I AM SO SICK OF THIS TEDIOUS PROCESS!

[noahniah]

A rant... Anyone else?

Put our house on the market early April this year and got a buyer straight away, offered on our onward all great until 5 weeks down the line our FTBs pull out due to the survey (turned out absolutely sod all wrong but they were young and spooked.

New buyer secured within a week and since then it's been dragging along at a snails pace.

We are now FINALLY ready to exchange this week for completion end of September and now we are having to wait for solicitors to email each other down the chain to "confirm the date" which again is taking an absolute age.

All of us in the chain are chomping at the bit to exchange (a few of us in direct contact) so we can put this whole sorry saga behind us and yet we are sat here for over a week now twiddling thumbs waiting for all the solicitors in the chain to send emails to each other confirming we all agree to the completion date, surely a simple fucking thing to do? Or I don't know... Pick up the phone?!

I am SO SICK of this process. Every ounce of excitement or joy at moving has gone, I just want it to be over.

Thought we were getting somewhere but now find out no, the top of the chains solicitor 'hasn't emailed yet to confirm her client agrees to the day' (which she does as the agent has spoken to her several times and she's eager as the rest of us!). If we don't exchange by Friday then the completion is delayed AGAIN due to holidays etc.. and it'll then be mid October and the whole thing will start again with waiting for everyone to "confirm".

I have never dealt with a process more painful than conveyancing. I never want to move again after this. I don't understand how anything gets done with this torturously slow process that's stuck in the 1800s.

Also only a 4 person chain so not even the biggest I've heard of!

It is definitely a painfully long process, you have my sympathies. But honestly a 4 person chain completing in 4 months (assuming you do indeed complete this week!) sounds alright to me. Ours took almost that and there was only 2 of us!

It's definitely an outdated system though, it needs reform! Hope you manage to complete soon.

I feel your pain. I did it last year and it was excruciating. Solicitors on leave, lost forms, decided after 2 months the signatures didn't match the passport. Constantly ignoring receipt of things. And constant information requests about EVERYTHING.

Was at the end of my tether.

But you will soon be in your new home!

I do appreciate that it can take even longer a lot of the time, especially with a collapsed chain half way through, but it is so irritating to be so close and the only thing that's preventing everyone moving forward is a few emails between the solicitors involved. Just ring each other for god's sake! We've been waiting over a week now for them all to organise themselves.

Oh, I feel for you. We had our house in the market last year and had an asking price offer from a FTB within two weeks. They pulled out over the survey. It’s a house built in 1935 and it’s been renovated. There was nothing scary anymore (our survey on the house read like a Stephen King novel but we didn’t care as we bought it to renovate).

We kept the original stained glass, front door and surround. Obviously the survey said it wasn’t safety glass, wouldn’t have been in the 30s, and recommend it was changed. That sort of thing. They demanded it was changed or they were pulling out (pull then, dipshits, I’m not ripping out a huge original front door and replacing it with PVC on the off chance you might buy it).

Second buyer a few weeks later pulled out as their parents went back on giving them money towards the deposit.

3rd buyer, we didn’t accept the offer. They offered on a Friday and 11+ results were out on the next Thursday. We were only moving as we didn’t want dd to go to the local secondary schools. Knowing she got well over the pass mark for the grammar in the next town, we decided to stay.

When we bough this house, the whole process took 16 months. 16!! Stupid things like they would ghost the solicitors, they “couldn’t remember” if they built the extension. We didn’t pull out as it was the only place we could afford.

It’s a long process. We went under offer in January, found a house and the chain of 3 houses completed in May. We exchanged a week ago and finally move this week. 🙄

I've only bought or sold twice In my 55 years on the planet and each time was just as you describe.
If I was that shit week in week out at my job I'd give it up. I can't get my head around how people can spend their entire working life just being so slow, so ineffective it must be so depressing looking at your inbox and finding 60% of it is reminders to do a task.

I'm currently mid kitchen refurb and have a similar emotional dip. Not so much my forever kitchen, just my take for ever.

It is hideously painful, but four months does seem fairly quick for a chain of four.
Our most recent sale/purchase (last year) took exactly four months and that comprised -

1. our vendor, selling a probate house, so end of chain

2. us, selling a house we owned outright and buying without a mortgage

3. our buyers, already completed on their sale and also buying without a mortgage

We expected it to be quicker - and our purchase was actually ready to exchange within two months - but it was our bloody septic tank that held things up.

Hopefully you'll soon be in your new home @noahniah and this will all be a distant memory!

In middle of it now - horrendous. Eight in the chain, we're 6 months in.

The process 'en France' is as we say, 'beaucoup plus simple'.
Put the house (ou maison) on the market at a price, and if someone agrees that price (you can't raise the price...) it is taken off the market.
You go to a Notaire (Solicitor/Tax Collector) sign a document and the seller is COMMITTED and the buyer has 10 days to change their mind and then that's it. Everybody is committed. It may take three months to complete but you know it's going to happen.
If only the French Governement was so stable (une petite bague - eh merde, peut etre pas!)

That actually seems like a really really quick sale given that it's a chain

I'm sorry, I know it's incredibly frustrating

My last sale was an empty flat, chain free - and it took fucking eight months. It still makes me angry thinking about it.

The buyers excuse was that the mortgage company down valued it and also he was on holiday for three weeks. I still don't understand how it took eight months! I think it would've taken 10 but I actually told them I was pulling out of the sale and moving back into the property

Because if you take that long to sort out something, people's entire lives can change.

in that case, I couldn't even blame the process. There was literally no excuse for this guy behaving the way he did.

Total sympathy. I had my offer accepted in February. The property is empty with no upward chain - vendors have already moved. I am moving following divorce and have no property to sell. It is literally me buying an empty property. And yet here we are nearly 7 months down the line still waiting for them to respond to enquiries. I’m still living with ExH and desperate to move - I’ve been in tears over it and not slept for weeks.

I really hope you get to move this week 🤞🏼

We’re 20 weeks in and still haven’t got the draft contracts 🤣

YES- US!

We are literally in the exact same position as you, even down to the number of people in the chain. We are supposed to be exchanging today and completing next Friday, but doesn't look like its going to happen now because our solicitor has emailed out to check readiness of the solicitor of our vendor but had an Out of Office saying she doesn't work Wednesdays! Would have been helpful to know when we agreed the exchange day last week. If we exchange Thursday apparently it doesnt give enough time for mortgages to be paid out. It's so SO frustrating.

Hopefully we can make it work for the 26th but OMG, the stress!

We moved two weeks ago. It amazes me that anyone manages to move in the country with the system we have. We got confirmation on the Wednesday that we could move on the the Friday. I rang and emailed everyone I could think of to get it moving - each estate agent involved, solicitor, asked our buyer to ring her solicitor and we all nagged and nagged. I feel your pain. It was incredibly stressful.

Am going through the same process what is it with these clowns/ nitwits who wont pick up the phone and talk to each other
am so tired of 'yes were chasing' ' yes were answering queries' - no youre evidently not ......

patience is wearing v thin

We are remortgaging so there isn’t even anyone else
involved and the solicitors incompetence has meant that despite getting the original offer in May we gave just had to apply for a second extension.

I do t even care anymore if we get the new deal through the process has sucked the life out of me and put me off ever actually moving 🤯