Do you love your house even though the purchase process was brutal?

[EnjoythemoneyJane]

I know buying property is never easy, but we’re currently a year into the process of trying to buy our dream home.

The vendors have behaved appallingly - lied over and over again, actively hidden legal complications, strung us along with false deadlines, ripped out fixtures and fittings, and let the house fall into disrepair. The process has been exhausting and unbelievably stressful, and has come at a high cost, both emotionally and financially.

I still love the house but we feel so battered by the process that I do wonder if we will ultimately regret pushing ahead with the purchase, as there may always be be residual memories of all this bad feeling associated with the whole thing.

It’s turned from something genuinely exciting into a slow, combative grind to the finish line that feels completely joyless. I’m constantly on the verge of tears at the moment, I’m so bloody knackered with it all.

Do you believe you can still create a happy future home on the basis of so much negativity going in?

If you’ve managed it, please give me some hope here!

yes, of course you can.

What's the current state of play? How close to completing?
Has your solicitor bought up the disrepair issues?

Yes. Our vendor was aggressive and awful and ended up with my phone number. It was an horrendous and stressful process that I had to fight to keep on track and get through. But we’ve been in 4 years now and it was worth every bit of stress.

Sounds like you should walk away tbh

Completion dates have been bandied about since July, with every step forward being followed by two more backwards. We still have no real idea due to the legal issues involved, but we have an excellent lawyer who’s doing everything in his power to get it all resolved.

It’ll happen eventually, but in the meantime it’s easy to get very despondent, especially when you’ve been given false hope so many times.

Thank you! I was hoping for a few ‘happily ever after’ tales to keep my chin up!

Yes, probably should have done that quite some time ago. But we’re heavily emotionally invested, and there are really no half-decent alternatives.

If its the only option keep going and just think of the victory once you get it.

Yes, but our issues were with a chain from hell with at least two people (including our buyers) using one of those online solicitors that were at best slow and at worst incompetent, rather than any particular issue with our sellers or the house we bought.

Not our current house, but years ago we lost my 'dream' house when someone I knew was ready to exchange before us and turned it into a business 🤬

The following year we had the opportunity to buy the neighbouring house (there were only three of the design built) privately, but it was tenanted and two of the tenants refused to leave till they'd received generous 'bribes' and were evicted after a lengthy court process. The whole thing was absolutely hideous, especially as we'd already completed on our sale and were staying with my parents who resented our presence in their home.

Eventually we got the keys and discovered that one of the tenants (a particularly nasty individual) had left urine and faeces everywhere throughout his ground floor flat! There were also 50+ items of furniture left throughout the 3500 sq ft building which we ended up having to clear ourselves.

But I still adored the house and couldn't wait to get started on the DIY renovations. Once converted back to a single house we spent our happiest ten years there.

We had a horrible house-buying experience a couple of years ago - it was our buyers who caused the majority of the issues in the run up to exchange/completion. Then our vendors left our new house in such a state that we had to had no lights or heating for a few days after moving in, they claimed to have lost the keys for the garage and when we finally got a locksmith to help us get in we found it still full of their shit (including several wheelie bins full of concrete which cost a fortune to deal with). However, once we got over the trauma of the whole experience, we a really happy in this house and so pleased we made the move.

We moved in February after a very nerve-racking five months, and every day I thank my lucky stars that we’re here. Before putting our previous house on the market, we’d tackled a mammoth declutter and put a huge amount of effort into making it as move-in ready as possible for prospective buyers. By the time the ‘For Sale’ sign went up, we were already pretty exhausted! So, all told, we spent the best part of ten months on edge. We made a pact that once we moved we stood still. We got over the line and then didn't rush to do too much. We opened our boxes and put things in place but we didn't set about actually amending anything major for the first three months. Instead we took the opportunity after work to sit in the sun at the weekends and just be lazy. We figured we needed to recover as we were a bit broken and stressed. That's what I'd say to you. Recognise that you have come through some sort of major life stress and don't immediately start new projects until you are physically rested.

Thanks for the encouragement @SaffyWall & @LibertyLily. People can be horrible at the best of times, but this process definitely brings out the worst in some of them.

I guess it’s a silver lining that we hopefully won’t be dealing with anyone’s poo and wee 🤮 if we ever get this thing across the line!

Yes, good advice. To be moving house at all is a privilege in the first place, so to moan about it seems ridiculously self-indulgent, but I think it’s easy to underestimate the level of stress you’re bearing for months on end. I feel totally wrung out!

Yes. Ours took forever, even though it had been on the market for about 6 years. The woman selling it (and I don't blame her one bit for this, she'd had a few sales fall through) refused to even start packing until we'd completed. When we got in it was absolutely filthy, I think she'd given up (and again I don't blame her). We hadn't realised how much of a drug problem there was in the area, and the day after we moved in a poor woman overdosed in our hedge and died. We found a dead rat under the kitchen cabinets and had an absolute plague of flies then beetles. There was woodworm on the top floor and japanese knotweed in the garden (neither declared). We immediately started renovating and that was a whole world of other pain! I absolutely love this house and I hope to never leave it. One thing I will say is that when we moved in my husband was Relentlessly Positive and made everything into a joke or an anecdote (not the poor woman who died of course) so it was Fun, and that was massively helpful because I think if I'd not had him it might have worn me down a bit

😮 @anonymous24601. Blimey, I’m not sure anyone will top that for a house moving horror story. So glad it’s become such a happy home for you (your DH sounds like a keeper).

I have literally just done so earlier this year.

Our house selling and buying conveyancing process lasted 14 months. 14 long, hard, stressful months. We kept our buyers all through this time as our house is unique and our buyers were in rented and thankfully, were willing to wait.

We lost 2 forward purchases, both late in the process, one simply pulled out and changed their mind, and the 2nd one, the vendor passed away so her daughter pulled out due to this now needing to go through probate and the fact that she had just lost her Mum (understandably)

3rd time lucky it went through but it wasn't without complications of its own and we found out things on survey which needed to be sorted that we couldn't have seen from viewing.

Our buyers Solicitor was unbelievably slow and picky and our sellers was even worse. So the whole process was so stressful we nearly pulled out twice along the way as we just felt we couldn't do it anymore.

We stuck in and finally got to exchange of contracts (which was a battle in itself and another long story)

Fast forward to now, we have been in our new house for 3 months and I can honestly say we have forgotten quickly about all the stress we had and we love our new home so much. We haven't stopped smiling since we moved here and its changed our lives for the better, just as we hoped it would.

Hang in there. When you get in, this crap will be a distant memory, I promise and it won't dent the feelings you have for your house and the next chapter of your life that is waiting for you.

Good Luck

@EnjoythemoneyJane Buying/selling is incredibly stressful even at the best of times. I moved house a year ago, to my dream home, and I would say moving day was one of the worst days of my life, stress off the scale, not helped by a team of really surly removal men. I felt shellshocked for a week. But it was all worth it. I truly believe you'll soon forget about the painful buying process after you move in.

We haven't stopped smiling since we moved here and its changed our lives for the better, just as we hoped it would.

That’s so lovely, @ThereIsSomethingWrongWithTheLeftFilange. I do feel this is the right house for us, and I really hope we’ll be exactly the same if we ever actually get to move in.

I am pretty sure you will.

It doesn't feel like it now but I promise it will all be a distant memory.

I felt very much like you, constantly stressed and overwhelmed and totally exhausted by thinking about it every waking moment. So I know how you feel right now. I reached points where I just felt broken by it. My DH and I talked so many times about pulling out but we felt we had come so far with it now, and the last year would all be for nothing if we didn't see it through.

It was tough, but we stuck with it and there was one hell of a celebration when we finally exchanged contracts.

You will get there and it will feel sweet when you do. xx

Yes, we moved last year after a very painful 12 month process and it was worth it all the minute we walked through the door after getting the keys.
We discovered an issue with faulty building work done years before on our second viewing which had to be fixed or we couldn't get a mortgage, a major leak just before we exchanged and missing paperwork at the eleventh hour. We had at least 3 occasions where we thought it would fall apart and struggled to get insurance. All the while panicking that our purchaser would find somewhere else.
We had such poor communication from the estate agent, we thought the vendor was being obstructive but eventually he contacted us directly and found we were all on the same page and organised everything over takeaway at the house!
Our buyers broke their chain and exchanged before we did when we had no idea if we could actually go through with our sale. We also timed it all for Easter so we had 4 days of worrying if the vital paperwork was going to show up. We finally exchanged on the Tuesday after the bank holiday and completed on the Wednesday.
I can honestly say that barring major illness in the family, it's the most stressed I have ever been. The night before we moved we were so worried that we'd get in and realise this house we'd poured our souls into getting actually wasn't that special but it is and we've never been so settled.
I hope you have the same outcome, a house that is a home is something to be cherished, even if it takes tears to get there.

Yes but it can take some time. Keep the faith (and the mood boards!), I hope you get in there soon.

Yes. We had an awful experience that took ten months. The moral of the story being not to try to buy a house from someone who doesn’t want to sell it (court ordered sale). We had sympathy for the vendor initially, but that quickly wore thin. We nearly walked away several times but hung on as there was nothing else on the market comparable. This was in 2019 and I’m just about over it and do love my house.

Never ever moving again though!

Oh god, the bloody moodboards!! Pages of stuff on Canva, lists of plants for the imaginary garden - can’t even look at any of it at the moment it’s so dispiriting. Just reminds me of a time when this actually felt exciting and like a new beginning … I was such a sweet summer child back then 😂

Yes, we moved in 6 years ago and it was very quick when the memories of the purchase stresses started to fade (not as severe as yours).
I still love this house and rarely think about it now.

I’d have dropped out after the first lie.