The NEW waiting to exchange thread...

birdmadgirl8

@Hebblethwaite So sorry to hear about the probate problem. That sounds ridiculously frustrating/worrying and I can see why you're fed up. Fingers crossed the listing is some sort of automated mistake and lots of grovelling from agents ensues.

birdmadgirl8

DeletedUser said:

I just can’t get my head round going from completing to falling apart

🥺 I'm sorry - it feels horrible, I know. 

birdmadgirl8

HopeAndDriftWood said:

New memorandum of sale is now issued 🙈 Waiting for solicitor to confirm receipt...

Ooh - sounds stressful...but really hope it works out.

birdmadgirl8

rabtech said:

Our solicitor has said in her 40 years doing the job, only 2 property sales have failed completion like this, ours is the 3rd, lucky us.

😱 This is awful - such a nightmare. So hope they do keep to 8th October, but this is horrible. What a terrible day for you. So sorry to hear this.

birdmadgirl8

Lorann_86 said:

Congratulations to everyone making progress. We have sold our house but still waiting for confirmation of completion on the new house. Sat outside with two cats who hate being in the car! The funds apparently haven't cleared with the vendor yet. 

Please tell us you got in okay with those cats. I really hope you didn't have a miserable night. Thinking of you all.

birdmadgirl8

@greensalad @esubbs Reading your conversation with interest. I'm feeling really low about all this now & you made me feel a bit better. We warned upper chain from outset in June that we needed some time between exchange & completion (removal issues) and that the last two weeks in Sep were out for us (heavy workload and no leave allowed). Yes, we wanted to meet SD deadline, but these issues needed to be considered. When it came to it, the chain was never going to be ready by end of Sep anyway- but the upper chain decided it was achievable. We tried to manage expectations, but it seems no one heard us. We have managed to negotiate a date, but not without threats & rudeness in some cases. Now our buyer has complicated things by going for another mortgage & refuses to agree to the completion date at all. We really need to exchange, but our dates are slipping too. Feeling your stress @greensalad💚

E_D_FTB

greensalad said:

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.

Ah okay, makes sense! Honestly, ask for 4 weeks and see what happens. In normal time people don't tend to book movers etc until after exchange, so it might be absolutely fine with your chain. I think everything at the moment is just really messed up by the stamp duty deadline.

E_D_FTB

rabtech said:

Congrats to everyone that has exchanged/completed over the last couple of days.

Continuation of our tale of woe:

Exchanged Monday 27th for Completion 29th with our buyers and vendors. Buyers solicitor emails this morning after I'd dropped the toddler off with my parents 20 miles away, cancelled the BB and set it up on the new place for completion day, paid for Royal Mail Redirection, booked a Luton van  - that they cannot complete tomorrow by the clients request. That went down like a ton of bricks, as its a housing association buyer we expect it's due money shifting shenanigans, as last week they were trying to negotiate October 8th but at last minute agreed to exchange on the 27th for completion on the 29th.

All contact with the buyers solicitor got stonewalled, wont answer emails, phone calls from our solicitor or estate agent. Our solicitor has already drawn funds today from our new mortgage in preparation also.

Managed to cancel the van hire without charge (I was very lucky with this), managed to get the broadband move cancelled and get reconnected back at our old property (Virgin Media), had to send a cancellation form to Royal Mail - no idea if we'll get the money back for this and pick up the toddler after her 3 day visit got cut short by all this mess.

Expecting a notice of completion will be served by our solicitor on to our buyer, we will get one from our vendor. Expecting the buyer to actually complete on the 8th October - they just seem to be buying time/shuffling funds, which means we are probably liable for interest charges and £700 SDLT. Top class day, not.

Our solicitor has said in her 40 years doing the job, only 2 property sales have failed completion like this, ours is the 3rd, lucky us.

Oh no, I'm so sorry - what an absolute nightmare! That's really poor form of your buyers. If they weren't going to be able to meet the deadline then they should never have agreed to it! Hope they get things sorted sooner than expected and you can get in tomorrow instead.

E_D_FTB

Hebblethwaite said:

Well done to everyone managing to make some progress. 

Four months after my offer was accepted, it turned out my vendor hadn't applied for probate so doesn't actually own the house she is living in. We're in the process of trying to figure out how quickly that application may come back so we can both decide if the sale is still viable (she could potentially lose her onward purchase if it's ages, so it's not just a matter of me waiting for however long it takes).

I got a Rightmove property alert email this evening. Opened it up and there, newly relisted, is the house I am supposed to be buying. I am desperately hoping it's a mistake and have emailed both EAs who have been involved to try to get some clarification. But right now, I just feel so awful and fed up about the whole thing. 

Oh no! That's so cheeky of them if they are re-listing. Hope you get to the bottom of it quickly!

Ref44

Our progress to exchange has been delayed; late in the day our buyers have decided that they want a building survey. We're hoping its in connection with the work they are planning to do by way of extensions, but wouldn't be surprised to get a late request for a reduced price.