Any experience of 'a quick sale'?

blondie4281

My husband and I own a house which was sold to us without us being told it had a long history of subsidence. We purchased it as our first home aged 21, and did not pay for a survey (only mortgage valuation). Now nearly 6 years later, further work is underway to try stabilise the house (again), and we are pursuing the vendors through a solicitor.
We have had this hanging over us for so long, we want to just be shot of the house, but we have a large mortgage. We would never mislead anyone into buying the property and have been told by 6 major mortgage lendors that they would not consider offering anyone a mortgage on a house with this history. With our first baby due in 5 weeks we are desperate to move to a bigger house! We are therefore considering a company such as 'a quick sale' or 'national homebuyers'.
Has anyone had any experience of going down this route? If we can cover our mortgage plus a little extra, we are willing to accept that we will not be able to sell this house for what it should have been worth if it did not have this history. We won't be able to buy again, but we just want this worry to be gone! Renting it out will not cover the mortgage payments we have to make on it.

clutton_2

you will be much better off dropping the price really low and going through a normal estate agent - you will get much more money this way - and as l ong as you tell the EA it must be a cash buyer - you may sell it sooner than you think

how much would it be worth it was ok ?

how much mortgage have you got ?

blondie4281

The house should be worth around £170'000 with no history. We owe £134'000 on our mortgage. We bought it for £144'000 nearly 6 years ago, which was the going rate for a house of that size at the time.

clutton_2

you may be offered 75% of around £150k by one of the quick sale companies. if you have been approached by A Q S i would not deal with them, as their legal procedures are very iffy indeed.

Trollfever

we want to just be shot of the house

Have you considered the auction route?

blondie4281

We haven't even thought about an auction. Wouldn't we run the risk of not being able to pay our mortgage off? Would we be able to set a reserve? I know nothing about selling a house at auction. Do only cash buyers take part, and would it mean we would sell technically on the day of the auction or does it take a long time to go through?

We are actually currently living in rented while the work is completed on the house. We would like to stay on here, but as of 1st August we will be paying both rent and mortgage. We only have enough to do this for 1 month.

silvercar

You can set a reserve at auction. Though selling at auction means no guarantees, so you would be letting buyers find out for themselves, if they do a survey.

clutton_2

if you only have enough to do this for one month - thenan auction will give you a fast sale - but - if it does not sell (at or above the reserve price,) i suspect you will still have auctioneer fees to pay - if you sell for less than your mortgage you will still owe the money and it will still attract interest on a daily basis

if you do sell at auction, once the hammer goes down - contracts are immediately exchanged, and the purchaser then usually has 28 days to complete

lincroft1710

2 points - a house with subsidence history is either going to achieve a much lower price than an equivalent unaffected house or will not sell in the current cautious market. Secondly, a quick buy company will probably not be interested or make a very derisory offer.

blondie4281

Thank you so much for all your replies. I wonder how much it costs to sell a house at auction? If the reserve price was realistic (say £20'000 less than the market price of other similar houses in the area but still enough to pay off our mortgage), our risk would only be if there is no interest at all. Would we not be able to tell the prospective purchasers of the history prior to the auction (ie. is there any info pack supplied if a house is going to auction). We cannot do to somebody what has been done to us. It wouldn't be right. The house would be all repaired with a 12 year guarantee on the work completed (it has been underpinned using bore piles).

silvercar

Put what you like in the info pack. Buyers will need to verify it themselves. Being that it is the norm for auction properties to not reveal much, the fact that you will be saying...subsiding, underpinned, guaranteed, ...may make buyers wary that there are other hidden horrors.

You could be lucky and find a cash buyer. An auction certainly increases your exposure. The risl is that someone wins the auction and then can't get a mortgage and fails to complete. You could then sue them for failing to complete, but if they are FTBs they would likely not have much to be worth suing over.