Why does the UK have property chains?

[mjf981]

For full transparency, I lived in the UK for most of childhood, but I moved after school and have never bought property there.

I have however bought in Australia. It's very straightforward (though horrendously expensive). You offer privately, or buy at auction. To seal the deal, you put down a 5-10% non refundable deposit, and 6 weeks later you exchange. If you pull out for any reason, you lose your deposit. There is no such thing as a chain here - if people have nowhere to move to they move in with family, rent short term etc.

I was talking to my cousin who is selling and buying in England at the minute. It's been a nightmare with 2 collapsed chains and has been ongoing for almost a year now. She is tearing her hair out and has vowed never to move again when this is all over.

Why is it so complicated in the UK? Why do chains exist? What is the advantage to them? How can other countries manage without them and yet the UK does not? It sounds ever so stressful to have it set up this way.

We have moved 6 times in our lives and have always sold and rented before completion of the onward purchase. So much easier apart from one move we went into rented accommodation, sometimes holiday lets.

I’m in Australia, and having sold and bought several times, I’ve always done it by selling before buying. That way you have the 10% deposit on hand plus you know exactly how much money you have from the sale, how much you need to ask the bank to top up etc.

I’ve always gone to a rental (here short term is 6 months). Usually aim to secure the rental a couple of weeks before putting house in market. That way you can do a big declutter/pack and have everything possible taken over to the rental. Post kids, we have always moved ourselves over just before it actively went in the market as well. Couldn’t stand the nightmare of having to try and hide washing, stress about toddlers yoghurt fingers on glass sliding doors, trying not to have baby paraphernalia everywhere when people are looking through. More than happy to just live out of a few boxes in a rental. Then there is also the breathing space to look around and not have to panic grab something not completely ideal just for the sake of not being homeless. Where we have found something quickly, and lots of time left in rental, we just gave notice. You have to pay for re-letting advertising and keep paying rent until there are new tenants but as rentals are in shortage it gets snapped up quickly, so has never been a problem.

We have always tended to have the vast majority of furniture and boxes stored in the garage of the rental also so it’s quicker/easier/cheaper for removalists to load up and take to purchased house. Was always happy to use a blow up, have kids in sleeping bags, the cot if necessary, some bean bags and live out of boxes for a few months inbetween.

It also benefited us with one move where we moved cities to somewhere we didn’t know at all. We made our decision on where we believed we wanted to live based on research and rented there (left keys to old house with selling real estate, and organised a guy to come now lawn weekly so looked good for buyers). It was good as after a few months it became apparent to us that we preferred another suburb roughly 20minutes away in preference to the one we thought we would like better. Relieved we hadn’t immediately purchased in the initial suburb.