothing to lose by chasing rather than letting time slip by.

@Hermioninny if they were keen to go I would expect them to have done the sale pack with the solicitor ASAP and you have this. I would definitely ask. Our quotes have been less than £2k including packing. I guess it depends where you live.

We’re in Northern Ireland, we’re in a good size 4 bed detached with 3 reception rooms so there’s a lot to move, especially with all the kids stuff. I’ve got another 4 companies arranged to quote so maybe the first was steep. One today has said they’ll need to start loading the truck the day before because they’d never get it all done on the morning of the move, and that wasn’t including packing. I’m waiting for them to email their quote.

Our quote is less than £600. 3 bed detached 3 reception rooms. Doing our own packing ( ongoing for a while) and leaving lots for our FTB. North West England.

Hello, popping on to share where we are in the journey and see if anyone would be able to tell me what comes next?!

We finally got our mortgage offer yesterday, after applying on 16th April… (don’t ask!). All searches and enquiries are done for the property we are buying and we have signed our contract for whenever it’s ready for exchange.

What has to happen now before exchange of contracts? And if everyone else has signed their contracts how long would we expect that to be?

Might cost me less to buy them ferry tickets. This morning’s quote is £2895 not including packing!! Packing is £10/box + VAT.

We don’t have THAT much stuff, just normal family stuff. I’m gobsmacked.

@Hermioninny wow that’s expensive!

@LillethCrane
How many in the chain?
Have you had the big pack of info from the solicitors to sign in a few places? By this stage you’d probably expect a completion date suggested for people to work towards and agree on.
Our FTB are currently renting and suggested a date they’d like to be in by. Completion date has been agreed and exchange the week before.

I’ve been counselling myself for the past week that my purchase simply isn’t going to happen. The end of the chain is throwing its toys out the pram and demanding we complete end of July OR ELSE. It’s so unlikely we can complete then, we won’t be ready. The estate agent keeps sending emails insinuating I’m lying and making up problems to stall the sale. It has made me feel so sick. So I’ve just given up. Assumed that it is not going to happen and we’ll just stay in our current house and deal with it. That has given me a respite from this process.

Sending love to you all during this insane process.

We rent our property so we are first in the chain, our sellers are buying a vacant property. We have now returned the signed pages of the big pack of information, the contract and the mortgage offer. Heard from our solicitor today and they are going to put forward a completion date of 11th July- feels very soon all of a sudden!

@LillethCrane Oh wow that is soon! Ours is the week after. Our buyers are FTB renting and our vendors buying a lodge in the country build to specification. Good luck and congratulations.

Anyone making any progress? We’ve had another couple of removals quotes, still incredibly expensive but not as awful as the first one we had. Incidentally, the one that quoted me almost 3K without packing have rung me everyday since to see if I’m ready to put down a deposit…

We got our survey booked in at last, another 2 weeks before that will be done but most had 6 week lead times. And finally got our mortgage application processed after obsessively refreshing the cancellations page - our lender initially advised it would be 6 weeks for that appointment too. The market is so slow I can’t understand why they’re all so busy!

Our solicitor is on holiday this week so hoping for more progress with that side of things next week. I am not known for my patience so I’m finding it quite hard to not have much control over the whole process.

@Hermioninny hate pushy people like that, makes me not want to take up their services.

Our solicitor confirmed today that she has responses to enquiries from our vendors solicitor and that she needs to review it the beginning of next week and then hopefully it will all be there and she can issue the pack/contract to us.

Our buyer has the contract for our house sale and the survey was done a week ago for them and they confirmed they would have the report by today. The buyers are reviewing it all this weekend so hoping nothing too major on the survey. We should know for next week and can hopefully get an exchange date agreed if all ok. I was hoping to move by the end of July but wouldn't be surprised if it ends up being beginning of August as everything just seems to take longer than I expect even though so far it's been fairly smooth running. We are coming to end of week 5 since contracts initially issued to each party and our solicitor said usually 6-8 weeks from that date.

Yes I’m the same @OtiMama. Even if they were the cheapest I wouldn’t want to use them now!

Great that things are going in the right direction for you. We’ve received nothing from our vendor’s solicitor and we were hoping to move by the end of August as the property we’re buying is vacant. I think I’m going to have to accept it’s looking more like September. My eldest is starting school so it’s going to be a lot of change all at once.

@Hermioninny that's the same as the house we are buying, it's empty and surely they want their money asap. I think it all depends on how quickly the person selling fills in the form about the property. If they haven't done it when they agree a sale and then take weeks doing it I can see how things become so slow. We've sent everything back to our solicitor within days of receiving it but I doubt everyone does that.

We were lucky because our sellers had already done all the paperwork as someone else was originally buying it.

I have my busiest time of year with work end of August/beginning of September and my son is also starting school in September so also keen to get in ASAP before my life is even more chaotic!

@Hermioninny our highest removals quote (Britannia) was just shy of £7k (Inc vat and packing, £4.5 not including packing or any dismantling) 😭 Didn't include things like dismantling bunk beds as apparently they don't do that. We don't even have that much furniture (imo) as bedrooms are all built in so no wardrobes or anything, only the one bed other than the bunks. I was honestly flabbergasted. We have a 3 bed, 2 reception room house (which imo is pretty small, like we have one sofa, a tiny dining table that only seats 4) with a shed. Moving about 150miles which does bump the cost but wasn't expecting it to be by that much. I've been steadily decluttering since August so there's not much left in this house that we don't want/need.

We're considering hiring a van instead, started packing already as we're inching closer to exchange.

Agree with you about them being pushy too, they've rung about 8x despite us saying they were really pricey, we're still shopping around and we're not expecting to have a date until mid-July.

Wow @notanarchaeologist that’s a crazy price! The 2 quotes I’ve had since are around £1400 for the removal and then packing varies a bit more. I’m not 100% sure how the packing even works. Surely we would still have to pack some things? All the companies so far have also said we’ll need to fully dismantle our ikea pax wardrobes back to flat pack, not looking forward to that or having to rebuild them.

Oh no!! In my experience IKEA stuff doesn't love being moved. Few additional screws and nails helps though.

We're starting to pack just because I need to feel like I'm doing something! So have emptied the attic, put seasonal stuff in boxes, things like the shelves of read books and craft stuff under the bed. That sort of stuff. Am holding off taking anything off the walls until we've exchanged. Otherwise as I understand it you pack yourselves a bag for a few nights and otherwise they sweep in the day before completion and wrap/pack everything else! My friend likened it to locusts 🤣 they arrived and a short time later everything was gone!

Brittania sent one bloke to us the day before completion. He turned up in a van full of boxes, tape, blankets, wardrobe boxes etc and took about 4 hours to pack the entire house. I had packed bedding and a suitcase each earlier and put them in the car. He wrapped and packed literally everything else. Then we had domino's on the living room floor surrounded by boxes.
It cost £800 and was worth every penny.

Can I join you? At an early stage but have accepted an offer from a development company ourselves and had ours accepted on another property. Forms and fees in to solicitors, MOS issued and mortgage application in, electrics done, our boiler has suddenly decided to give up (typical!) so getting this replaced next week, EPC and surveys still to be done. We have an as yet unsigned off extension here which needs to be sorted quickly but building control seem ok so far so hopefully that will progress without incident. Also downsizing and have 15 years of rubbish in this house, I dread to think what is in the attic altogether. Work cut out for me is an understatement.

That sounds incredible. 4 hours to clear everything! I spend longer than that packing for a holiday. The packing we’ve been quoted so far is around £500-600 so maybe we should factor it in. Our margins are so tight but with 2 under 4 I feel like it’ll take forever and there’s a lot more that we need on a daily basis compared to when it was just DH and I.

@Hermioninny I was a bit surprised when I opened the door to one bloke but he said he'd been doing it 30 years and had it down to a fine art. There's no emotion and no distraction for them, they just crack on.
We also have 2 under 4 and there was no way I was going to be able to pack, you need almost everything until the last moment!

I'd like to join you all! Buying our dream home (hopefully!) which is old and draughty and damp and lovely. Having to borrow a load of money from family to tide us over until our house sells, but that means we're chain-free and will be able to do some work until we move. The place we're buying is empty so no chain anywhere.
How long are things taking generally? I have a mortgage sorted, subject to valuation.
I'd forgotten this heady mixture of utter excitement and constant anxiety...

We have booked our survey and our buyers have booked theirs. They are having a level 3, which I’m quite worried about…not that we have had any structural issues with the house but I just really hope that nothing major we have been unaware of gets uncovered. Our margins are tight so we couldn’t afford a renegotiation on our sale. Our buyers have their full mortgsge offer after the in person valuation so that’s good. We should get all the paperwork for our purchase from the sols next week. It’s empty and vacant so hoping that’s straightforward and there aren’t any anomalies in the enquiries. September has been thrown out there for completion but I cant help the feeling that something is going to go wrong….

have people paid for electrical safety certificates to aid their sales? I know it’s not a legal requirement but if your buyers have asked for it are you paying for it?