My House buying nightmare

Gone2mars

I'm on the edge of my tether with my house buying nightmare now, and was wondering if you guys could offer me some advise, help, or just plain lie to me about how it'll be ok in a couple of months

After 3 years of renting with the ex, after splitting up i decided it was about time i got on the property ladder... So, back in september i decided to go looking at houses.

through a friends recommendation i've gone to an excellent financial advisor who got me a stunning rate and free legal too

I looked at about 15 different houses in my area over the next few weekends and finding that the standard of living was pretty low i was starting to think that i couldn't afford anywhere decent... on my final day of looking at 2 bed houses and not finding that 'sparkle' feeling yet i walked into the last house and immediately fell in love.

It needs work, a lot of work, theres no carpets upstairs, the boiler is old, and every single surface is covered in a centimetre of grime, the back garden hasn't been mowed in years but looking past all this, it really is nothing a lick of paint and a weekend of hard work can't solve.

After seeing it i immediately started talking with the owner about prices, it was up for 130k, but i knocked him down to 125k (And without realising it avoided stamp duty) and he accepted the offer.

This is where the fun started, over the next couple of weeks it went lovely and smooth, i took my parents and a friend (who's an electrician) to see the house and we couldn't find many problems with it.

1 week after the this, the Owner (Mr managed to get run over by a forklift truck at work, because of this, his morgage broker at the time couldn't offer him his morgage and he lost the house that he was buying.

Because of all the operations that he was undergoing for the next few weeks (he had a triple fracture or something) the re-apply for a new morgage was going very slowly, he couldn't walk properly and so got very depressed and hence watched tv all day instead of filling out application forms.

This went on for a couple of months, in addition to this of course, Mr B couldn't decide on a house to buy... once he finally got a morgage, he'd cancel it if he found another house... he's now on his fourth house which he seems to have settled on.

During this time, since Sept and all of this happening his brother has gone bankrupt (causing Mr B to move house once again), His wife has threatened to divorce him (causing a 2 month delay in him handing in his morgage application form) they've had a death in the family (adding to the delay in general) and its only now, in february that everything has finally got back to the financial guy so a morgage can be arranged.

Now, get this, it turns out that Mr B in the ten years that he's been living there has gone and spent all his equity on holidays and car loans... he's now in negative equity which means no one wants to give him a morgage its been handed to the packager who incidently have spent the last 3 weeks moving offices with their phone lines down!

Not only that, because he's in such a bad way financially, the guy handling getting him a morgage seems to have got a little 'bored' and because he thinks its such a small chance of Mr B getting one, isn't prioritising the case or putting anytime into it.

Either way, my morgage offer is now about to run out on the 31st of march, with the bank unwilling to renew the morgage at it's old rate... apparently if i renew the rate will go up 0.8% which means i'm spending more money a month.

I'm calling the estate agents everyday and hitting brick walls... the estate agent never calls me back or chases the financial guy, the manager keeps fogging me off if i try to complain and i'm just about to loose it

*sigh*

I sincerly hope that no one else has to go through this house buying nightmare, and just incase anyone is interested or lives in the birmingham area like me, the company dealing with it is PMIS estate agents on the stratford road.... for gods sake avoid them at all costs. :mad:

Now reading it all back to myself, i'm thinking that all you guys are going to say is, walk away arn't you? I suppose i just needed a rant, but if someone in the know has any advice or thoughts that could make this easier for me then please please let me know

maninthestreet

Welcome to the world of house-buying - after a death of close relative, and changing jobs, it's one of the most stressful things in life.

Doozergirl

Yup, I'm going to tell you to walk away! It's gone on too long, the vendor is not motivated, he's in negative equity, most likely won't be able to get a mortgage, he's stalling you with stupid stories, he can't be bothered to even mow the lawn, why on earth would he need a new house?

Walk away. Nearly 6 months down the line and the bloke doesn't even have a mortgage arranged (or anywhere to buy by the sound of it?) This is just not going to happen.

The EA might be leaving you to float if there isn't anything available in your price range. I'm not really suprised that a house at £125k needs some work doing to it in that area.

vansboy

Of course you shpold have forgot this one, long ago - but it's like anything else, it's sometimes to easy, to take the common sense route!!

Don'r worry, 'cos the next one will be easier - or harder!!

VB

Doozergirl

vansboy wrote:

Don'r worry, 'cos the next one will be easier - or harder!!

Anything has got to be easier than someone who isn't actually interested in selling their house!

OP, start looking again please.

babyd32

Gone2mars wrote:

I'm on the edge of my tether with my house buying nightmare now, and was wondering if you guys could offer me some advise, help, or just plain lie to me about how it'll be ok in a couple of months

After 3 years of renting with the ex, after splitting up i decided it was about time i got on the property ladder... So, back in september i decided to go looking at houses.

through a friends recommendation i've gone to an excellent financial advisor who got me a stunning rate and free legal too

I looked at about 15 different houses in my area over the next few weekends and finding that the standard of living was pretty low i was starting to think that i couldn't afford anywhere decent... on my final day of looking at 2 bed houses and not finding that 'sparkle' feeling yet i walked into the last house and immediately fell in love.

It needs work, a lot of work, theres no carpets upstairs, the boiler is old, and every single surface is covered in a centimetre of grime, the back garden hasn't been mowed in years but looking past all this, it really is nothing a lick of paint and a weekend of hard work can't solve.

After seeing it i immediately started talking with the owner about prices, it was up for 130k, but i knocked him down to 125k (And without realising it avoided stamp duty) and he accepted the offer.

This is where the fun started, over the next couple of weeks it went lovely and smooth, i took my parents and a friend (who's an electrician) to see the house and we couldn't find many problems with it.

1 week after the this, the Owner (Mr managed to get run over by a forklift truck at work, because of this, his morgage broker at the time couldn't offer him his morgage and he lost the house that he was buying.

Because of all the operations that he was undergoing for the next few weeks (he had a triple fracture or something) the re-apply for a new morgage was going very slowly, he couldn't walk properly and so got very depressed and hence watched tv all day instead of filling out application forms.

This went on for a couple of months, in addition to this of course, Mr B couldn't decide on a house to buy... once he finally got a morgage, he'd cancel it if he found another house... he's now on his fourth house which he seems to have settled on.

During this time, since Sept and all of this happening his brother has gone bankrupt (causing Mr B to move house once again), His wife has threatened to divorce him (causing a 2 month delay in him handing in his morgage application form) they've had a death in the family (adding to the delay in general) and its only now, in february that everything has finally got back to the financial guy so a morgage can be arranged.

Now, get this, it turns out that Mr B in the ten years that he's been living there has gone and spent all his equity on holidays and car loans... he's now in negative equity which means no one wants to give him a morgage its been handed to the packager who incidently have spent the last 3 weeks moving offices with their phone lines down!

Not only that, because he's in such a bad way financially, the guy handling getting him a morgage seems to have got a little 'bored' and because he thinks its such a small chance of Mr B getting one, isn't prioritising the case or putting anytime into it.

Either way, my morgage offer is now about to run out on the 31st of march, with the bank unwilling to renew the morgage at it's old rate... apparently if i renew the rate will go up 0.8% which means i'm spending more money a month.

I'm calling the estate agents everyday and hitting brick walls... the estate agent never calls me back or chases the financial guy, the manager keeps fogging me off if i try to complain and i'm just about to loose it

*sigh*

I sincerly hope that no one else has to go through this house buying nightmare, and just incase anyone is interested or lives in the birmingham area like me, the company dealing with it is PMIS estate agents on the stratford road.... for gods sake avoid them at all costs. :mad:

Now reading it all back to myself, i'm thinking that all you guys are going to say is, walk away arn't you? I suppose i just needed a rant, but if someone in the know has any advice or thoughts that could make this easier for me then please please let me know

Have to agree with you on this one - Avoid PMIS like the plague they are a nightmare to deal with whether buying or selling. Sorry to hear you're having so many problems. We bought a house through them, offer put in in July 06 finally completed end of January 07 and this was with no chain. I also had my house up for sale with them - complete waste of time not one viewing so I changed agents...wonder if the two problems were related :rolleyes:

Gone2mars

Lol, just got off the phone with PMIS, i had such an arguement with the EA that she ended up hanging up on me. lol

In a wierd kind of way, that big blow up at her was exactly the closeure i needed... i'm going to organise a few more viewings for this week and start looking again *sigh*

Hope the next one is easier than this... and if i find the house of my dreams, and it's listed with PMIS, then the condition that i buy is that they move EA's!

thesaint

Why is the Estate agent at fault?
If the vendor changed Estate agents, would he get back his mobility and the negative equity be replaced by positive?

Gone2mars

Nope... i didn't mean the estate agent directly the vendor is using a financial advisor attached to PMIS.

The FA is basically a lazy b*****d who has basically put the whole case on hold because (and i quote) he doesn't think that the case has a high enough chance of going through for it to be deemed a priority.

After i heard he said this to my Financial Advisor (who incedently was disgusted with this guys attitude) i phoned up the person dealing with the case and had that blow out.

The FA wouldn't speak directly to me so the woman in charge had to keep putting me on hold to talk to him.

Hence my blow out...

As for the negative equity, the packagers have apparently found Mr B a morgage, but the estate agent and FA havn't followed it up in a week to see whats going on.