to those buying in these difficult times! AKA buyers support network

goldengirl28

this buying lark is doing my head in

we are buying from the home owner who had a board up in the garden, he is not willing to provide us with a HIP as its alledgedly a "private sale", despite our solicitor saying its not as there was a board in the garden,

also we have a 2k quote to sort out the electics!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! struggling for a week to get the seller to reduce, fix or give us an allowance!!!!!!!!!

we wanted to be in early May so tairing my hair out at the minute

our buyer must be the most patient person in the world as he has been waiting 8 weeks and still no exchange date

anyhow whinge over for now, back to harasing everyone on Monday

Hauzen

Tick tick tick, just under 48 hours to go now until I get the keys!

Solicitor has just phoned to say they have talked to the seller's agents and they are planning to move out early morning, so the keys will be at the estate agents by lunchtime on Friday

Chris_Quartly

Currently at the stage where people in the chain are arguing about completion dates... although there is an issue with the roof on the house we're buying so I am popping around at the weekend to check it out and see if I should do anything about it.

forumgrazer

hi to all ensconced in this buying lark - been a while since last post as there has been a bit of a go slow due to the contaminated land issue. Having been passed around a bit we have finally had our full records search come back clear :j This got passed to our Sol 10 days ago but unfortunately just after she had sent a letter to our Mortgage provider informing them of the Environmental search failures - if only we had got it a few hours earlier.

Anyway the problem searches were now logged in "the system" and for the next week we had been trying to confirm with our Sol that she had sent on the full records letter too. Unfortunately she decided that this was the week to go AWOL and didn't return our phone calls/emails from Thursday to the following Friday.

In the meantime we begin to panic so I call up Mortgage Centre to see what's going on... one week after first letter to Mortgage they still don't have the full records so I fax them to try and get the information cycle moving again.

The next day our Sol finally returns our call and only then confirms to us that Mortgage actually didn't have a problem after all and that we had a letter to say we could have exchanged after all... but now I may have caused a halt because of my 'meddling' with the system (info pending delays in the mortage centres are notorious) and Sol asks for me not to contact the Mortgage Centre again.... aaaargh if she ahd only answered our phonecalls, or kept us informed, we would not have worrried about what was going on.

Turns out her conveyancing secretary had told her that we had been kept informed and that's why she didn't bother to return the calls - I wonder why she thought that we were ringing 3-4 times a day for a week.

After all that we were supposed to exchange today but again at 5pm today that's on hold because they need to confirm completion dates with Mortgage drawing down department. Apparently as we've 4 weeks between exchange and completion we're not a priority case for answering queries.

anyway enough ranting... breath deeply and hope that we can exchange on Wednesday (12 weeks since offer I think)

Hope everyone else is doing better at the moment

RacyRed

I'm getting really frustrated with the way my house purchase is going.

It has been 8 weeks since my offer was accepted and we were meant to be nearing completion by now but the vendors seem to be really dragging their heels. I just found out that they haven't even had a survey done yet on the house they had an offer accepted on last month :mad: There is no chain above them.

Any questions my solicitor has asked have yet to be properly answered (information to follow or questions dismissed as irrelevant - including some pretty basic, essential stuff!). Where my sol is responding within 24 hours by fax to their questions, theirs is taking a couple of weeks and responding by post. My guy is getting really frustrated with them.

I had to have the HIP searches pretty much re-done at my own cost because their HIP was so out of date. A couple of small indemnity policies are needed now, total cost is well under £100, but the vendors solicitors are saying that the vendors refuse to pay for them.

The offer on the house was generous for the area (another house on the street is on the market for less than 75% of the price I'm paying for this one (I viewed and really wanted to like the cheaper house but the "feel" was completely wrong and that matters a lot to me). The vendors seem to be trying to prise every penny they can out of me and it is beginning to really spoil the house for me.

I'm staying with relatives, all my stuff is in storage, furniture is ordered and awaiting delivery instructions and the cash for the purchase is ready and waiting in the bank. My solicitor is ready to send out the contracts as soon as theirs decides to get their finger out.

It has crossed my mind that they might be dragging their feet in the hope of getting a better offer (the house is still on Rightmove showing as "under offer"). The negotiations on this one were pretty difficult and I'm sure they didn't want to accept my final offer but there were no other buyers on the horizon.

Would you start hedging your bets and start looking around again if you found yourself in this position?

forumgrazer

hi racyred... have lots of empathy for you - in our 15th week since offer but we have finally exchanged today! :j

Is there any way you can speak to your vendors directly? - or at least chivvy the EA (they'll be looking for their fee and may get off their rears if they sense a sale slipping) It took us 12 weeks for our vendors to organise rental so if your's have got a house to buy it will be a long time coming still...

I'd get a list together of all the stuff you need to know for your sale and then see if you can figure out how much of the same list they've done for their purchase. I think the most important thing you can find out is precisely what everyone's position is - we went for weeks thinking we'd complete at beg of May to find that they'd just signed their new rental agreement for the end.

The worst thing about this process is the chinese whispers that breed anxiety - I wish everyone was kept informed more regularly - we went a week thinking our mortgage was held up by searches and might not go through at all before our Sol casually mentioned that they'd got a letter saying it wasn't an issue for them. In the event they actually drew down the funds yesterday by accident - a month early... at least we're almost sure we're good for the mortgage.

Still now we've got the long wait till completion - 28th May

At least for now we don't have to shrug our shoulders when people ask how its going. Thanks to everyone on this thread - its helped no end to able to rant at the ether... and to see that things could be worse.

forumgrazer

Also if things are slow and you can bear it - it might be worth looking around again - it'll confirm you've got the right house or not (hindsight without having made the purchase) and it may get the EA moving again to see what the hold-up is.... good luck

goldengirl28

gosh its seems we are all struggling along slowly at the minute

looks like i'm about to lose the house i want to buy as even though the couple are 2 years divored, the hubby won't fill in/sign even the first set of paper work!

my buyers mortgage runs out in June so if we havn't got it sorted soon, we are going to have to pull out and go into rented while we find something else.

the annoying things is its take 4 weeks for the seller to tell us what the issue is!

i'm beyond knowing what to do, this is the 2nd house we may lose

RacyRed

Congratulations on completing Forumgazer, that is great news. :j

Goldengirl28 I really feel for you. Fingers crossed that a solution is found for you in time (((hugs)))

I thought the EA would call today (the main guy was on leave yesterday and it was one of his associates who dropped the survey bombshell and got the brunt of my concerns). But no, I've not heard a thing. I suddenly have such a bad feeling about all this, I know this couple have had a couple of sales fall through on the house and I'm beginning wonder if there is a pattern here.

I've started looking about again. A lot of new property has come onto the market recently in the area and there are some that look quite interesting.

Must confess that I feel bad about doing this but I have to protect my own situation. I want to get back to work but cannot until I'm settled. Living out of suitcases has already gone on for a lot longer than I'd hoped and I'm worried that if it has taken this long to get virtually nowhere then it could be a very, very long time before this purchase goes through, with lots of arguments about who is paying for what along the way.

The bottom line for me is that I've begun to mistrust the vendors and that is affecting my view of the house and it's worth. As I don't need a mortgage I didn't have a valuation done when it was surveyed, I'm wondering now if I should have done so. Paying what it is worth to me as a ome for the rest of my life is one thing, but I'm beginning to feel as if I may be being taken for a mug.

And it could all so easily have been avoided

Thanks for putting up with my rant. :A

Astara

RacyRed wrote: »

Congratulations on completing Forumgazer, that is great news. :j

Goldengirl28 I really feel for you. Fingers crossed that a solution is found for you in time (((hugs)))

I thought the EA would call today (the main guy was on leave yesterday and it was one of his associates who dropped the survey bombshell and got the brunt of my concerns). But no, I've not heard a thing. I suddenly have such a bad feeling about all this, I know this couple have had a couple of sales fall through on the house and I'm beginning wonder if there is a pattern here.

I've started looking about again. A lot of new property has come onto the market recently in the area and there are some that look quite interesting.

Must confess that I feel bad about doing this but I have to protect my own situation. I want to get back to work but cannot until I'm settled. Living out of suitcases has already gone on for a lot longer than I'd hoped and I'm worried that if it has taken this long to get virtually nowhere then it could be a very, very long time before this purchase goes through, with lots of arguments about who is paying for what along the way.

The bottom line for me is that I've begun to mistrust the vendors and that is affecting my view of the house and it's worth. As I don't need a mortgage I didn't have a valuation done when it was surveyed, I'm wondering now if I should have done so. Paying what it is worth to me as a ome for the rest of my life is one thing, but I'm beginning to feel as if I may be being taken for a mug.

And it could all so easily have been avoided

Thanks for putting up with my rant. :A

Hi RacyRed

Definitely look for something else. I was in a similar situation to you where it was dragging on and I saw another house which was in fact the perfect house but still had a loyalty to the other one and lost out. Then the sellers of the first one pulled out. I haven't actually seen another house as good as that one and often think about it but I guess it wasn't meant to be but don't lose out like I did. I'm still looking and may decide not to move because there is so little decent around.