The NEW waiting to exchange thread...

laura_lau

Natbag said:

FtbEmz said:

Natbag said:

@FtbEmz - rarely! My solicitor tries not to take phone calls, she says that allows her to get through more work in order. But her replies are so vague, I often think it would be quicker to just pick up the phone for 5 minutes.
Like for example, just now, she has emailed me to tell me that our vendor has agreed to our proposed completion date. Ok, great. But what about our two sets of buyers? The top of the chain can't complete without the bottom of the chain. Maybe she means everyone has agreed, but why not just say that? I've replied, but it will take her days to get back to me again now I bet!

Oh that’s frustrating!

She is ALWAYS so vague! But yes, it is! The EA is asking directly, so I might get more joy there. Oh well, progress is clearly being made in the background so that's all that matters, 3 weeks to go so we should be fine. Should lol.

I can so relate to that! My solicitor doesn't take calls either, and due to "high volumes" they have an email policy that says they aim to reply to emails within 24 hours but it might take longer. And it's usually the assistant who answers my questions, and she's always super vague and never really replies to my questions, especially when I'm asking for updates on what the next steps are! For the first time ever I've receive an email from the solicitor herself today, to update me: I've been chasing for them to send me the contract to sign as I'm only missing that, and I am really keen to talk exchange and completion dates now, and she said she (finally!) posted the contract today, but that she's still waiting for 3 enquiries to be replied from the seller's solicitor. Starting tomorrow, I'll be calling the estate agent to chase every day.

amyr

Zero chill. Spoke to the Estate Agent. 

Paperwork has been returned. All present and correct.

However, the solicitor is still not satisfied from a money laundering perspective. Our buyer has some of their deposit coming from family, and they need to provide more evidence to satisfy their solicitor before we can move forward. They obviously do have their mortgage offer, but I don't know enough to say whether that gives us any reassurance?

The positive news is that as soon as they can provide the evidence we're good to go. But goodness, the phrase 'money laundering checks not yet satisfied' does make me feel horribly anxious. 

trance_abbey

amyr said:

Zero chill. Spoke to the Estate Agent.
The positive news is that as soon as they can provide the evidence we're good to go. But goodness, the phrase 'money laundering checks not yet satisfied' does make me feel horribly anxious. 

My dad is gifting me some money for my purchase and it's a really simple process which took us 3 days to sort including figuring out time zones for him to meet virtually with one of the solicitors to do identity verification. Then all he needed to do was send 3 months bank statements and it was all green lights.

I'm surprised that the buyer got to this point without it being dealt with. It was the first thing my solicitors wanted to know about, do I have the money and can I prove where it came from?

Emptydog

Hey everybody,

Have been lurking for a while, thought I'd get involved though this is not what I had in mind for a first post.

I'm a FTB in the process of buying a vacant, chain-free apartment since March.

Timeline:

10/3 Offer accepted, solicitor instructed

16/3 Draft contracts received

17/3 Searches ordered

23/3 Mortgage application submitted through broker

28/3 Enquiries sent to vendor's solicitor

15/4 Issue with mortgage, lender reduced offer significantly. New DIP obtained by broker

19/4 Mortgage #2 application sent

5/5  Property valued

13/5 Lender #2 reduces offer significantly because they believe the service charge and ground rent is too high

The first mortgage offer was reduced due to the lender being apparently very picky when it comes to scrutinising finances. The news about the second mortgage is devastating as I'm not sure how many rolls of the dice I'm going to get with this.

The vendor has been extremely slow to act as we have been waiting on answers to our enquiries since March 28th. Even so, I am so concerned that the vendor may see me as not being proceedable and may put the property back on the market.

Waiting to hear more from my broker tonight or tomorrow morning but I am not optimistic. Is it normal to have this much trouble with the mortgage?

laura_lau

trance_abbey said:

amyr said:

Zero chill. Spoke to the Estate Agent.
The positive news is that as soon as they can provide the evidence we're good to go. But goodness, the phrase 'money laundering checks not yet satisfied' does make me feel horribly anxious. 

My dad is gifting me some money for my purchase and it's a really simple process which took us 3 days to sort including figuring out time zones for him to meet virtually with one of the solicitors to do identity verification. Then all he needed to do was send 3 months bank statements and it was all green lights.

I'm surprised that the buyer got to this point without it being dealt with. It was the first thing my solicitors wanted to know about, do I have the money and can I prove where it came from?

A small portion from my deposit is a gift from my brother and he's self employed, so it's a bit trickier to provide the evidence they need. It took a bit longer than three days for me, but in the end both lender and solicitor seem to be satisfied as they haven't asked for anything further. The lender asked for 18 months of bank statements from my brother, whereas the solicitor asked for 3 YEARS! I was a bit incredulous!! In the end they were happy with about 20 months. I do agree it's strange they arrived so far with that as that's the first thing my lender asked, although much closer to them putting mortgage offer they required to see the money all in my account, so that took a few extra days. I suppose it depends when they started asking for the documentation, and the circumstances of the buyer's family. If they are self employed, the documentation is a lot, in my case my brother had to provide much more documents than I did, even if I was the one taking the mortgage and the sum was relatively small!

BountyBlink

b608837 said:

Thank you to the person who said about contacting the land search directly. They were so helpful, told me that my personal search would be completed Monday. Solicitor has been so vague and he hasn’t replied to me in a week so I wasn’t even sure if he’d started them. 

Anyone got any idea on what will happen next? No chain, mortgage. 

Ooo that was me 😉 well done! Good news! 

So when searches are back, your solicitor will “report” to you, a letter detailing everything and pointing out to you anything in searches which you may like to consider getting more extensive reports like a Radon check (pointless if you live in an area that most houses are on the radon scale - like where I live lol) 
at this point your solicitor normally encloses the contract, mortage deed to sign (not for you 😉) anything else that needs signing then you send that back, and your solicitor will ask for deposit monies to be held in readiness for exchange. 

Once searches are back chase down the reporting from your solicitor (they should do this within the week tbh) and when you have that push for dates for completion with your agents. 

Hope that helps. 

BountyBlink

Justonemorecupoftea said:

Is it estate agents or solicitors who normally have info on the chain below?

Our buyers are moving with family to break the chain to buy our place and they will be cash buyers and there doesn't seem to be any communication coming "upwards" other than we we accepted their off we were told they were "about 8 weeks" away from completing and it would be us playing catch up so not to worry.

I've asked the estate agent and normally he is very responsive, but I've not heard anything back. Should I really be speaking to my solicitor? (Who hasn't overwhelmed me with activity and even missed in my initial email that we had somewhere to buy...)

I'm too impatient for this house selling/buying lark.

Solicitors don’t tend to get involved in chain queries, especially  at the moment because of COVID workload. 

Send an email tonight to your agent, ask for a full update on each and everyone’s position where they are with matters in your downward chain. Then request you have that I go by COP tomorrow, as you are feeling that information is not being given in a timely way. 

Fire that off. If by COP tomorrow nothing NBC ones back, forward that’s mail to the branch manager of your agents. 

You are paying them and they should have weekly chain details on file (if they are doing their job properly)! 

BountyBlink

BountyBlink said:

Justonemorecupoftea said:

Is it estate agents or solicitors who normally have info on the chain below?

Our buyers are moving with family to break the chain to buy our place and they will be cash buyers and there doesn't seem to be any communication coming "upwards" other than we we accepted their off we were told they were "about 8 weeks" away from completing and it would be us playing catch up so not to worry.

I've asked the estate agent and normally he is very responsive, but I've not heard anything back. Should I really be speaking to my solicitor? (Who hasn't overwhelmed me with activity and even missed in my initial email that we had somewhere to buy...)

I'm too impatient for this house selling/buying lark.

Solicitors don’t tend to get involved in chain queries, especially  at the moment because of COVID workload. 

Send an email tonight to your agent, ask for a full update on each and everyone’s position where they are with matters in your downward chain. Then request you have that I go by COP tomorrow, as you are feeling that information is not being given in a timely way. 

Fire that off. If by COP tomorrow nothing NBC ones back, forward that’s mail to the branch manager of your agents. 

You are paying them and they should have weekly chain details on file (if they are doing their job properly)! 

So many typos 🤦🏻‍♀️ Sorry my dog was jumping on me lol 

mat1964

My GF's buyer's broker resurfaced today (not the buyer) and said they had now applied for another mortgage as 'HSBC had not responded to the first one'.  This is obviously a load of rubbish as we know the valuation was done a month ago.

Having wasted nearly 2 months of our time, they are now trying to waste more.   Anyway, house is back on the market.

Sam2030

We exchanged today after 3 attempts this week and we complete tomorrow we had lots of ups and many many downs and it took just over six months I gave up hope many times. Good luck to everyone I Hope this gives you Hope xx