The NEW waiting to exchange thread...

E_D_FTB

mat1964 said:

birdmadgirl8 said:

@mat1964 Sorry to hear that you're still having problems with those buyers. Good luck with remarketing & hope you find some new/solid buyers quickly.

thank you

Hot of the press, my GF has today received a letter marked 'urgent' from Nationwide addressed to her buyers but sent to her address.  Totally bizarre - why would the Bank send a letter to the address of the place you are trying to buy when you've not even exchanged, let alone completed!  

That's bizzare! We're also with Nationwide and they've only sent stuff to our current address (as far as I'm aware...)

Fingers crossed things will progress for you!

TheScone

Hi! I'm brand new but reading through this thread makes me feel about a million times better about how anxious and stressful I'm finding this whole process, and I'm only 2 weeks in... 

FTB with my partner, purchasing a house with no chain as the owner has moved in with their partner.

Our timeline so far:
20/7 - DIP accepted
21/7 - Viewed house
23/7 - Offer made and accepted on house
27/7 - Solicitors instructed
30/7 - Mortgage application submitted
2/8 - Memorandum of sale received
4/8 - Mortgage approved! Awaiting valuation to receive offer

We are using a mortgage broker who has been incredible so far, but I've been worrying that I shouldn't be expecting them to take care of everything and should be pushing forward myself. So, I emailed my solicitor this morning with a load of questions and basically asking them to tell me what they need me to do to get things moving along and not hold anything up on our part.

Our broker suggested we wait until we've had the mortgage offer before we start searches as they are non-refundable, but when I've looked online for our area it looks like searches are taking 2 months, so I think it's worth just getting going on them. Is this common? I'm hoping our purchase itself will be straightforward with no chain either end, but I'm still worrying that it could somehow fall through.

I'm a bit of a natural worrier so this whole process is going to be difficult I'm sure, but I'm hoping by joining here with other's in the same boat it will help with some of that!

mat1964

E_D_FTB said:

mat1964 said:

birdmadgirl8 said:

@mat1964 Sorry to hear that you're still having problems with those buyers. Good luck with remarketing & hope you find some new/solid buyers quickly.

thank you

Hot of the press, my GF has today received a letter marked 'urgent' from Nationwide addressed to her buyers but sent to her address.  Totally bizarre - why would the Bank send a letter to the address of the place you are trying to buy when you've not even exchanged, let alone completed!  

That's bizzare! We're also with Nationwide and they've only sent stuff to our current address (as far as I'm aware...)

Fingers crossed things will progress for you!

Both the broker and the buyers have quite limited English so who knows what they put on the application form.  The whole thing from start to finish has been totally surreal.  

birdmadgirl8

mat1964 said:

birdmadgirl8 said:

@mat1964 Sorry to hear that you're still having problems with those buyers. Good luck with remarketing & hope you find some new/solid buyers quickly.

thank you

Hot of the press, my GF has today received a letter marked 'urgent' from Nationwide addressed to her buyers but sent to her address.  Totally bizarre - why would the Bank send a letter to the address of the place you are trying to buy when you've not even exchanged, let alone completed!  

I hope you'll be steaming it open before  handing it over to agent (or whatever you've decided to do) 😉

E_D_FTB

TheScone said:

Hi! I'm brand new but reading through this thread makes me feel about a million times better about how anxious and stressful I'm finding this whole process, and I'm only 2 weeks in... 

FTB with my partner, purchasing a house with no chain as the owner has moved in with their partner.

Our timeline so far:
20/7 - DIP accepted
21/7 - Viewed house
23/7 - Offer made and accepted on house
27/7 - Solicitors instructed
30/7 - Mortgage application submitted
2/8 - Memorandum of sale received
4/8 - Mortgage approved! Awaiting valuation to receive offer

We are using a mortgage broker who has been incredible so far, but I've been worrying that I shouldn't be expecting them to take care of everything and should be pushing forward myself. So, I emailed my solicitor this morning with a load of questions and basically asking them to tell me what they need me to do to get things moving along and not hold anything up on our part.

Our broker suggested we wait until we've had the mortgage offer before we start searches as they are non-refundable, but when I've looked online for our area it looks like searches are taking 2 months, so I think it's worth just getting going on them. Is this common? I'm hoping our purchase itself will be straightforward with no chain either end, but I'm still worrying that it could somehow fall through.

I'm a bit of a natural worrier so this whole process is going to be difficult I'm sure, but I'm hoping by joining here with other's in the same boat it will help with some of that!

Welcome! We're FTB too and it has definitely helped being on this thread!

Our Broker advised the same thing, but our mortgage offer ended up taking so long that we started searches before the offer was finalised. It's really about whether you're willing to lose the few hundred quid for the searches if the mortgage doesn't get approved or something else goes wrong. If you are, then I don't see any point in delaying.

greensalad

Just heard back from our vendors (via EA) that they have been panicking because we had the valuation so long ago but "still haven't got an offer", despite the fact our mortgage offer came back the day after valuation, and within 2 weeks of us submitting the offer back in early July. Duh. The EA said they'd put it on the file but obviously forgot. 

They also panicked because we changed our minds from a Homebuyer's survey to a FSS on the spur of the moment. No, we didn't. It was a FSS from the very start. 

Hopefully I've expressed to the EA enough that we do have a mortgage offer, are happy with the FSS (there are a few things but we're not going to reduce our offer based on it), and we're very excited to get going. I thought they were the slow ones!

rose_T

Haven’t heard Hee Haw since Monday! 

I thought the mortgage process would have been the most difficult part of house buying but how wrong was I! 

If this house wasn’t in the area where we want we would have definitely pulled out by now. 

Sorry just feel I need to vent. Just fed up waking up every morning thinking will I hear anything today…. 

Plus the fact we would need a miracle if we were to settle before the 15th august which means we will need to pay £4.5k balloon payment to our car PCP with the fact we have payed our solicitor fees and deposit and seeing our bank account go down. 

House selling and buying really needs a revamp and a more simplified as all this stress really is uncalled for.  

MrsBrush

Our plan is similar - my partner will stay with the cat in the bathroom while the movers take everything and we get the new place somewhat set up. Once they're done and gone we'll move the cat - just trying to minimise noise and stress for him. But I know it's gonna be horrible and I'm going to feel like a terrible cat mum! It's our first time moving with him too, and he's a very nervous boy when it comes to noise and strangers, so basically his worst nightmare

We have a similar situation, but I have decided that it will be far less stressful for me (and the poor cat) to book her into a cattery for 2-3 days while we move. Not ideal, as she is still quite young and hasn't been away from us at all because we only got her in November, but she will be going to the cattery my old cat used to go to when we were able to travel. My baby is a house cat, and I work at home full time, so she only gets left on her own occasionally. I know I would be a nervous wreck trying to keep her calm, just cant book anything without dates, and I am hoping they have space when we finally have one! 
 

birdmadgirl8

TheScone said:

Hi! I'm brand new but reading through this thread makes me feel about a million times better about how anxious and stressful I'm finding this whole process, and I'm only 2 weeks in... 

Our broker suggested we wait until we've had the mortgage offer before we start searches as they are non-refundable, but when I've looked online for our area it looks like searches are taking 2 months, so I think it's worth just getting going on them. Is this common? I'm hoping our purchase itself will be straightforward with no chain either end, but I'm still worrying that it could somehow fall through.

Welcome aboard! Your broker is bound to be cautious and they are right that there's some risk attached - there are no guarantees until that key's in the door (as we know to our cost). From what you say, it's a straightforward chain though, so I would definitely press on with searches. We instructed our solicitor to request them the day after we'd had our offer accepted on this purchase, as we knew there was a 45 working day wait with our LA (since reduced to 40 days, so hoping they might come in earlier than expected). We were also waiting on valuations/firm mortgage offer, so same position as you are now. We made this decision having just lost our first purchase (sellers pulled out at point of exchange), because we have learnt that long waits can cause problems and we've done all we can to minimise them.

Tiddleshalifax

So I’m getting so stressed. I am never doing this again!! 

Further up the chain, people have weekends away booked etc and so they’re insisting that next Thursday is the only day. It’s fine but our sellers mortgage company need 5 working days and our buyers solicitor hasn’t confirmed if ok 🥴🤞🏻

My anxiety is at such a high. Feel like crying and I have to go to work now 😢