FTB, just bought a house, advice needed

fenwick458

I'm 25 and I've just bought my first house. have eiter lived with my parents or in barrack block accomodation in the army so this is all new to me.
the offer was accepted on wednesday, solicitors sorted on thursday and i'm currently expecting a letter from the solicitors about the conveyancing fees/process.
theres no forward chain, the house is vacant, and I'm a cash buyer so hopefully i should have the keys within one month.

I need advice on what i need to do next!

• solicitor has given me the option of some local authority searches (cost £120) like who maintains the road along the front, water, drainage, mining survey, planning permission records etc, is it worth getting these done or are they a waste of money?
• utilities, do i need to wait untill i get the keys, then try and sort out the utilites (who to buy my gas/water/electric from I mean) and how long will it take to get these sorted?
• i'm also a bit confused about the utilities, never done any of this before so all the comparison websites are pointless as i've nothing to compare to! is there somewhere that just gives me the cheapest prices around?
• council tax, when and how do i start paying?

thers loads more probably... but can't think of them now.

anything else i need to look out for, sort out before i move etc..?

thanks

G_M

First - you have NOT bought a house. You've had an offer accepted. Until you Exchange contracts, it could fall through.

Searches - depends a lot on the property, you, and your knowledge of the area. If the property is old, you are a property virgin, and you don't know the area, you'd be wise to play safe. If you are confident there are no planning permission/Building Regs issues, that water is laid on, that there are no council plans to build a motorway through the garden, etc etc ..... etc, you could either ignore it, or do some research yourself at the council offices and talking to neighbours.

but there is a reason mortgage lenders insist on these searches - they are protecting their investment. Should you do the same......?

Utilities - wait till Exchange. a) you then KNOW you will be buying the house and b) you know WHEN you will be moving in. Use comparison sites to compare suppliers against each other. Find the cheapest then ring them and give them your Completion date (moving in date). Don't forget to take meter readings the day you move in and tell them otherwise you might get billed for previous owner's electricity!

Same with Council tax. Phone them after Exchange and give them your Completion date.

Read this and then this too.

Yorkie1

On most of the utility comparison sites there is usually an option which allows you to do a comparison without knowing what the likely usage will be - you simply input the type of house, whether it's got double glazing etc, and they estimate it for comparison purposes.

mark5

When I bought my first house, I completed on the Friday and the council tax bill arrived on the Saturday!

fenwick458

Yorkie1 wrote: »

On most of the utility comparison sites there is usually an option which allows you to do a comparison without knowing what the likely usage will be - you simply input the type of house, whether it's got double glazing etc, and they estimate it for comparison purposes.

any links? just looked on a few sites, they all say i have to enter my current supplier.

Littlebutterfly_2

You wont know which Co. the previous owners were with - but it's a moot point as you can change who you're with once you've taken up tenancy...but as advised by other members...wait til you've moved in.

Im sure your parents will be able to advise all about utilities!

dd

Yorkie1

fenwick458 wrote: »

any links? just looked on a few sites, they all say i have to enter my current supplier.

I used uswitch when I was looking for my new house.

As regards supplier, you will find out the current supplier when the sellers provide the property information form - but if you want to investigate before then, simply put in British Gas and NPower or whoever is the local default supplier.

When you are asked to input usual bill / usual usage, I recall there being an option of 'don't know' or similar. Click that and you're asked about the property, and it does an estimated usage from that info.

clutton_2

if you phone your local power suippliers you can ask them who supplies the property.. if they dont, they will give you a number to call to find out

you will also need to contact the water company and telephone supplier.. it can take a month or more to get a landline in....

the post office need 7-10 days to organise a mail redirect service if you are going to use that

dont forget to organise your new home's buildings insurance from the date of completion

halflost

clutton wrote: »

dont forget to organise your new home's buildings insurance from the date of completion

I thought you should insure at exchange, as you are then legally comitted to buy this, even if something does happen to it?

I believe this is a stipulation by most mortgage companies?

fenwick458

finally got the keys last thursday, so it took a day over 6 weeks from when they accepted my offer. and including the time taken for them to accept my offer the whole process took 9 weeks.

couple of points i want to cover to help anybody else in the same situation

• i decided to pay for the searches after all for peice of mind. £130 is not alot really so i thought i might aswell get them done.
• regarding a buildings survery, i just got my boss (work for a builder) to have a walk round and check it out. from speaking to a few people who have had proper surveys done it seems all they do is have a glance round the propery and wave a damp meter about, then write you a fancy letter and charge £500 for doing basically the same thing as a regular builder.
• and once the builders survey was done, thought i might aswell try and haggle some more money off! told the EA that as a reslut of the builders survey the house needed £1000 worth of work done to it(back of it needs dashed again) and i would go halfs with them, as a result i got £500 knocked off.
• regarding the utilities, there are some phone numbers to call to find out who currently supplies the property, for gas call 0870 608 1524 and electric call 0845 404 0506. you need to find these out first
• once you have those, phone around the utility companies and get a price. COMPARISON WEBSITES ARE A WASTE OF TIME!! i searched them all, and found no good deals. simply calling them was much better as you can discuss different tarrifs, haggle with them and in the end get much better deals. i can't beleive people use comparison websites.
• i sorted the insurance out the day before completion, to start for the next day

thats all.