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!

To say today has been frustrating and incredibly stressful is an understatement. I rang the solicitor at 2pm asked if we had exchanged. They were like hasn't the solicitor rung you. Oh god here we go I thought. When I spoke to him, he didnt know anything about it😤. He rang me back said the bottom buyer had started the process and if it gets to us in time we will exchange. I think he could tell by my manner I was cooking on gas. Anyway after an hr wait he rings to say we have exchanged be out by 1pm on 9th Nov 😂 just like that. Give us your temp address. Estate agent was like woohoo. Yeah I feel nothing, literally zero emotion. Honestly i could punch a bag.
@Sadteacher the radio silence especially on Fridays lands heavy on the chest. Some Fridays id just cry. It will come together. Its very disjointed. I was just on the phone to removal guy he was saying everyone is moaning about the length of time its taking. Ive just opened my file to purchase a property so im back to the start of the process. Im not looking forward to it.

That’s great news @2longinthetooth . Now it is reality, you can allow yourself to look forward to your next step. You are out of the limbo phase! ( for a while!)

Well done @2longinthetooth thats great news. Still waiting here, no news on a date. We’ve been partially packed for 6 weeks now and quite frankly I’m sick to death of it all.

Thanks all, it doesnt feel real. Just packing some of the awkward stuff up. you will all get there. Just being able to vent to you lovely lot helps immensely.

ahhh congrats @2longinthetooth glad you got the sale over the line! One big tick off your list, and fingers crossed the purchase goes as smoothly as it can

@2longinthetooth congratulations!

I called our agent first thing this morning and they said they'd had someone asking to view the flat and would let me know if they managed to pin him down for a date. We didn't hear anything after that so I'm guessing they either couldn't get hold of him or he changed his mind about viewing. It hasn't been live for a week yet though so I'm being a little impatient either way

Thanks folks, for tonight I cant think of the purchase, we have to view it in the morning, my husband hasn't even seen it yet.

You all will get over the line, a little battered and bruised. Its def a slog but you will get there.

The solicitor has sent through the deed’s & covenants from 1960 - crikey it’s a lot. We are going to have to call them to make sense of it as a lot seem unrealistic. It also mentions that no additions are allowed yet there’s been a little rear extension added in the ‘80’s with proper planning permission. Will that need to be removed. Seems a bit odd. All the houses on the road have either had great extension or a front porch added or both. The deeds are from the developer who built around 3000 houses and now don’t exist. How are these covenants enforced?

@NotDonna the way it was explained to me (which might be completely wrong, idk) was they added the covenants to stop people changing the houses when they were first built and noone really thought about the long term implications of 60 years down the line. Chances are if the company don't exist anymore then there's nothing to worry about as there won't be anyone upholding it. The solicitor might suggest indemnity insurance for the existing building (seller pays, not you) but you'll have to check with them if it's necessary

We were looking at a house with lots of covenants - you couldn’t erect or extend on any of the land but the whole road was full of extensions, conservatories and sheds!
It doesn’t seem to be a big concern and I guess as long as planning permission was granted it’s fine.

We are buying a house with a similar covenant situation.They only one that might have been a problem was the extension permission. Our sellers are getting indemnity insurance to cover any future problems.
Other houses in the small development have had extensions and fences etc. against the original covenant. I don’t think it will be a problem.

Re covenants. We discovered there was one on our house and everyone else's on our 1970s estate when we moved - banning sheds and other 'structures' (we have zero recollection of this from when we moved in 23 years ago, everyone has one as we don't have garages). Our buyer's solicitor wanted us to take out a £170 indemnity insurance, despite the developers going out of business 50 years ago and there being no one to object. We got our EA to speak directly to the buyer and lay out the options ie. we'll remove the almost new, high quality shed before we leave and you'll have nowhere to keep your lawnmower, etc when you move in, or you can have it, knowing you can quickly remove it in the unlikely event it suddenly becomes a problem, after telling your solicitor to wind his neck in. Needless to say, our buyer was happy to do the latter!

How was your viewing @2longinthetooth ?
Started packing a few things today. Can’t get too motivated still as we are no closer to exchanging it seems.

@Sadteacher aww all good, tbh its too late ive offered, started searches and organised the surveyor. No he liked it, hes worried garage is too small, its a normal single garage. There are a few things we noticed that I hadnt seen first time round, but not deal breakers. Its like every home once you are in it, you start to notice the imperfections. We are moving forward with it, i loved it more 2nd viewing. Just hope the surveyor doesnt find something awful wrong with it.
Glad to see you are packing but at points you think should i be. Literally yes, wish id packed even earlier, spent the whole weekend doing skip runs, bickering with dh, clearing pots in the garden and the dreaded garage (be glad to see the back of that) you think you done loads and then there is more. Ive got the removals coming tomorrow to sus out what size storage container we need. Hes moved us before so thats 1 less stress, ive booked airbnb for the month so we have a roof over our head. Im kackered.

We’ve had 80% of our stuff in boxes since Fri 25th September as we thought we were exchanging and completing the following week 🫠 think we are making some progress with the boundary issue now though so am daring to hope that we will have a timeline by Mon/tues and will actually be out by end of October…..,

Covenants are weird, especially ones from decades ago that the current occupants never signed up for and in many cases don't know about. There's one on our estate dating from when the house was bought from the council years ago, forbidding any overnight parking of trade vans or caravans. We have neither, but plenty of people do, of course. The management of any remaining social housing has long since been transferred, so I don't know if any of it still applies to the whole place. There's certainly nobody enforcing it. The only people with anything to say are DH when he gets into pedantic mode (only to bend my ear), and probably solicitors trying to put the wind up buyers.

I’m pleased for you2longinthetooth and hope the packing and sorting goes well. We’ve heard nothing this past week from our solicitor, the previous weeks info was that the sellers onward buy still has ongoing enquires. We’ve asked for a likely timeline, but have had no reply. So another week in the wonderful place called Limbo.
Fingers crossed for everyone next week.

Well done all of you that have inched forward. We’ve been 80% packed since 28th August. The whole thing has been a complete slog and I’m desperately hoping we finally get some sort of idea of a date for completion this coming week.
I now hate weekends as it means another week stretching in front of me where I have to work (desperately awaiting time off but keeping leave for moving). When the weekend arrives and there’s been no movement there’s nothing worse 🤯🤯

@HouseMoveRound2 aw im glad you are making headway with the boundary issue, it sounds a nightmare. Fingers crossed for the end of oct, living out of boxes is a awful and the stress is making very little niggle feeling like a massive problem, ive never said so many swear words.

Feeling for you all waiting, we are now back in the conveyancing game, paid for searches and surveyor, im hoping to be in before xmas 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣. Its only us and the seller now, no mortgage to hold us up. Solicitor says there are only 9 weeks left of conveyancing this yr, I was like yeah that should do it 🤣. He said we will try. Worst case senario we would be in airbnb until middle of jan. EA is like no way. 9 weeks is very doable. Honestly you just think what the hell is going to happen.

Fingers crossed for you @2longinthetooth I would think 9 weeks is doable however I clearly am an optimist! I have a feeling this bit should be straightforward for you though - if your sellers are abroad they are going to be pragmatic and wanting it done and dusted asap, at least this is what I’d be telling myself 😂😂

@HouseMoveRound2 speaking to the EA this couple have been buying/selling with them for a number of yrs, i get the impression they know them really well, so i imagine they wont even come over to do anything, they will ask the EA to organise removers/packing and have it shipped over to france. They are using the same solicitors firm as us, plus the EA says they ring weekly fkr an update to the solicitor so it sounds like they push as well. Im being very rosy this time 😂

@2longinthetooth I was chatting to an old neighbour whose aunt had sold a retirement flat to move in with her daughter, and she reckoned the whole thing was done and dusted in under two months. Very different from the average timescales quoted by my lot, but it can be done. Fingers crossed you have someone equally efficient to push everything through.

@JohnBullshitI can only hope. Its been a mammoth task to get here, on 1 hand im optimistic but on the other I know the reality of solicitors. Let's see what December brings. When I put the house on the market back in early June never did I think we still wouldn't have moved by Dec.

I sold my rental house to FTB last year and it took 9 weeks to the day from offer being accepted to completion, and they had 2 surveys! Good luck!