The NEW waiting to exchange thread...

Lemonyrose13

@Natbag, thanks for your reply. I'll give them a call and see what they say would be our best option and have a chat with a couple of other surveyors. We need to get someone out at some point to check a couple of things before we start doing the work we want done on it but it coul be worthwhile just waiting until we've moved in! Hmm lots to think about! 

climbthatwallseegar

Does anyone have any experience or thoughts about mortgage retention?

Following my lender's surveyor reporting back that the house we want to purchase has extensive damp and rot, we were informed that we had to get a full Damp report.  Our seller's Estate Agent  arranged this and I received the report today from the damp and timber specialist with an initial recommendation of about £6k worth of work to remedy the specific issues the surveyor picked up on. We know there is a lot more work to be done as it is a complete fixer-upper but we are prepared for that as it is priced accordingly.

The EA has categorically stated that the Seller is not willing to pay to have any work carried out, the house is sold 'as seen' and I shouldn't worry as the lender should offer a mortgage retention, i.e. with-hold some of the lending until the work is completed post exchange. This is do-able for me as the current price is under my budget but I'm actually concerned that the lender will not even offer this option as my mortgage broker initially said they want the work carried out before Exchange. A bit confused about next steps atm!

AnnexeRegular

My solicitor has been waiting for the leasehold pack from the management company for 4 weeks now. Everything has stalled. Searches still aren't back after 4 weeks even though the search flow website says only 12 working days in my area. Waiting around is so frustrating.

Caz_Mnaz

Everything is back, everything is signed... We just need 6 solicitors to agree a completion date. Simple right!? *prepares to drink even more wine*

goodwithsaving

Here I go again. I am back on the waiting to exchange thread for another move. The house is now under offer, and I'm splitting the sale and purchase, so hopefully it will proceed smoothly. My buyer is chain free but doesn't seem concerned about timeline, which on one hand is positive because I can find somewhere to buy (although there is nothing coming to market, and properties that do go very quickly), but on the other hand I just want to complete on the sale even if I pay various fees for doing so.
I feel so stressed about going through this once again, I haven't been well this week as a result. Hoping for a pain-free process.

Sam2030

So we are in a chain of six we are number one  every one is ready apart from number six they have been reviewing the enquiries for the past few weeks and found out they are still a couple of points outstanding one being about a sound system! Anyway our seller (house number 2)is now saying that he is going to pull out if he doesn't get a date by Friday. So we don't really no what to do obviously we won't be able to buy his house if he pulls out or would then be waiting for them to find another and I don't think our buyer would wait for that so we would be starting again. Whilst been down on solicitors costs which we couldn't afford to pay out twice and prices have gone up since our offer was accepted at the end of November. 

BountyBlink

Louise.H said:

Taking out insurance with the solicitors so can hopefully get survey costs etc refunded if they do it again before exchange. Apparently they got worked up by the idea of a surveyor going in - either something to hide or just very nervous. Agents deemed them a nightmare client so I may well need some hair dye when all this is over. 

Sorry just chiming in here lol! We were in your vendors position perhaps. So basically we put our house on market for an “aggressive” price and our buyer that offered £8,000 less we said to our agent ok, but that is not subject to any survey. So our agent made it clear to our buyers that they could have a survey done but we would not drop a penny, our buyers chose not to have a survey, but maybe this is what’s happened with your vendors? 

Our house was 1930’s semi and clearly the roof would need attention, bathrooms and kitchens replacing etc, and that was all taken into consideration when we had it valued. 

Feel for you though because it must leave you with a feeling of uncertainty now! Hope it all works out well for you. 

BountyBlink

climbthatwallseegar said:

Does anyone have any experience or thoughts about mortgage retention?

Following my lender's surveyor reporting back that the house we want to purchase has extensive damp and rot, we were informed that we had to get a full Damp report.  Our seller's Estate Agent  arranged this and I received the report today from the damp and timber specialist with an initial recommendation of about £6k worth of work to remedy the specific issues the surveyor picked up on. We know there is a lot more work to be done as it is a complete fixer-upper but we are prepared for that as it is priced accordingly.

The EA has categorically stated that the Seller is not willing to pay to have any work carried out, the house is sold 'as seen' and I shouldn't worry as the lender should offer a mortgage retention, i.e. with-hold some of the lending until the work is completed post exchange. This is do-able for me as the current price is under my budget but I'm actually concerned that the lender will not even offer this option as my mortgage broker initially said they want the work carried out before Exchange. A bit confused about next steps atm!

My last property (before the house I just  sold) we had some damp issues, and a damp specialist advised a french drain gulley needed along with some other items that I can’t remember..!  to be put in outside that wall. The buyer tried to get us to pay for it, but we stood firm as we sold at a good price to them. 

However the buyers lender insisted that the work was done prior to exchange, so they had to get the works done at a cost of about £2000 Yo get certificate done from the damp specialist to assess the works carried out and then the lender agreed to loan on the property  - it was a huge gamble for our buyers because essentially they were paying for work on our house before any contract was exchanged on! 

They trusted we would sell to them so they were ok, so if you believe that your sellers would still go through with the sale if you paid for the work before exchange then you should be fine! 

BountyBlink

Livingincolour said:

Hello!

Long time lurker, first time poster & first time buyer currently in the process of buying a chain free leasehold flat in London. 

We started the process at end of December and the vast majority of it has been plain sailing with almost everything being turned around very quickly, to be honest we were feeling pretty smug about how well it was going but are now having a massive reality check!

We were anticipating having everything wrapped up by end of March which was in line with the end of our contracted rental tenancy, we asked for a short extension but our landlord wanted to move a family member into the flat so asked us to move out - we obliged and have been in temporary accommodation (various airbnbs) since then, it was a nice novelty at the start but starting to wear a little thin. 

Everything is in place bar a handful of enquiries that need to be answered by the management company, they've had these for months now but just will not return them? Our solicitor has been excellent and is chasing our vendor's solicitor (I am CC'd on all comms) and we are in direct contact with our vendor who is also personally hassling the management company to have them returned but we just seem to have hit a roadblock and have no idea when they will reply, it could be today, it could take months. I have looked up the company on trustpilot and google reviews and it is pages and pages of woeful 1 star reviews so I don't have much hope of a quick resolution. 

We're pretty patient people but I must admit we're starting to get pretty frayed, is there anything else we can be doing to try to force them to reply? Is it going to help/hinder if we try to contact them directly? There's some text on their website saying they will only deal with solicitors. Any advice/morale support appreciated!

Perhaps ask your solicitor to send a 3 line whip to the management agents advising their client (you) will be pulling out of the purchase by XYZ date should these enquiries not be answered by XYZ date, then forward that email to your vendors agent and someone will ensure that they respond. 

BountyBlink

Lemonyrose13 said:

I wish I could help you all! Keeping my fingers crossed for everyone trying to exchange this week and for all of you who are hoping that your queries/prayers will be answered.

We've been told our local searches are due back 11th May and are trying to sort out getting a survey done now. We were waiting for the draft contract to come through before we booked this, I'm now wishing we'd just gone ahead with it before as I wasn't expecting it to take 8 weeks just for the draft contract!

Anyhow, the company we were hoping to use for the survey can't fit us in until the 27th May. Do we book them anywa in the assumption that we'll still be waiting for queries to be resolved by then or do we pick another company to do the survey? Its not going to change our minds about the price we're paying or whether or not we want to go ahead with the purchase, we've got the place for a really good price and are planning on doing a but if work to it anyway, we just want the survey so we can prioritise what work needs doing.

Our vendors are keen to move quickly and the reason for the delay in draft contract was due to them being misinformed about being able to scan in some paperwork and having to post the originals instead which all got held up due to Easter! 

What would you guys do?

I had a similar issue, so searched for “surveyor”
in my local Facebook town community groups and looked up posts historically of people giving good recommendations for surveyors and then I rang one and said it was urgent for next 7 days and bless him he fitted us in on a Saturday and sent the pdf survey to me that Saturday night! 

Just give some a call, my surveyor was a “one man band” he was soooo good, called me to go through the homebuyers and he was same money as the bigger surveyor firms that couldn’t fit me for 3 weeks.