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?

@OtiMamathat sounds positive. Hopefully that’s the case with our buyers too and for @ErlingHaalandsManBun but why not just say that’s the plan instead of telling the EA that they’re booking it!
Good luck with your move hope it all goes smoothly

I wonder if some just aren't aware of it or what it is until the solicitor suggests they get one, which they often remind you of later in the process as well. At that point they think oh yeah they mentioned that before we will do that...then spend 3 weeks finding one to use 😂

Same situation as us the. Except we are top of the chain buying a new build so god only knows how long they’ll hang around for us to complete, they’ve been patient up to now but this is testing even my patience!

I feel like we’ve paused our life until we’ve moved house but it all feels so pointless at the moment, like nothing is ever going to happen so let’s just go on holiday instead and forget it. I flip between wanting to pull out and wanting to keep going.

Hopefully we get some positive news this week?

Honestly feel the same. We haven't made any plans at all and our lives are on hold too. Normally we would be off on holiday or taking time off to go and see our daughter but we feel we can't do anything much right now. We both want to save holiday so we can take a good chunk of time off work when (if) we move too so we are just plodding along trying to stay positive but the more weeks that go by, the more my confidence wains that this will even happen.

We also keep talking about just sacking it off, taking the house off the market, enjoying the rest of the year and putting it back on again next year. But then DH reminds us, we may well just end up going through a similar thing next time so we may as well just stick it out and see what comes of it all. But I have been so tempted so many times to just tell everyone to fuck off 😂Honestly, its testing my patience to its max.

Yes, lets hope we get some positive news this week.
Best of luck xx

Ughhh, my people! I AM WITH YOU, @ErlingHaalandsManBun and @unicornpower I nearly did a thread yesterday at my utter despair at this absolutely shitty process and I don’t even think we’ve had a particularly bad go of it (fingers crossed) it’s just taking so long and nothing is happening and I don’t know when anything will happen.

I’m struggling with the feeling of life being on pause. I don’t feel like I can do anything nice with my current house because WHAT’S THE POINT when we might be leaving soon, can’t buy anything for the new house because WHAT’S THE POINT when we might not be in there this year. Or even buying anything at all, because I don’t know how much money we’re going to have at any moment in time. No holidays booked in case we need to be around for something. And I’ve done all my bits - there’s nothing else I can do, it’s all in everyone else’s hands.

Moan moan moan 😁 sorry about that! Stay strong, everyone! Something might happen eventually 🤣

Its mental isn't it? I mean its enough to drive anyone bonkers.

The lack of communication, the not knowing what the hell is happening, the speed (or lack of) in which things are being done is shit. The whole process is so long and drawn out and a real headache. I feel we have spent the last few months constantly chasing for updates, waiting for phone calls and emails, and just being left in the dark.

Like you we don't want to do anything to our current house in case we move, we can't make purchases on the new house, in case we don't move. We want to start packing but don't want to yet so we have packing boxes ready to be filled just sitting there. Everything is literally on hold and it just gets harder and harder to keep smiling and staying positive.

We have another day ahead of us of trying to make contact with our solicitor who only takes our calls and replies to emails when he feels like it and another day of waiting to find out what is happening and where we are at.

It's been good to have a moan on here though and let off some steam and in a way its good to see that its not just us. 😂

@HappyCrochetHooker this is it isn’t it, life is in limbo until you know either way, it’s honestly such an awful situation, I don’t know how it is allowed to happen. There should be commitments at time of offer being accepted and you’re legally bonded at that point (unless something dreadful comes through on a survey!) ughhhhhhh. Im hoping to book a treat for my daughters birthday but in two minds as I don’t know how much money we have until we move or not. Might just do it and live our lives for a while. I hate this so much!

@ErlingHaalandsManBun what I don’t understand is how these solicitors/agents are allowed to be so utterly useless to the point everyone knows it, if I was that crap at work I would be sacked, but it’s almost like people just expect it so nothing changes. I’m emailing everyone every day now to be an utter pain in the arse in the hope it gets something moving! (Very much doubt it) how many months are you in now?

That is exactly what I have started to do. Daily emails and phone calls to both agents and solicitors to ask for updates. Most of the time I get ghosted by the solicitor and if I call he is 'with a client at the moment' yeah sure 🙄The agents are better and to be fair are making a nuisance of themselves and calling regularly for updates to be told by their solicitor they are waiting for 'x,y,z' from ours. Then calling him to be told he is waiting for 'x,y,z' from theirs. Honestly, they make you want to pull your hair out!!! What happened to picking up the phone and talking to one another. Constantly just sat waiting for emails from each other and no-one doing anything!!

If we get this sale over the line I will be astounded.

We are 2, almost 3 months in, how about you?

@ErlingHaalandsManBun emails are a great way of doing a job without actually doing a job. What I don’t get is in this modern life, why there isn’t a project manager type role for house buying who has complete oversight of all transactions, rather than relying on the next person down to do their job.

we are 3 months in but the two links at the bottom are 16 weeks now which is stressing me out to the max as someone will pull out or give up at this rate

That is exactly what I keep saying to our buyers solicitor who is holding up proceedings as she won't advise her clients to get a survey booked until all conveyancing enquiries are answered. Which I DO NOT get. Why? Surely its all part of the process of buying and selling and what is to be achieved by holding this stage up? Other than a wasted few weeks where everyone sits around doing nothing because the surveyor's don't have available appointments for a few weeks? Our buyers keep saying they will go ahead and book one anyway, then DON'T!

The people at the bottom of the chain have been waiting for this for most of the year!! Surely someone is going to get to a point where they get fed up waiting and pull out. I think I would to be honest. And I keep saying this. We need to keep this sale moving along to keep everyone in the chain sweet. But my pleas and concerns fall on deaf ears.

sorry can I just jump on and ask - when you put an offer on a house are you meant to give the estate agent your AIP and proof of deposit before they tell you if the offer has been accepted? is this normal? I know you should give proof of ID, but I was worried this was just a way for them to see if you could afford to offer more and then say oh no sorry offer not acceptable? Have asked on another thread but no one seemed to know.

@ErlingHaalandsManBun absolutely same here! We’ve said that if our developer pulls the plug on us then we will pull out and remarket (we accepted a much lower offer than we should have really and now regret it) so the whole chain will collapse anyway. But it doesn’t seem to have made a difference at all to how fast anyone is willing to move to be honest, everything just falls on deaf ears. I don’t understand why people aren’t in a hurry in this process!

@HangerLaneGyratorySystem the estate agents will want of that info to prove to the vendor that you are proceedable with your offer. If you make an offer without backing it up that you have the funds agreed then you might not be able to actually buy the property- it’s completely normal and due diligence on their part

@unicornpower - thanks, so I need to provide that before I know if the offer is going to be accepted?

I know what you mean. I keep saying to our agent that we are close to pulling the plug and have said to our solicitor we are worried that the chain will collapse but no-one seems to care and its not making anyone do anything any faster. We don't understand why our buyers are not booking their survey. They keep saying they are keen to get in and get moved. Then bloody well show it then!!! Arrgghh!! Honestly, I just don't get why we are the only ones that seem to be trying to push things along. Its sending me loopy 😳

Yeah they will want to see that before sending the offer over to the vendor as there’s no point doing that until they know if you can actually buy it

It is the absolute worst! I feel like I’m actually going crazy! 🤪

So slight development on our side, our sales progressor called my husband and said that everyone except link 2 is ready for exchange(?) and they anticipate that the negotiations on the second property will be sorted tomorrow so he has put forward an exchange date of next week Thursday. Now I’m very dubious because it all seems very strange but I guess we will see? I very much doubt this will happen as our buyers solicitors are still ghosting ours!

After waiting 10 weeks for searches, are now ready to sign contracts on both our sale and purchase. One other property above us in the chain. I’ve chased everyone to find out where our sellers are at with their purchase and if we’re all ready to exchange soon, as we’ve always said we are working towards moving by start of August. Our buyers have been waiting since Feb. Only to be told today that our buyers don’t have their searches back yet. No one seems to know when they will be back or when they were ordered. Their solicitor doesn’t respond to anything. We all got the sales memorandum on the bloody same day in early May. I’ve suggested to all the agents involved that people need to pull their finger out and start providing some answers asap if they don’t want the chain to collapse. It’s enough to drive you mad. The amount of time I’ve spent asking questions and flagging things they should be noticing. Literally doing their job. Really not sure what we are paying thousands of pounds to our agent for on completion, they’ve been useless.

This sounds frustrating!

I'd agree though, our sales progression person is apparently the head of her division, which I wouldn't have guessed if I hadn't seen her signature. I thought she might be a trainee!

Oh good for you. Some movement. Sounds promising.

We have had a call from our solicitor today at last. Reason he hasn't called with updates is that he hasn't got any. Our buyers solicitors have not responded to his emails from last week. So everything is stalled while we wait, once again, for her to decide if the answers we have provided to her mountains of questions are acceptable. It feels like she totally has all the sodding power in this sale and no-one else has any.

I have asked our agents to call her and find out why she is choosing not to respond to our solicitors emails and is not communicating with her clients and holding everyone up!!

Exhausting isn't it? I feel I spend most of my days email solicitors and estate agents trying to get someone to bloody do something, ANYTHING, to get this sale moving along. Its like there is no sense of urgency at all and communication is absolutely shocking. I feel like I am doing their jobs for them.

Yep it’s a crap system in this country.

@borderlaise yup absolutely this! I get they are busy but I also feel we’ve done a lot of this ourselves and had to scream and shout to get anything at all done. It’s madness to think we are actually paying for this service!

@ErlingHaalandsManBun let’s wait and see, I just don’t trust anyone anymore, it’s gone from not getting answers to ‘oh yes everyone is ready’ hmmmmm I very much doubt that! Feels like there’s an error somewhere tbh. Will see wh the week brings. Your buyer sounds totally frustrating! I don’t understand why it’s so hard to get anything out of people? If you want to move so much you bought a house, why aren’t you responding!

@unicornpower I totally agree. Its hard to trust anyone and anything they say. Sometimes I think they just tell you want to hear to shut you up. I really hope you are almost there.

Our estate agents have just messaged to say the reason their solicitor hasn't been responding to ours is because she has been on annual leave since last Thursday. Why on earth would you not let the person you are having back and forth correspondence with (our solicitor) that you will now be out of the office for a number of days on holiday and will respond when you get back?? Surely that is just common sense. Instead she has left everyone emailing her and not getting responses (no out of office on) and sat here wondering what the hell is going on. So we are stalled now and nothing will happen until she has back and gets round to looking at it all, which will more than likely be next week, where she will then no doubt come back with more ridiculously stupid questions. Its honestly so infuriating. And our buyers are adamant they won't book a survey until their solicitor tells them to. 😖