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!

Honestly, if there were any other affordable prospects in the same area we’d have told them to jog on a while ago. The only thing that’s persuaded us to continue is that the professionals working on our behalf are all excellent, and they’re checking every angle to make sure the vendors don’t pull a fast one.

ETA sorry quoted wrong post

Then go for it OP. Our vendors left the house empty for weeks during a storm so water came in just before exchange or contracts, turned out to have botched important repairs and lied about neighbour disputes. it was a shock and expensive but we adore our home. We felt we rescued it from the last people. Like you, we could have pulled out but loved it too much.

Ours was a 5 year nightmare, if that helps? Absolute disgrace of a seller who had tried to knock down a listed house to put up a block of flats. It was derelict and falling down, took 2 years to get planning permission with many compromises along the way. We had to do remedial works to keep it standing but needed permission for each thing. Finally got on site and went into lockdown a week after they started. We were in a rental nearby and kept having to push our leaving date back and back and back. Fortunately, we knew the people we were renting from and they were lovely about it, but eventually we felt bad, so moved out to coincide with the summer holidays, did some travelling and then came back and stayed in a hotel. I used to fall asleep at night fantasising about how the rooms would look and where I'd put things (sexy, huh? 😂).

When we finally got in it was still in quite a state - only one shower out of 4 was functional, two floors down from our bedroom. The kids were miserable, the dogs were miserable, but we got very matey with the builders, who were practically living with us.

We all survived in the end, and love the house - we'd do it all again. It's a bit like childbirth - you have to forget the specifics of the pain as a protective mechanism.

Good luck. You'll get there in the end.

We had a crazy chain from hell and a pretty crazy vendor. Highlights including last minute surveys and attempts at gazundering and the vendor knocking a neighbours child off their bike then they and move quick from the consequences (joys of joining the village Facebook).

It's been three years and we've just finished the last bit of work to put our own stamp on it. I now really feel at home.

Yes, despite discovering that the previous owners had messed with the electrics so badly that they had to be turned off on day 1, and they had home-installed the gas fire so when the engineer came to check it, he said it was lethal and cut through the pipe and capped the supply.

Fifteen years and about £120k later we have a lovely safe rural house that complies with building regs. I knew it needed work when I bought it so not a disaster.

The funny thing is the last owners came back about 5 years ago and tried to buy it back, now all the hard work is done. I declined their kind offer.🙄

@Meadowfinch What did these people say? Were they not ashamed they’d left the place in such a state?

I put a flat up for sale two years ago. The first purchaser dropped out after a year! The second one went silent after six months and the estate agents have just heard that the purchasers have bought something else! Ie they dropped out six months ago and didn't bother telling anybody. Rude, inconsiderate, and thoughtless!

We had an awful time when we bought our first house. So stressful it makes me never want to move again! The vendors lied constantly and we were really close to the whole thing collapsing. We used a local solicitor, but they used a completely useless national company and our solicitor pretty much had to do the work of both just to get it done! It was worth it in the end though.