House selling is a right pain!

vet8

Our house has only been on the market for 2 weeks or so, but already I am p****d off with it. Why is everything so complicated now? This is our third house, but we last sold over 20 years ago and things have clearly changed a great deal - for the worse, since then.

I thought this useless government was trying to make house sales easier. Ha Ha Ha. These pointless HIPs are a joke. I had to pay out £410 in advance before the HIP firm would do anything, I filled in loads of forms and answered questions. They sent the energy assessor around, he spent an hour and was totally stumped as our house has no central heating, so he did not know what to do! Now the solicitor has sent me a huge bundle of forms asking virtually the same questions as I have already answered in the HIP, so having paid for that I now have to pay the solicitor to do the same thing all over again. Great!

The EA spent over 3 hours measuring, photographing, asking a million questions. We had to prove our identity to him – why? But strangely enough we did not have to prove to him that we actually owned the house and were therefore entitled to sell it.

We have to show the solicitor a whole list of things; passport, driving licence, utility bill, inside leg measurement etc, and pay him £50 in advance for "out-of-pocket" expenses, as if he really needs that money to pay for a few stamps.

AAGGH! It never used to be this bad in the good old days.:D

Dr_Eye

Unfortunately that is the easy bit. I am at the exchanging contracts stage and it is very stressful - will it happen, how long will it take, what if someone pulls out..........and why is it so difficult to agree a date to move on?

Anyway good luck

mufi

Plus, in the good old days, no-one played the silly games over price - over-inflating asking prices by 10% just so that the purchaser thinks they're getting a bargain when they beat you down by 10%. And no-one would be so rude as to ask you to remove your shoes when crossing their hallowed threshold - it would not have crossed their mind. And I wouldn't be outside smoking in the rain while our house is on the market:(.

BTW, the HIP has one redeeming feature - in the main, it has stopped people putting their houses on the market just for fun - strange idea of fun if you ask me, but it used to happen.

googler

vet8 wrote: »

The EA spent over 3 hours measuring, photographing, asking a million questions.

Well, you'd complain if he sped round in 5 mins, and took sloppy photos, wouldn't you?

He has to ask about your house so that he can tell prospective buyers about it with confidence, and be factually correct about it.

vet8 wrote: »

We had to prove our identity to him – why? But strangely enough we did not have to prove to him that we actually owned the house and were therefore entitled to sell it.

Why would he spend X weeks marketing your house, get to the stage where you've both accepted an offer on it, THEN find out when the offer is passed to the solicitor that you're not who you say you are, or that you don't have proper title to the house? Wouldn't you want to check first?

vet8 wrote: »

We have to show the solicitor a whole list of things; passport, driving licence, utility bill, inside leg measurement etc,

Read up on 'money laundering'

vet8 wrote: »

AAGGH! It never used to be this bad in the good old days.

20 years ago there was no need to take photos, since a 'brochure' was a piece of letterhead with a 4x6 photo glued to the front and the internet barely existed, if at all.

You mean you actually want to go back to that, rather than have your EA take some time and some care to show your home at its best?

vet8

Googler, I am not complaining about the EA taking a long time, he was very throrough and I was impressed by his care. It just such a pain how long the entire thing takes.

I also said that I find it funny he did not check we owned the house, which surely is a pretty important point. I am aware of money laundering rules, which make every aspect of life so overly complicated and I am sure do nothing to stop real crooks. I can understand why the solicitor wants to see all that stuff, but I still don't see why the EA does. Who we are does not matter to him surely, only whether we are entitled to sell the house, which he did not check.

vet8

mufi wrote: »

Plus, in the good old days, no-one played the silly games over price - over-inflating asking prices by 10% just so that the purchaser thinks they're getting a bargain when they beat you down by 10%. And no-one would be so rude as to ask you to remove your shoes when crossing their hallowed threshold - it would not have crossed their mind.

I agree with this 100%. I would like to see a system where the EA valued your house at what it is REALLY worth and it went on the market at that price and that is what the buyer pays. I have bought 3 houses in the past, not for over over 20 years, and every time I paid the asking price. You are buying a house not haggling over a trinket in some foreign flea market. These days it seems that the real price is somewhere about 10% lower. Why not start at that? It would make everything simpler.

If I went to a house and was asked to remove my shoes I think I would tell them where to stick it.

PasturesNew

If you think that's bad, you wait until it's been on the market for a year and you've continually had to go out while EAs showed dozens of people round ... none of whom made an offer... then, somebody does offer, but pulls out.... Oh your pain is just beginning.

PasseySam

Having had our wooden floor damaged by the EA and viewers stilletto heels and also our bedroom carpet covered in big muddy footprints by potential buyers I now feel that if we should ask future buyers to remove their shoes - after all As a buyer I wouldn't want to damage the flooring in a house I might want to buy and so wouldn't be offended to remove my shoes when going to view. It shows the owner takes pride in their house and this could translate into the condition of other aspects of the house too!

I don't understand why you don't need to prove you own the house to be able to sell it either! Seems very odd. And I don't understand why it needs to take so long - with modern technology and electronic documents why does it still need to take 8-12 weeks to sell a house?!

Castleman

vet8 wrote: »

I I would like to see a system where the EA valued your house at what it is REALLY worth and it went on the market at that price and that is what the buyer pays. I have bought 3 houses in the past, not for over over 20 years, and every time I paid the asking price. You are buying a house not haggling over a trinket in some foreign flea market. These days it seems that the real price is somewhere about 10% lower.

Haggling is perfectly suitable. You are selling something that you have a nominal value for, the buyer also has a nominal value attached. they are unlikely to be the same as there is no actual "what it is REALLY worth" it is just a matter of opinion. You may like your kitchen and consider it worth £x, whereas the buyer hates it, will rip it out when they move in and therefore values it as £0.

Nick75011

Agree with all of this, and read my post almost at exchange stage but then the freeholder is coming into the game and is blocking ething...
I'm french and I am amazed (not sure how positively) by the all process
And that is actually the most stressfull time of my life, I wouldnt have thought about that years ago...