Considering pulling out of a Barratt's purchase

GlynD

Tancred wrote: »

I have a Charles Church and it's two years for everything, then NHBC for major issues only.

I decided to shell out £400 for a professional snagger to come and see what needs sorting. Worth the money.

Tancred wrote: »

I always used to think Barratt was one of the better builders - I still remember the ad from 1980s with the helicopter.

I'd never heard of a professional snagger before but honestly; our site manager was wonderful and we thought it would be the same when service was handled by the local office - no chance.

We too though they were one of the better builders and to be honest and as I said above, there was nothing fundamentally wrong with the house. It was the wee things which they wouldn't stand over, like the plumbing leak and the state of the woodwork. The paint was just peeling off!

Tancred

GlynD wrote: »

I'd never heard of a professional snagger before but honestly; our site manager was wonderful and we thought it would be the same when service was handled by the local office - no chance.

We too though they were one of the better builders and to be honest and as I said above, there was nothing fundamentally wrong with the house. It was the wee things which they wouldn't stand over, like the plumbing leak and the state of the woodwork. The paint was just peeling off!

No big issues with my Charles Church shoe box - mainly settlement cracks here and there and plasterboard nails popping out. The paint is mostly fine, other than a few bits needing doing here and there.

chris_n_tj

I would rather live in a tent than do business with Barrett. But if you do go down the Barrett route then please read the small print which will be hiiden away on page 999, and get a magnifier out so you can find it x

dgtazzman

It's not so much the extra £30 a month Tancred, more their expectations of us and like I said, if it was a smaller devaluation or Barratt's was willing to find some middle ground, fine, we'd find a solution, but right now their head office is being stubborn as can be to the extent that the local sales agent has even told me looking at the Keepmoat house might not be such a bad idea (which, considering he probably has a commission riding on the sale, took me by surprise). Even he doesn't understand why they are being like this at the moment. The mortgage has pretty much been approved for £195,000 by Nationwide, IFA expects the paperwork to clear tomorrow, but it's not like we will have an extra 15k in our back pockets to make up the difference within the next month.

And no, I don't live in the deep North, Northamptonshire, where house prices are low compared to the rest of the East, but probably will rise sharply in coming years. Drive 20-30 minutes to Milton Keynes, and you're already paying something like 40k more for the same house...

They were supposed to have a meeting this morning to discuss possible solutions and were going to phone me around 1PM, I phoned at 3PM, nobody available, phoned again at 4PM, to find out the meeting had only started 10 minutes ago. They promised to call me to discuss the situation and what was said in the meeting before 5PM, patiently waiting...

Ah well, waiting game, Keepmoat has agreed to keep the house we like off the market till noon on Thursday without making us put down a holding fee, seeing their sales office is closed tomorrow and Wednesday, so we're currently still playing both angles.

Tancred

dgtazzman wrote: »

It's not so much the extra £30 a month Tancred, more their expectations of us and like I said, if it was a smaller devaluation or Barratt's was willing to find some middle ground, fine, we'd find a solution, but right now their head office is being stubborn as can be to the extent that the local sales agent has even told me looking at the Keepmoat house might not be such a bad idea (which, considering he probably has a commission riding on the sale, took me by surprise). Even he doesn't understand why they are being like this at the moment. The mortgage has pretty much been approved for £195,000 by Nationwide, IFA expects the paperwork to clear tomorrow, but it's not like we will have an extra 15k in our back pockets to make up the difference within the next month.

And no, I don't live in the deep North, Northamptonshire, where house prices are low compared to the rest of the East, but probably will rise sharply in coming years. Drive 20-30 minutes to Milton Keynes, and you're already paying something like 40k more for the same house...

They were supposed to have a meeting this morning to discuss possible solutions and were going to phone me around 1PM, I phoned at 3PM, nobody available, phoned again at 4PM, to find out the meeting had only started 10 minutes ago. They promised to call me to discuss the situation and what was said in the meeting before 5PM, patiently waiting...

Ah well, waiting game, Keepmoat has agreed to keep the house we like off the market till noon on Thursday without making us put down a holding fee, seeing their sales office is closed tomorrow and Wednesday, so we're currently still playing both angles.

Ultimately it's your decision, so you need to do whatever makes you feel comfortable. I don't know the market in Northants, but I do know that in the UK as a whole there is an upward trend in prices. I guess that's the reason Barratt are being so hard nosed. The bottom line is that if Barratt believe the house will sell at the set price - to others if not to you - then they won't budge. It all for depends on demand for the houses.

dgtazzman

I know we're ultimately at Barratt's mercy, but the fact that 3 of the other houses that had been sold (of the 10 or so they are building in this last mini-fase) have come back up for sale in the last week, 2 of which were sold on the same day we put the deposit down on ours, so they would have been in a similar time frame for mortgage etc., does make one think.

ethank

dgtazzman wrote: »

I have now seen a Keepmoat house on the same development, a 4-bed, priced at £200,000 with the same square footage. I've been to talk with their sales guy this afternoon and he said they are familiar with the IFA and solicitor's we are using and could arrange for everything to be ported over to purchase their property with minimal cost to us. He thinks we could even keep the mortgage offer we have in the pipeline, saving a lot of time and hassle. In prelim negotiations he's already promised us flooring, turfing, all kitchen appliances, extra socket for a condenser dryer if we want it and hinted they might also be able to pay the stamp duty.

I doubt very much that any mortgage provider will port an application to a new property on the same estate. You are normally charged per application.

Note that KeepMoat

dgtazzman

Oh well, another £99 in booking fee lost if that's the case, drop in the water compared to the other losses. Not sure about the £90 redemption fee, think that would only come into play if we actually accepted the mortgage offer.

To be fair, if we did try an application through Halifax for the Barratt's property, we'd be looking at £430 for a valuation and an extra £500 in product fees anyway (which could be bolted onto the mortgage, added to the interest payments for 25 years). Considering Barratt's has yet to grace us with an answer if they would cover the admin costs for switching, I'll just assume we'd end up paying these...

I'll shoot our IFA an email to check about the porting anyway. Also Keepmoat never did say they were sure about the porting, so I'll have to give them that...