Spring house selling/buying support thread

[PyjamasForever]

After quite a lengthy time on the market I finally have an offer on my house and have had an offer accepted on a house I want to buy. I’m feeling a bit uncertain it will happen with the current financial situation and wondered if anyone else in a similar position wanted a thread for a bit of moral support?!

We’ve instructed solicitors, filled out our TA6 and TA10 forms, applied for a mortgage and have some documents to send them… I then find the next bit the hardest bit about buying and selling when you have all those uncertain weeks with searches/surveys etc and it could all fall apart at any minute!

@TheBirdintheCave aw god I feel your frustration, the whole process is exhausting and demoralising. The cleaning alone for people to look at it for 10mins and then say nah. Its heartbreaking. In the end I told my estate agent stop sending round people who are not serious sellers. I only wanted people who were proceedable. He wasnt happy but it cut out the bs and the workload. Mentally it was easier. The pain of cleaning the whole house to showhome standard then could be justified.

We were originally aiming to complete on Friday, but after our solicitors delays we decided to push it back to next week as it felt more realistic. So final push with outstanding bits, and aiming to exchange and complete next week. It’s still tight and my stress levels are through the roof, even though the new solicitor that’s handling our case is much better I am finding I’ve still got to chase otherwise things aren’t happening 😫😫

@TheBirdintheCave such a frustrating stage, are you still buying with your parents? That’s doubly stressful as you have to align selling selling two houses!

@2longinthetoothWe’ve only ever had proceedable viewers but it doesn’t seem to have made a difference. It’s just baffling to me. We saw one house we were 95% sure we wanted and then said yes immediately after seeing it. No messing anyone around. Even the house we’re in now we bought after a 20 minute tour of the show home.

@HouseMoveRound2 Yes, they’re just waiting on an exchange/completion date now so they should be moving down to my brother’s house in the next few weeks. Their solicitors and the solicitors of their buyer are not talking to each other though which is slowing things down. The kicker is that they’re the same company! 🙄

They’re travelling down on Thursday (as I’m 40 this weekend 😭) and I’m taking them to see our new house on Friday.

I think it’s a case of not much on the market so people are seeing things that they aren’t quite sure about, in the hope that viewing in person will change their mind. I viewed one last week with that mindset and tbh I did feel like a timewaster. The owner though looked surprised to see me (not sure the EA had told her or if she had forgotten), then carried on folding her washing and busying herself in the kitchen while the EA showed me around. Which was massively offputting, she was clearly fed up with viewers.

So guess I am saying hold strong! I just sold, I know how annoying the viewings are. I had one viewer think I was the EA, and proceeded to say how much she disliked my furnishings, and that I should pay for the survey rather than a buyer (on no basis other than she was clueless).

@TheBirdintheCave at least one part of your puzzle is solved, imagine if you had to sell your property and your parents at the same time!!! Really stressful though having one part of it not progress g when everything else seems to be ready to go, hope the stress doesn’t totally overshadow you birthday.

@TheBirdintheCave I think people are being very cautious at the moment. They are looking at the whole picture especially with mortgage rates gone up, people want the homes with the least amount of work, stamp duty is crippling and then you have the oct budget coming up. We only viewed 2 homes so far but then with our conveyancing dragging on and on, we were unsure if it will make completion so its a risk starting conveyancing with an onward. This is our 4th move and ive never known the market like this, we always knew where we were going, seen a home viewed and made offer but even with us im edging my bets. There are lots of homes on near us and literally nothing has been sold in the last month. Lenders are also becoming fussy.

Well we are meant to complete next Monday. Still havent exchanged yet and when I spoke to my solicitor yesterday he said 'lets see what tomorrow brings'.

How can you plan stuff? Its driving me mad!

@WWBWBapparently what the hell is that response, it tells you nothing, you want to scream at these stupid pat on the head remarks. All i get is your buyer still likes and wants your home, if so why aint they pulling their finger out. It tells you zero about rhe process or where you are. I think they purposely do this to keep you on the back foot, so you wont challenge and make them accountable.

I spoke to my solicitor today and let rip, they are lovely and pushed to find out what my buyers buyer is doing with mortgage, just had email to say they has a survey end of last week and they are waiting results of the survey, lets hope they will make the offer and we can get back on track. Best case senario a delay of 2 weeks.

So....for the 2nd day we haven't exchanged. Waiting all day, apparently nobody could get hold of one half of our buyers, not even his wife, to give permission to exchange. Everybody else was done. Most of our house is away on a couple of lorries, ready to finish tomorrow when we're supposed to complete and move in. Honestly, 'cuse my language but this is an absolute fuckin nightmare. I'm beyond stressed...

Oh my god you are meant to complete tomorrow? Jesus this is cutting it fine! You must be going out of your mind! I’m wishing you the best of luck for tomorrow

Sorry to read about all this last minute stress and hoping everything falls into place for you.
My solicitor is so slow and doesn’t answer emails quickly at all. I am taking a risk and a house clearance company are coming on Thursday to take away a lot of furniture. My buyer is going nuts and she has my phone number but my solicitor just says she can’t do anything until the vendor’s solicitors get back to her. She makes no attempts to chase it. I’m amusing myself by Feng Shuiing the floor plan of the apartment and imagining what I will buy. I don’t even know the names of my vendors I am dealing with the grandson of the previous owner who I think has died. I’m sure he will want this sorted soon too.

Have to say everyone involved (bar my buyer) has been frantically trying to get everything done today, all calling repeatedly, etc. All being very nice to me - i assume my obvious frustration and fear about the 'what if...' has worried them a bit and they're trying to keep me calm 🙃

@KrankyKumquat so close! Why would someone not make themselves available on such a date?! It's beyond belief 😩

Blimey @KrankyKumquat my stress levels would have gone full Krakatoa in your shoes, who sets an exchange date and is then uncontactable????

That’s unbelievable. Are they both brain surgeons in a 18 hour operation? As that is the only acceptable excuse.

I would quite literally be pulling my hair out in your situation @KrankyKumquat!! I do hope tomorrow goes well for you 🍀

@KrankyKumquat jesus christ, what the hell are they playing at, they knew they were exchanging, you know something very important like. I mean whats all the faffing about with checking re checking if everyone is ok with exchange. The day is set tough tit, they have had enough time to back out. Im so sorry you are having to deal with this stress. Maybe they thought the date had been set and it would automatically go through. They are prob in work. Sending positive vibes for tomorrow.

Thank you everyone for the best wishes. I've still no idea where he was all day today, if he was my husband I'd be stringing him up tonight. But apparently he has been told by his solicitor and our EA he must be available to give his consent at 9am tomorrow or it's all off. Apparently, every party has to give it every day we're delayed, so we'll all have to do it again in the morning.

@KrankyKumquatThat’s awful! I hope it all gets sorted tomorrow.

@2longinthetooth no have pulled out. I think they’ll get offers between 8-10k less than ours because of the market and mortgage situation.

We still didn’t exchange yesterday, but completion still meant to be Monday. I feel I should be letting utilities know but until we exchange I don’t feel safe in doing it. I’m tempted to say if we don’t exchange today to push the completion date forward. I feel we need time between the dates to arrange things.

@WWBWBapparently
We're with BG and I spoke to them on Monday re shifting our current deal over to new address. They set it up, with a phone call scheduled on move in day just to confirm we've actually arrived. Haven't done water as don't think they can actually cut you off. Will do Internet today.

@KrankyKumquat All the best for today hope it goes smoothly, its shockimg what people pull whilst going through all this.

@InOut2023 think it was for the best you pulled out, too much risk, they were silly letting you go, if sellers are super fixed on price they lose options, id like to pull out of our sale but I know that if i went back on the open market this house would get 20k less, so we have to be patient, you are at the mercy of buyers and its better to negoiate than lose the sale.

All this buggering about with exchange dates, i dont understand why they cant pick a date and stick to it. Mine is a farce hopefully my buyers buyer will have their mortgage offer this week so can exchange next week. There is no guarentee so you live in limbo. Tentively looking at rentals but they are all going quickly. At this rate i can see us moving in dec. Lost all motivation for packing or organising anything. One thing is certain, this will be my last move, im never doing this again.

I was on this thread earlier but stopped posting. We had an offer accepted on ours/our onward in early march. The sale progressed easily but the purchase did not. Our buyers and the rest of the chain below kicked off at how slowly our purchase was going so we broke the chain and have been living in a combo of Airbnbs, cheap hotels, friends houses and families house for the last two months. Finally we should be completing on Friday. It’s an empty probate property, but a first registration with the land registry. Our vendors have been insanely slow to do anything and their solicitor slow and stubborn on many points. We have two cats and two dogs so being homeless has been a challenge. We should be exchanging today although we gave our solicitor permission to proceed without further authorisation earlier in the week when we signed contracts and I believe our vendors have done the same.

All the joy about having a new house has been taken out of it by the awful process of buying in England. It’s so stressful and long! We have been trying to buy for three years, pulled out of a previous purchase as they’d converted a stables and done everything wrong, so we couldn’t get a mortgage on it. They should have declared lots of the issues at the outset.

so many unexpected charges and expenses in the whole process. Out solicitors fees were three times what they estimated, paying for temporary accommodation, storage of all our stuff, two sets of removals, lots of lost work as I’m freelance and it’s been too difficult to schedule meetings when I’m living in hotels with the dogs.

Good luck to everyone at various stages of the process. It really is a bloody slog you just have to get through.