Nightmare woman in chain

[Methodstothemadness]

Currently buying a house. And one of the women in the chain has been a right pain in the arse- chasing, giving instructions to buyers and sellers, hounding estate agents.

But from the first offer going in on the first property we have exchanged in 8 weeks. That’s a whole chain constructed and through legals. I can’t help but now be impressed…

At the time I thought she was a right pain, but it obviously works. But why is it if you are nice in this life you don’t get that- if you are kind and easy going to the estate agent and solicitors it isn’t rewarded with diligence and swiftness. But be a total pain in the arse and you get whatever you want.

Yes, it's just because you sometimes have to push back (aka give a kick up the arse) to get things done.

I've done it myself a couple of times. Been nicey nicey for a while then push back and bingo! things happen.

There's definately a lesson to be learned from that.

8 weeks! I’m astounded!

The squeaky wheel gets the oil

We did it in 5 weeks, no chain. Just constant efficiency.

That was me recently. A chain of 4 properties (with one party losing their house, then finding another one). Done and dusted in 3 months. If I hadn’t pushed, people would still be dragging their feet. No reason to and it shows how much artificial slack there is in the process. You have to go after what you want, why wouldn’t you?

Yep, we did this. Everyone said it couldn't be done but I was an absolute PITA and the whole chain went through in 10 weeks (from first offer).

Yep this was me. It got us moved in October. Otherwise we'd have all been hanging round till gone Christmas.

You really have to. Our expensive solicitor told us mournfully water searches were holding up our chain free purchase which took FIVE MONTHS start to finish. I called up the water board (NI, so not a private company), spoke to someone delightful called Jacquie, she told me definitively not a single contact had been made nor search run on my property for years. I relayed this to the solicitor. Searches got done.

You can def be polite, but insistent, persistent, curious and irritating is def the best way to shuffle your case to the top of the pile just to get rid of you.

You need people in the chain receptive to pushing. My vendors are three oaps inheriting a property and were ten weeks in and I’ve yet to receive a single bit of paperwork from them. They are resistant to any pushing.

I think this is what is needed from the outset. Let them know that you will be expecting them to be efficient at every stage and to be accountable when they don’t deliver. That can be done nicely. In fact that approach exerts a pressure that is harder to ignore than a more bullish approach.

We've done this a few times and it's definitely worked as we exchanged in as little as four weeks (although that was buying a repossession), five weeks (chain of five) and a maximum of nine weeks (chain of three).

However, we did have one - semi-rural market town conveyancing solicitor who threatened to dump us if we persisted in hassling him...we were only extremely politely requesting weekly updates and he later apologised for throwing his toys out of the pram!

We always discuss dates at the earliest possible opportunity and have previously exchanged contact details with our buyers (not always recommended, but it's worked for us) in order to keep in touch/know when additional pressure needs to be applied.

I agree that being a pain in the arse works, IF the other people are receptive. Some people dig their heels in instead.

Last time we moved (yonks ago) and things went slack I sent a message to my solicitor and EAs on both ends of my transaction saying ‘if I haven’t exchanged on x date, I will pull out. This is the primary school application deadline, and I will not miss it. This is not a threat. It is a statement of fact.’ And everything started moving PDQ.

I found our buyers useless solicitor outright lied to delay where possible, oh yes the council have an eight week delay on searches in your postcode.

So I emailed the council directly, no postcodes were delayed or prioritised, five working days across the board.

You have to chase, chase, chase.

Our estate agent (for the house we were buying) was an absolute cow - constantly emailing about minutiae. On and on and on, about stuff which was either sorted already, or a complete non-issue, or none of her business (wanted my elderly mother’s bank statements and tax returns, when she had absolutely no involvement in buying the house).

BUT that sale went ahead in under 3 months (delay further up the chain not us), and the previous one, where the (different) estate agent had no involvement beyond doing the initial viewing, collapsed on the day of exchange after months of foot dragging because the buyer decided not to move.

We have had a brilliant solicitor: 6 weeks from first offer we moved. Our purchaser was totally motivated, first offer had been pulled at 10 days. The vendor of our house was surprised we said a certain date and meant it. The cut/rise of stamp duty was the irritant that we all recognised.

My particular sale and purchase has been going on since December. There are only three people in the chain!
My buyer’s solicitor took nine weeks to raise enquiries, then my vendor had to get a certificate of completion for an extension. Then (!) my buyer’s solicitor raised some more enquiries…. And then some more.
At this point I am pretty pissed off, but also expecting my buyer to try to pull off some kind of stunt just before exchange (dropping the price).
If it comes to it, I’ll tell my buyer to jog on. I’ve had enough! I want to move but I’m not that desperate.

Wow impressed at these fast moves!! We were 5 months and 9 months

There's a good chance 90% of this is pure random luck.

The majority of what gets stuck taking longer, cannot be made to go faster even if you spent 24h a day on calls to people screaming at them, and have their families held hostage in your basement.

This was me OP. Offer accepted on the 28th October, got the keys on the 12th January (the Christmas break pushed us back by nearly two weeks otherwise it would have been sooner). There is absolutely no reason for it to take so long. I’m sure my conveyancer breathed a sigh of relief at never having to speak to me again!

I made it clear to the sellers from the outset what our expectations were in terms of timeframes and that we would absolutely pull out if things started to drag.

Not a chain but we were selling a house with a tight time limit. Our buyer was in rented accommodation, between properties, and although plenty of time given to the legal side both solicitors were very laid back. Wed used local family solicitors in an attempt to support local business. It was a holiday home but originally inherited from parents who lived and came from the area so we weren’t “outsiders”.

Eventually I phoned our solicitor and spoke to her directly, was given all the excuses. My Trump card was informing her that we weren’t “holiday home owners” and that we had a huge family in the area. She got the hint and completion took place within two days.

To be fair, the estate agent who was looking after the sale was the driving force, probably being hassled by the buyer. We’d actually cleared the house in readiness for the planned completion. So everything was ready to go. I did wonder whether it was a bit of tax planning since the sale went through the day after the end of the tax year. Initially the buyer was trying to take advantage of the stamp duty relief put in place over the pandemic but the government had extended the relief a few weeks before completion so the solicitor probably thought they had more time. But it was more a case of the buyer becoming homeless for a week or two which makes life difficult.

This is cheering to read - I’m four weeks in and hoping we can move by June. In a small chain - cash buyer on one side, probate sale on the other. Starting my weekly check ins from next week to nudge it along…

Started weekly check-ins last week's, set completion date expectations, 8 weeks in since we put ours on market. Low and behold missing enquiries have appeared that where given to our conveyancer 4 weeks ago 🤦.

I do recognise the value of chasing it along - this has confirmed it!!! I have the same agent dealing with sale and purchase and he’s been bloody great at chivvying everything along - as I am the chain more or less I’m being as quick as possible in responding. Hopefully we all get progressing soon

We did this a the end of last year, almost. Offered 30 September moved in 18 December. I would probably be considered a pain and I did call everyone every other day but it was efficient uand showed I was motivated never dropped a ball and everyone got paid for Christmas

I mean this wasn’t chasing, this was her asking for lists of outstanding enquiries from estate agents and then judging whether they should have been answered or telling estate agents where we could source answers from.

Asking if people had completed ID checks, booked mortgage appointments, and if not why not.

It felt very invasive