Own Home Scheme Pros and Cons

Cloister

Hmm,

For us The solicitor reccomended by the Estate agent was very good, but I did phone 5 other solicitors and talked to them all before appointing this one.

I can't remember what date we gave the PfP documents to our solicitor but the hold up through quite a lot of this has been the co-op for us, firstly asking for an electrical report then proof that we can get it fixed within 6 months.

Once all that was in place our solicitor had to then try for exchange - I didn't get a date, I think she was going for the asap angle.

I think a lot would depend upon your chain, maybe the management stuff is something to do with someone else, I just don't know. I really haven't had to phone my solicitor much at all, I actually established a good line of comms through email which could be a good idea.

If you don't understand something like this gray "management stuff" perhaps you should ask your solicitor to explain it to you in laymans terms exactly what that is. after all you are paying for them to work for you.

Kim_ftb

Bukkie wrote: »

Hi Kim, I am at the same stage as you and I just explanied the proccess to the estate agents. someone mentioned in this forum that they are just over eager for their commission. I am just shopping for solicitors right now, getting quotes believeing that our application will go through. Might end up using Optima as recommended by the Coop as they understand the own home scheme. Stay positive and let us hear the good news when you know! Fingers Crossed for us!

I haven't shopped around yet, but from what I've read Optima seem like they know what they're doing. They could be a good choice. I had to email the estate agent yesterday firmly telling him to stop calling me, I have a job and don't have the time to answer 30 calls a day!

I'm hoping the mortgage application will be ok, my next major worry is p4p. I hope the vendor doesn't get fed up with the long wait.

It's good to know that someone is at the same stage, are you in the south-east?

This is the most stressful thing I have ever done!

rngeena

thanks for the reply. I like the emailing part. I will try to email from now on.

Cloister wrote: »

Hmm,

For us The solicitor reccomended by the Estate agent was very good, but I did phone 5 other solicitors and talked to them all before appointing this one.

I can't remember what date we gave the PfP documents to our solicitor but the hold up through quite a lot of this has been the co-op for us, firstly asking for an electrical report then proof that we can get it fixed within 6 months.

Once all that was in place our solicitor had to then try for exchange - I didn't get a date, I think she was going for the asap angle.

I think a lot would depend upon your chain, maybe the management stuff is something to do with someone else, I just don't know. I really haven't had to phone my solicitor much at all, I actually established a good line of comms through email which could be a good idea.

If you don't understand something like this gray "management stuff" perhaps you should ask your solicitor to explain it to you in laymans terms exactly what that is. after all you are paying for them to work for you.

rngeena

Hi,

does anyone know if i can talk directly with the vendors or it is illegal. I only communicate with my estate agent and i havent asked yet if i can talk directly with the vendors. I simply dont know if they have any issues because seems like in my case the delay is from the vendor's solicitor side and i simply dont know how to push them ahead. My solicitors says that they are chasing the vendors solicitor but somehow i simply dont belive them. I just want to get in contact with the vendor solicitor or the vendor but i dont know if can or i should be doing this. It would actually put my mind in ease and i would know that the vendors have no problems. Because we are in a chain and the last thing i heard from my state agent was that thier offer on a property has been accepted and now iam actaully guessing that the vendor's solicitor is delaying the whole thing by purpose and may be because the vendor wants more time to settle the other house. If that is the case i simply want to know the reason and that is why want to contact the seller solicitor or the sellter. Any ideas if i shoud do it?

ladybird3

Im not sure if it's actually illegal but I dont think it's recommended. from what I know it's best to go through your solicitor or the estate agent in order to get messages to the vendor
Has you solicitor told you why there is a delay? They would have a line of verbal communication with the vendors solicitors so would be kept up to date with progress?

Cloister

hello,

I certainly don't think it's illegal, though at one point I was also wondering if I could contact them directly I think I asked the estate agent and they advised everything should go through the solicitor.

I know what it's like no knowing, it's frustrating - you can always ask the estate agent but I think you'll probably get told the same thing. I think it's "not done" rather than anything else. Although I personally wouldn't mind if the seller contacted me personally, but that just hasn't happened.

Maybe it's just one of those british things we do, like forming a queue, stiff upper lip and all that, what!

rngeena

my solicitor told me that the delay is from the vendor's side because they are awaiting some management related information. It has now been 4 weeks and they are still waiting for this stuff. I simply dont think that some manamgnet related question should really take so long. My solicitor says that she has contacted the vendor's solicitor and is waiting for a repaly from them.

ladybird3 wrote: »

Im not sure if it's actually illegal but I dont think it's recommended. from what I know it's best to go through your solicitor or the estate agent in order to get messages to the vendor
Has you solicitor told you why there is a delay? They would have a line of verbal communication with the vendors solicitors so would be kept up to date with progress?

LouLou79_3

Hi everyone - first time poster so be gentle :-)

I have been accepted on to OwnHome and currently discussing all my options with Co-Op

I have found a property (only £155k) which I love and which is a bargain for London

However....the building company want 10% at exchange

But....as I can't complete until Dec when I can move in, my mortage will have to be re-approved in November and until then they will not release any funds.

Which basically means I will miss out on a property which is a real steal

If anyone has any advice I'd love to hear it....the HB scheme seems great but they aren't very good at thinking outside the box when it comes to restricting what you can and can't do. It's supposed to help FTB but it's giving me a headache.....

Thanks in advance

Kiggz66685

Thanks to everyone for their useful insights into the Own Home process. I’ve been reading since early this year and thought that it was about time I shared my experience. My partner and I are in Kent and made our initial contact on the 9th Feb when we were told 8 – 10 weeks but it was actually 16 weeks in the end.

We’d had our eye on a new build for a little while and luckily it was still available when we were ready to act and the bonus of course was no chain. We had an offer accepted on the 10th June and our developer stipulated an exchange for the end of June which everyone knew was a little unrealistic. We put in place our solicitors (we had rung round several local ones and chose the one that had been most helpful to during our initial enquiries).

We had to wait a week for the coop forms, we then corrected the various errors on the form and sent them everything they requested e.g. 3 months pay slips and recent p60s. We used special delivery but hadn’t realised that it doesn’t go direct to them; it went to their sorting office and took a further week to reach them!

There was then a bit more confusion because they couldn’t accept my hand written payslips so we sent them my bank statements which they said would be fine. They then decided that wasn’t enough and they wanted a letter from my employer confirming my salary so that took another couple of days.

Eventually (23rd June) they agreed that they were happy with everything and said they would arrange the survey; we asked them for the number to arrange it ourselves and did so that day. The surveyors contacted the developer on the 24th and came back to us to confirm that they had arranged the survey for the Friday of that week, 26th.

We were obviously going to miss our exchange date but our solicitors had been great and kept the developer and us fully up to date which seems to have kept everybody at bay and it didn’t seem to be a problem for the developer.

The following Monday the surveyor confirmed the valuation report had been sent to co op who had forwarded it to the underwriters and we were told there would be about a 3 day lead time for the mortgage offer to be prepared. On the 1st July I called to see where we were (as I had done every other day throughout the process!) and the coop confirmed that the underwriters had sent the mortgage offer to us and to PfP.

The next day, 2nd July, I called Own home to find out what happens next and was told it is taking 2 – 3 weeks to get the paperwork out to people as there are only 4 people in the office. We have since called every week and were initially told there were 45 people in front of us, we then called the following week and were told there were 47 people in front of us!

Last week we were told it would be another 2 weeks and we called at the beginning of this week and were told it will be another week before they will be working on ours. If that’s true it will have been about 4 weeks since they received it on 2nd July, then we will have the 7 day cooling off.

We have met with the developer twice which has been really useful as we have been able to show them how committed we are to the sale and we have kept on top of everything as much as we can and so far they have seemed happy to wait, which fingers crossed, shouldn’t be for much longer….

The only person making us nervous is the estate agent who rings daily for an update which is rather tiresome!

We both feel really lucky to have come this far and are just itching to exchange now, hopefully the solicitor will be able to set a date once the P4P paperwork comes through! At least then we can sleep a little easier!

superfran_uk

I'd tell the estate agent to F** Off, you have a life to lead and it doesn't revolve around their commission!