The NEW waiting to exchange thread...

arrows123

Didn’t exchange today, by the time it was confirmed the important transfer deed document had been received by the vendors solicitors they could get hold of them to authorise exchange! Hoping to exchange and complete same day tomorrow. 

ss2020jd

HopeAndDriftWood said:

Crikey, it sounds like yesterday was tough for a few of us! Congrats @ss2020jd, enjoy your new home! Your sellers sound lovely. 

Well, the Memorandum of Sale from our very keen buyer didn't come through yesterday... And 3pm bought an email from our estate agent saying our old buyer hadn't officially instructed his solicitor to sell his searches, so would we consider buying them for our buyer? 

It felt a bit weird, but we didn't get chance to reply - the estate agent called to say he'd got cold feet, he hadn't realised he'd need to pay for another mortgage offer through his broker, and for more searches, etc. He wanted £2k off. To be honest, I wanted to walk away. He's got a 25% deposit... he's "losing" £1k pulling out of his current purchase, but we're losing £6k from his original offer, and £6k in SLDT and costs so far. My husband negotiated £500 off to cover half of his remortgage costs... That was accepted at 6pm. 

But still no memorandum this morning; which is worrying. I guess we're probably waiting for him to pull out of his other purchase, but I don't know. No response from estate agent, and solicitor is a bit put out that she agreed to reorganise work to get the packs and everything over to his solicitor yesterday, and then didn't get the MoS.

I'm so over selling. I really want the house, but it's taken over everything. A big part of me wants to quit now and get ready for the baby.

Thanks @HopeAndDriftWood. So sorry to hear that but I really hope it comes through soon. Could it be that the EA is taking time to get it organised due to the end of month rush.
When things like this happen it can make you feel like that but hopefully when it comes through you will feel happier and excited again 🤞.

ss2020jd

FirstTimePlx said:

Finally exchanged. Woohoo. Completion for tomorrow.

Congratulations! 🥳 🎉👏🍾🥂

ss2020jd

E_D_FTB said:

WE HAVE EXCHANGED!!! And with a whole 2 days to spare! Now to hand in notice on our rental and really get to packing!

Brilliant news E_D_FTB! So delighted for you! 🎉🥳👍🏻🍾🥂👏 Congratulations!!!
We are at that stage now giving our notice this week and moving over gradually. 

ss2020jd

House_owner said:

I have exchanged!! - 4.50 pm - Completion tomorrow!

Hooray to you too @House_owner! 

Great to hear some positive news of exchanges today 🍾🎉🥳👏 congratulations all! 

keeping all crossed that trickles down to everyone else getting close! 

Duck345

Congratulations everyone this thread is giving me hope! 

Newdrake88

Congrats to everyone, even though I am a little jealous 😞 jokes it’s nice to see so much positivity! 

my buyer solicitor is suggesting completion 8th October… 8 bloody days cost me £2300 😭

E_D_FTB

greensalad said:

Can I ask... I see a lot of people who exchange and then complete the day after or so.

Is this because you establish an exchange and completion date with, say, a week in between, and then the exchange date slips but the completion date remains the same?

I'm really worried. We need to give notice on our rental when we exchange and ideally we wanted 4 weeks between exchange and completion. I know we're very unlikely to get that, so we thought we'd push for 3 weeks and hopefully settle on two weeks. This would mean paying rent for extra weeks though.

My concern is... from reading everything it seems like people will still expect the completion date to be the same if exchange slips, but we can't do that. We need time in between. So if exchange happens later than planned we still need it to be a consistent, say, 3 weeks until complete. 

Do you think we're likely to get this? I don't know what else we'd do, as we can't afford more than one month's rent overlap!

I think Stamp Duty holiday has caused a lot of completion days to be far more rigid that would be normal, as well as some "attempts" at exchange happening when the chain wasn't really ready. After Stamp Duty I think the standard 2-4 weeks between exchange and completion will come back. So I don't think it'll be too unreasonable ask.

But do check about your notice length - as @PlumLuck said, there's a minimum notice required, but your final day normally has to be the first or last day of your tenancy period. So ours, for example will end on 31 October, even though the minimum is 1 month and we gave notice today. definitely worth checking, as it might be less about how long between and more about having exchange and completion being around certain dates.

greensalad

PlumLuck said:

greensalad said:

Can I ask... I see a lot of people who exchange and then complete the day after or so.

Is this because you establish an exchange and completion date with, say, a week in between, and then the exchange date slips but the completion date remains the same?

I'm really worried. We need to give notice on our rental when we exchange and ideally we wanted 4 weeks between exchange and completion. I know we're very unlikely to get that, so we thought we'd push for 3 weeks and hopefully settle on two weeks. This would mean paying rent for extra weeks though.

My concern is... from reading everything it seems like people will still expect the completion date to be the same if exchange slips, but we can't do that. We need time in between. So if exchange happens later than planned we still need it to be a consistent, say, 3 weeks until complete. 

Do you think we're likely to get this? I don't know what else we'd do, as we can't afford more than one month's rent overlap!

Honestly I can't see everyone agreeing on a new completion date every time the exchange date might slip? Everyone will settle on a date for their own reasons and disrupting that could severely annoy people and cost them money.

I just want to ask - you make it sound like your notice period is exactly 4 weeks? Are you sure of this, and not that it's 1 rental period? If the rental period is from the first of the month to the first of the next month, then usually if say, you give notice at any time in September, then your notice is for the end of October. 

It's actually that our notice period is 8 weeks due to a break-clause, and we were hoping for a bit of overlap.

My big fear is what happens if the exchange date keeps slipping and slipping, and everyone expects to move still on, say, the completion date 2 weeks later, but we can't give notice until we exchange? If we give notice before exchange we could be homeless. If we give it too late we have to pay rent and mortgage at the same time for 8 weeks. It seems mad to me that you set up time in between exchange and completion for a reason and then just disregard it when everything slips. If you say "2 weeks between exchange and completion" then surely that should remain in place even if exchange gets moved?

greensalad

E_D_FTB said:

greensalad said:

Can I ask... I see a lot of people who exchange and then complete the day after or so.

Is this because you establish an exchange and completion date with, say, a week in between, and then the exchange date slips but the completion date remains the same?

I'm really worried. We need to give notice on our rental when we exchange and ideally we wanted 4 weeks between exchange and completion. I know we're very unlikely to get that, so we thought we'd push for 3 weeks and hopefully settle on two weeks. This would mean paying rent for extra weeks though.

My concern is... from reading everything it seems like people will still expect the completion date to be the same if exchange slips, but we can't do that. We need time in between. So if exchange happens later than planned we still need it to be a consistent, say, 3 weeks until complete. 

Do you think we're likely to get this? I don't know what else we'd do, as we can't afford more than one month's rent overlap!

I think Stamp Duty holiday has caused a lot of completion days to be far more rigid that would be normal, as well as some "attempts" at exchange happening when the chain wasn't really ready. After Stamp Duty I think the standard 2-4 weeks between exchange and completion will come back. So I don't think it'll be too unreasonable ask.

But do check about your notice length - as @PlumLuck said, there's a minimum notice required, but your final day normally has to be the first or last day of your tenancy period. So ours, for example will end on 31 October, even though the minimum is 1 month and we gave notice today. definitely worth checking, as it might be less about how long between and more about having exchange and completion being around certain dates.

Our notice is 8 weeks, not the next end of rental period. It's a break clause in our contract that allows us to leave the tenancy (which is fixed until the end of January) earlier than agreed once we're past the 6 months point of our tenancy which we now are.