Anyone want to be my house-buying buddy?

BabyBoots

Congrats livalicious and hairdye on getting your keys.

I exchanged today - yay!

How did you get on Tony-R?

Good luck with the packing and unpacking everyone )

Tony_R

BabyBoots wrote: »

Congrats livalicious and hairdye on getting your keys.

I exchanged today - yay!

How did you get on Tony-R?

Good luck with the packing and unpacking everyone )

Didn't exchange today either

The solicitor now has our deposit etc. But found out the reason why the sellers solicitor has been so quiet.

The sellers bought a new house a few weeks ago and remortgaged the house we are buying temporarily as a bridging loan to buy the new house. They are now waiting on getting the that charge removed from our deeds and getting a balance so they can pay back that charge so we can buy it.

It should be cleared hopefully tomorrow or Wednesday, so the new completion date is the 15th.

I'm seeing if that can be bought forward at all, as the friend I'm buying with has work commitments from the 14th to 22nd and would struggle to get the 15th off. If anything we will have to get the keys on the 15th and leave the move till the weekend (17th/18th). Luckily we both currently live with families so moving out of where we currently live isn't an issue, just annoying.

LittleMissAspie

Hey everyone. I've been following this thread on and off as we had an offer accepted a month ago. Now our solicitor says we're nearly ready to exchange and "completion on a date of your choice". But doesn't our completion day depend on the rest of the chain, how do we know if the rest of the chain is ready to exchange and what day they want to complete? What if we exchange and then something goes wrong at the top of the chain? Do we give our solicitor our preferred dates for completion and he negotiates on our behalf? Do we need to contact the seller's estate agent for anything?

becca0417

Congrats to all who have exchanged or completed! x

Hoping to exchange tomorrow.

Can someone advise me on what I need to clean the house with?!! It's in a terrible state. Thanks!

BabyBoots

LittleMissAspie wrote: »

Now our solicitor says we're nearly ready to exchange and "completion on a date of your choice". But doesn't our completion day depend on the rest of the chain, how do we know if the rest of the chain is ready to exchange and what day they want to complete? ?

Yes, if your chain has no flexibility in it, everyone will complete on the same day. You need to ask your solicitor the status of the other chain members re completion. You need to tell your solicitor a range of dates that work for you, and a preferred date (they're commonly fridays, to give people the weekend to settle in, and for bank transfers to take place on the weekdays beforehand).

LittleMissAspie wrote: »

What if we exchange and then something goes wrong at the top of the chain?

When you exchange contracts you specify a completion date in the contracts. If anyone is unable to complete, they bear financial penalties to reimburse resultant costs to those who could complete

LittleMissAspie wrote: »

Do we give our solicitor our preferred dates for completion and he negotiates on our behalf? Do we need to contact the seller's estate agent for anything?

Yes. Only to hurry the seller along if they don't get back to you quickly enough via their and your solicitor.

BabyBoots

Tony_R wrote: »

Didn't exchange today either

The solicitor now has our deposit etc. But found out the reason why the sellers solicitor has been so quiet.

The sellers bought a new house a few weeks ago and remortgaged the house we are buying temporarily as a bridging loan to buy the new house. They are now waiting on getting the that charge removed from our deeds and getting a balance so they can pay back that charge so we can buy it.

It should be cleared hopefully tomorrow or Wednesday, so the new completion date is the 15th.

I'm seeing if that can be bought forward at all, as the friend I'm buying with has work commitments from the 14th to 22nd and would struggle to get the 15th off. If anything we will have to get the keys on the 15th and leave the move till the weekend (17th/18th). Luckily we both currently live with families so moving out of where we currently live isn't an issue, just annoying.

That's a shame Tony-R, but it does at least seem that it will be resolved quickly. Sounds like you'll be moving the same weekend as me, after our offers being accepted at the same time! You might get more 'willing' volunteers to help with the move on the weekend anyway

neas

Quick update on our house purchase.

Now in 17 days after offer was put in. Mortgage accepted, just waiting on confirmation from my employment, got a sweet 3.99% 5 year fix with britannia (was so lucky to get it in time). Survery came back as same valuation as what we paid for which is nice.

We went and viewed property a second time and found two issues we didnt have on first two viewings:

1. When boiler was on and running overflow pipe in loft was leaking water out. EA said they will get a plumber round to take a look.
2. They were ants coming into the kitchen!. The vendor must've left some food near or around bin as the trail was all around the bin!. The vendor had laid down loads of white powder and obviously killed them all... but it was a bit of a shock to see 100+ ants in my future kitchen!. I traced them back outside and obviously have a nest in the garden. After consulting family/ friends people say you can get rid of them with the poison/boiling water...so not a big worry (i hope so !)

Anyways the vendor has offered to leave cooker/dishwasher/freezer (old ones!) for £50 which we've accepted. She wanted another £20 for tumble dryer but we have (washing/dryer/fridge/freezer) them already. If she cant shift it we will give it away to someone but wont pay £20 etc.

In addition to all this i've been chasing down the solicitior front, which has been stuck on 'we are waiting for draft contracts' since i started! (thereby no searches done yet!). It turns out the vendor only went down on friday with necessary paperwork to get things rolling (annoys me because she wanted a quick sale but waited 2 weeks to sort it..)

So looks like we got another 4-5 weeks yet at least.

LittleMissAspie

BabyBoots wrote: »

You need to tell your solicitor a range of dates that work for you, and a preferred date

Thanks, that's what we'll do then. We'd like completion to be beginning of August so I just hope everyone else can do that.

neas wrote: »

In addition to all this i've been chasing down the solicitior front, which has been stuck on 'we are waiting for draft contracts' since i started! (thereby no searches done yet!). It turns out the vendor only went down on friday with necessary paperwork to get things rolling (annoys me because she wanted a quick sale but waited 2 weeks to sort it..)

Solicitor can surely start his searches before the draft contracts? I don't know how it works mind.

pollyhelen

well hello all,

we are suddenly lurching into house buying so I have been lurking around on the boards the last few days, and found that some people think i'm an idiot because i know nothing but you all seem very helpful and supportive here so i thought I would add on and see how we go. Loads of helpful advice so far in this thread, have learnt lots.

So here is the situation.

Deposit of 30-35k just about sorted, but all over the place so we are gathering it to one bank account.
seen a house we think is great, it is going for 190k we put an offer in today for 170k which was rejected as we thought. Apparently he is looking for more like 180k so we are trying to decide whether to put in for 175k or 178k - should we take baby steps or just go for something we think he will accept and be done with it?
we have had some good chats with mortgage people who have advised us to get an offer in and then come back - we both earn currently but are basing our sums on just one income just in case of redundancy or babies (both likely, guess which is preferable!!)
we also have a solicitor lined up.

all a bit nerve racking - and we have no idea how to play this bidding game! any help would be very gratefully appreciated!!!!

thanks, and welldone those of you who are sorted, cross fingers for the rest!!

becca0417

We've exchangedddddd!!!!