Worried first time buyer

lisasBigBadHouse

Hi all.

Me and my boyfriend are first time buyers, and we've found a house that we liked and have had our offer accepted. What I am worried about is that very little has happened since then, and our offer has been accpeted nearly 2 months ago now.
As soon as we got the offer, we went to a mortgage broker to sort out a mortgage, and instructed a solicitor, and we have also recieved paperwork from the EA with the solicitor details of the couple that we are buying from. However, what I am concerned about is that the EA advised us to not get our survey done until our chain was complete, and when we checked at the beginning of this week we were told that the chain still isn't complete, and the sellers of the house that we are hoping to buy have found a house, but they haven't had their survey done yet. The EA advised us to hold off on our survey, so that until everyone further up the chain has had their surveys done, we won't waste money if someone further up pulls out. This makes sense to me, as I guess that until our sellers have a satisfactory survey done, we know that when we spend out for ours we potentially won't be wasting money on something going wrong. (Sorry for all this waffle!)

What I am concerned about is that we have chosen to have a joint mortgage valuation done with a survey (is this the homebuyers survey?), so we haven't actually done the mortgage valuation yet, as our chain isn't completed. Is this normal? We don't mind waiting on the house as we don't have anything to sell, but I was just getting worried about how quiet everything has gone. Does this all seem like normal to you? I am worried that our seller might be beginning to think that we are not serious buyers, when we are, we have the money ready for everything to be done as soon as possible. Do you think it would be ok to pop around to have a chat with our sellers to let them know our worries?

Thanks.

KiKi

Hi OP

There are three types of survey:
a) mortgage valuation - min requirement as a reassurance to your lender that the house is worth what you're paying (and what they're lending to you)

b) Homebuyers - more detail with regards to potential problems as a buyer of the house

c) Structural - full survey of house structure, make up and potential problems.

Your lender HAS to have a) in order to let you have a mortgage. If *you* choose to have b) or c), or your mortgage lender offers b) or c) as part of the package, then you should be able to do that part separately - unless you've already agreed that you want them to be done together.

Don't talk directly to your sellers. Always do that through solicitors and EA - you could ask your conveyancer to reassure them that you're all ready to do the survey but you're waiting until you know they've done theirs for their property, first, so you're not spending money on a house when they aren't ready to move, yet, either. They are probably just as equally worried that they've been keeping you on hold whilst they sort out their property. If they were worried you weren't serious, it would have been raised by now.

Always go through the solicitor for formal communication - and certainly don't alert your seller to the fact that you're worried!

My two penneth, anyway...! Hope you get it sorted.