House Sold but not found anywhere to live

Fuji

We accepted an offer on our house last month - the people buying are first-timers and hopefully this should mean that the sale proceed quickly. The surveyors have been and we are waiting for their report. Everything on the sale side seems to be going great...........

However, on the buying side things aren't so good. We haven't found anywhere that we want to buy. We have looked at nearly all the suitable properties in the area we want to move but haven't liked any of them enough to want to put in an offer. We don't want to either delay our sale - not for too long anyway, or lose it completely.

We can stay with in-laws in the short term (probably a couple of months), while we look for a house, but how would this affect our mortgage? Can you still continue with a mortgage even though it’s not secured to a property? Or does it have to be paid back as soon as our place sells?

The redemption charge that we have been given by our provider (Abbey) is nearly £1800 (this seems a lot considering our current deal is until October 2007)

Has anyone been in a similar situation – How did you deal with it? And do you have any useful tips?


TIA

pennylane99

I was tied in with Abbey on a 7 year deal, but didnt have to pay the redemption fee as long as I found another property to transfer the mortgage to within 6 months of selling.....that was a couple of years ago though, they may have changed...I would find out from them...

chivers1977

With a lot of lenders you will have to pay it up front but will get it refund in full or part if you COMPLETE, not exchange on a new property within 6 months. Abbey will be able to confirm.

silvercar

Coventry BS are the same, take out a new mortgage within 6 months and they will refund the redemption fee. Take longer than that and you've lost the redemption charges.

Fuji

As an update to this, we have two houses that we have second-viewed and need to decide between - both are in good locations - both are pretty standard 3 bed semi's.

But we have a quandary - The smaller house has a large garden (about 60ft long) and is ready move into, the other house has larger rooms and is already extended but has a smaller garden (about 30 ft) which backs onto a cricket club car park (which has functions at weekends).
My first question is do people really need/enjoy large gardens? we have a 15 month old daughter who'll be ready to play outside this summer - both gardens are south facing so they should catch a lot of sun when/if it ever arrives.....

p.s. both houses only have showers at the moment and we've been quoted about £1500 for a new suite to be fitted. Is this realistic ? (£800 suite and £600 labour)

I appreciate its a difficult question but can anyone give
an average rough figure for the cost of a new kitchen and
for the cost of a single storey exension ?

thanks in advance

cuffie

I can't answer the latter part of your question (sorry), but I'd go for the smaller house, bigger garden. You can always move on in a few years, and the 30ft garden/backing onto cricket club would put people off if you did have to re-sell later on. You can get cheaper bathroom suites if you want a cheaper one - look at the Homebase and B&Q sales. Good luck whatever you decide.

brasso

Re the extension, the normal ball-park figure quoted by builders for an extension is somewhere between £1000 and £1200 per square metre of floor space. My understanding is that this is for the structural work including plastering and utilities but doesn't include internal painting. Of course, you'll have to factor in the cost of extra decoration and furnishings, plus paperwork, planning application fees, possibly cost of having plans prepared etc