Taylor Wimpey Exchange of Contracts and Options Meeting

MrsLF2014

Lu_Lu wrote: »

We are buying with Redrow but only paying extra for the kitchen & dining floor as we won't have the spare cash for the rest of it until after completion. Also, they wanted silly money for carpets and flooring and I can get it much cheaper elsewhere.

Also, I found out you have to pay stamp duty on fixtures so we can paying an extra 5% of the cost of the kitchen flooring on top of stamp duty on the house itself.

We aren't paying stamp duty on any of our extras, just on the initial house price.

We got an incentive from Taylor Wimpey when we reserved our plot too, so luckily of the £10.5k of upgrades we only have to put £2.5k towards them.

Mummy_K

Thanks everyone for your responses.

Our deadline for completion is 5th September but solicitor thinks it will be done before that as contracts are signed, deposit paid and in hold so literally just waiting on official mortgage offer.

It's just annoying as it seems the rush is that the sales lady is going on holiday in 3 weeks and wants us to choose before that, but surely she has someone covering the site who can do it with us. As soon as I told her how many options we were having she said 'ok we will speak next week then and see how far along we are on exchanging'.

Justcat we are having a lot of options carpets, laminate, full upgraded tiling in all bathrooms, upgraded kitchen with additional units and lighting, quartz worktop, upgraded sanitary wear, upgraded glass internal doors, spotlights, house alarm, heated towel rails upgrades sockets (on ones you can see).

We are buying a 4 bed with 3 bathrooms, utility room, study so it's a lot of flooring.

We did shop around and only bit we found we could get cheaper were carpets (around £300 in total so not worth the bother), Quartz worktop couple be found for around £900 cheaper but would mean ripping out old one and then we would have to buy a different sink also for utility and kitchen, towel rails I could get for half the price but as we are having full tiled bathrooms would mean holes were drilled in different positions to a standard radiator which is what taylor wimpey would provide. My friends dad is a electrician and he advised that alarm was a good price and so was spotlighs as he would have to pull up our flooring and it may damage ceiling a bit and be more hassle. We also have a friend who is a joiner and again we could have gotten the lovely glass doors cheaper but he said it's not that cheap a job once you have fitted handles and hinges and then had them hung, it would probably work out around same price as taylor wimpey are quoting.

Once mortgage is officially approved we would be happy to choose as we do have money in our account to pay, obviously were just worried as until you get that official offer anything could happen. We don't intend to pull out as were ha pay with contract etc, only thing that would hold us back is if there was a problem on mortgage.

Thanks again everyone, please do keep the responses coming, it's good to hear other peoples experiences.

justcat

Sounds lovely! We have a 4 bed with 3 bathrooms but no study, so there was quite a lot of flooring. Nice that you've gone for the worktops too. We upgraded our kitchen but not the worktop - we'll probably go for a granite overlay in the next few months. We also just moved our oven to eye level and added a microwave (our house type didn't have the upgrade option to eye level oven).
The guys in my site were really good. When is your roof going on? You should be able to wait until then. Or you can explain to them the situation and that you want to wait until you've exchanged.

Mummy_K

We would have preferred our oven at eye level with having a toddler but it can't be done in our house style. Built in microwave sounds great as they take up so much worktop space.

Sales lady told us initially roof would be end of September but now said site agent is keen to get us in to choose but I'm not sure if that's something to do with her going on holiday more and wants it ordering with her as I understand the sales lady gets a commission. I'm going to go up this week and ask to see house as we haven't seen it yet as last time we were there it was just ground works and speak with the site agent.

50% just seems a huge risk incase there's a problem on mortgage as that would be only thing holding us back.

justcat

the style of ours was such a way that there was a very large space for us to easily fit an American Style fridge freezer (which we wanted any) without it being obtrusive or looking out of place. We then removed the fridge freezer that came with the house and put the oven and microwave in that location. We just had to buy the units to match the kitchen which was easy anyway.
Have they suggested that the money would be refundable if you didn't proceed with the house?

ethank

I think the important thing to remember is that it is not always about the cost. You can always get cheaper.

The one thing to remember is that if the builder installs it - it will be covered by the 2 year warranty.

I'm so pleased that they have had to fix all of my issues!

Mummy_K

Yes we liked the idea of the 2 year warranty ethank and it's the ease of not having to shop around and then if someone lets you down etc.

I'm pretty sure that the reason they take the 50% is to ensure you don't drop out as you loose the money! I have read before about people loosing money on options when sales fall through. I will ask the sales lady though if there is something else that can be done, smaller deposit or like you say a refund although I doubt they will go for that.

I might be worrying over nothing and I might exchange next week and choose options the day after haha.

jaxkesa

Did you get given a price list of options? I am buying a Bovis home and have been looking for a price list so I can research how much it would cost to get things done myself. But it sounds like you have to choose things at the options meeting without having any time to go away and think about it.

justcat

They give you a book when you reserve with all of the details in (except some need to be costed), and then the options meeting date depends on how far along the house you're buying is.

jaxkesa

Must vary by builder then as I wasn't given anything when I reserved off plan.