To those BUYING in these difficult times....

JuniorSherlock

Nice to hear that some people are moving into their homes Best of luck everyone!

Well ours is taking forever and a day. We had offer accepted on 20th October, put everything in solicitor's hands the day after. Since then we've had to deal with chancel repair liability, a covenant from the HA who previously owned the house saying that we couldn't change or add to the interior or exterior of the property that we had to get changed - no thanks to our solicitor who advised that we just sign the contract - to take out the restrictions on what we do inside the property (this being a freehold sale, you wouldn't bloody think so though!), then solicitor asking us to send a deposit to the WRONG BANK DETAILS etc etc. We are still awaiting a completion date. For a straightforward sale with no chain either side you'd think it'd be simple wouldn't you? Be warned if you are buying a repossessed house, just make sure it's worth it.

emilia15

JuniorSherlock wrote: »

Nice to hear that some people are moving into their homes Best of luck everyone!

Well ours is taking forever and a day. We had offer accepted on 20th October, put everything in solicitor's hands the day after. Since then we've had to deal with chancel repair liability, a covenant from the HA who previously owned the house saying that we couldn't change or add to the interior or exterior of the property that we had to get changed - no thanks to our solicitor who advised that we just sign the contract - to take out the restrictions on what we do inside the property (this being a freehold sale, you wouldn't bloody think so though!), then solicitor asking us to send a deposit to the WRONG BANK DETAILS etc etc. We are still awaiting a completion date. For a straightforward sale with no chain either side you'd think it'd be simple wouldn't you? Be warned if you are buying a repossessed house, just make sure it's worth it.

Sounds similar to our situation! We're not buying a repo though, but the chain is very short with a cash buyer at the start of it.

We had offers accepted all ways at the beginning of October, and we've only just got to the point of exchange today ( although it was supposed to hsppen last Thursday, and then Friday). So we're now in week 13.

I really think there must be a better way of doing things. Every little step has just been so hard to get sorted. :bangsheadagainstwallonemoretime:

liam_h

Just an update on our situation.

After being told before Christmas that it was our vendors vendors holding things up, I found out last week it is in fact our vendors delaying things as they are still awaiting a mortgage approval, amongst a few other things.

Now I know it could well be a simple delay due to the weather, but I have a feeling that they have had their mortgage rejected. We need to be out of this house by the end of the month, so things are a bit touch and go at the moment.

We're also stuck with what to do. If they can't/won't proceed and won't move out into rented that leaves us with two options. Rent for a minimum of 6 months and move in then (we currently "borrow" a house for free from a relative, but they need it now) or rent and pull out. Pulling out I don't think we can really do - we can't afford another £1000 on fees, searches etc. And looking for another house I really can't be bothered with. It's only now we've hit these problems that we've realised how much we do really like the house.

Not happy times. I honeslty don't think we'll be moved by the end of the month. Hopefully they'll rent - surely they wouldn't be stupid enough to lose out on a buyer?

Grimbal

liam_h wrote: »

Hopefully they'll rent - surely they wouldn't be stupid enough to lose out on a buyer?

Don't bank on it. Some vendors are incredibly short-sighted. We have exchanged on ours, and have identified where we want to go. The problem is that these guys want a very specific type of property which isn't going to come up very often. We put the question of renting to them -and they turned us down flat

We are now having to go into rental (save for a last minute reprieve from rightmove/these guys) because our "vendors" are refusing to. They are playing a risky game - if anything else comes up that's better we'll obviously go with the alternative.

The frustrating thing is though, these "vendors" have already lost a buyer before we turned up because they refused to rent. Some people eh?!

charles_b_2

Grimbal wrote: »

Don't bank on it. Some vendors are incredibly short-sighted. We have exchanged on ours, and have identified where we want to go. The problem is that these guys want a very specific type of property which isn't going to come up very often. We put the question of renting to them -and they turned us down flat

We are now having to go into rental (save for a last minute reprieve from rightmove/these guys) because our "vendors" are refusing to. They are playing a risky game - if anything else comes up that's better we'll obviously go with the alternative.

The frustrating thing is though, these "vendors" have already lost a buyer before we turned up because they refused to rent. Some people eh?!

You've exchanged contracts - have you not agreed a completion date? I would think you need to be careful about pulling out if you've exchanged contracts, as you would loose your deposit at the very least.

emilia15

liam_h wrote: »

Just an update on our situation.

After being told before Christmas that it was our vendors vendors holding things up, I found out last week it is in fact our vendors delaying things as they are still awaiting a mortgage approval, amongst a few other things.

Now I know it could well be a simple delay due to the weather, but I have a feeling that they have had their mortgage rejected. We need to be out of this house by the end of the month, so things are a bit touch and go at the moment

Are you able to get anything definite about how much longer a decision will take with regards to their mortgage? Just wondering if things could potentially happen soon with regards to their mortgage, and although chances are you won't have completed by the end of the month, whether your relative could allow you to stay in the house for a further month whilst things are sorted?

I think you're probably now at the stage where you need some definitive answer about the specifics of the mortgage problem, as I'm guessing your solicitor is doing all if the required searches, requests etc, and therefore costing you?

Grimbal

charles_b wrote: »

You've exchanged contracts - have you not agreed a completion date? I would think you need to be careful about pulling out if you've exchanged contracts, as you would loose your deposit at the very least.

Nope sorry, I obviously didn't make myself clear: we've exchanged on our sale with a completion date set for March. We want to buy somewhere but the vendors of this are not making any effort to find anywhere - we asked them to rent, they refused hence they may lose US if we find somewhere else.

JuniorSherlock

emilia15 wrote: »

Sounds similar to our situation! We're not buying a repo though, but the chain is very short with a cash buyer at the start of it.

We had offers accepted all ways at the beginning of October, and we've only just got to the point of exchange today ( although it was supposed to hsppen last Thursday, and then Friday). So we're now in week 13.

I really think there must be a better way of doing things. Every little step has just been so hard to get sorted. :bangsheadagainstwallonemoretime:

It's so frustrating isn't it? We don't even have a timetable yet. I'm sure there are very good solicitors out there, but in all the dealings I've had with conveyancers, they tend to do things in their own time, they don't like it when you ask questions, they won't admit when they've made a mistake, they NEVER apologise for anything and they are really quite rude and abrupt in dealings with people. Yet they charge a fortune for their services.

It's not just the ones on our side, but the ones employed by the HA charge them for answering questions, charge them for putting right mistakes made by them and refuse to answer emails. They send correspondance on as and when it suits them.

There simply aren't enough walls to bang one's head on!

charles_b_2

Grimbal wrote: »

Nope sorry, I obviously didn't make myself clear: we've exchanged on our sale with a completion date set for March. We want to buy somewhere but the vendors of this are not making any effort to find anywhere - we asked them to rent, they refused hence they may lose US if we find somewhere else.

Yes - I got the wrong end of the stick! Good Luck, I would think you would want to be careful about this particular house and look elsewhere

We're hoping to exchange next week and complete around 2nd week of Feb (fingers crossed, it's been going on since October)

Grimbal

not to worry ! We're definitely putting this one on the back burner at the moment. It's highly likely that we'll be renting come March: if they come back to us in a timescale that allows us to tie up completion dates then all will be good.

However, we're not limiting our options. In fact, we're going to see a couple of new builds on Saturday that are lovely, but too expensive for us. We're hoping that the developer just wants to get off site asap and will let us buy for 80% of asking Nothing ventured, nothing gained and all that !

Fingers crossed that your exchange goes through smoothly !