The NEW waiting to exchange thread...

birdmadgirl8

Faodail said:

birdmadgirl8 said:

Faodail said:

@Arfa__ Just outside Banff surrounded by fields 💗 

Gorgeous part of the world. Spent several happy holidays in Gardenstown and often thought I'd like to live up there. Sounds like you should be there soon!

Fingers crossed! Currently living like a box troll 🤣 although the cats love it! 

Our solicitor is sending our paperwork recorded delivery on Monday, for us to sign and send back the same. The owners hopefully are singing this week before one of them goes offshore for a week. Our solicitor already has our house payment, so I’m guessing once signatures are done it’s just payment and we can go! Our sol said it may be as soon as the 15th we are so excited! 

Just checking, as we are new, we have had quotes for Home Insurance, he said it would need to be in place for exchange. Could I set it up for the 15th incase it is sooner, and if it does turn out to be the 22nd it won’t matter if it’s been set up the week before? 

I called our insurance company on Thursday, because our solicitors were talking about exchange. They said to wait until we knew we were exchanging, as it can be done quickly on the day you need it. I know quite a few people on this thread take it out once they've given authority to exchange. I didn't do that on Friday, cos I could see it wasn't happening. I'll probably do it tomorrow morning though, as I'll be giving authority again.

birdmadgirl8

HopeAndDriftWood said:

Me neither! He was messaging us last night to see if we'd talked about it. 

It wouldn't be "breaking the chain" as he phrased it, because the chain is ready... It'd just be moving out and renting here out to him before he's ready to exchange. Which is far too risky. 

The rest of the chain is literally ready to go now, so it's all on him. He needs his mortgage offer updating - the valuation is tomorrow - but as long as that goes fine, it's then just on his solicitor to sort enquiries. Then everyone is ready. I have no idea how that could take 4 - 6 weeks... 

The rest of the chain is ready and has contacted all solicitors/estate agents to say that they need it done by the middle of November or it can't happen. I'm hoping for October! 

I'm glad you think it's a bizarre request too 😅

It's totally bizzare and a terrible idea from your point of view. Renting to potential buyers is a big no no, (even after you've exchanged). They'd have rights...and then you'd potentially be stuck with them if you didn't complete for some reason. Pretty sure your agents & solicitors would rule this out too! As you say, there's really not long to wait and he's only just come into the chain anyway. Hope he calms down a bit!

novelle

birdmadgirl8 said:

waitingforsomething said:

I went to see the house again a couple of weeks ago, needed to check a few things and it looked like they were starting to pack up and put some stuff into storage with family etc so they definitely think it's moving along. 

I'm just a bit worried that they are just trusting the process and not necessarily chasing anything and I don't want to sound condescending asking them about that so have been trying to do some chasing myself. 

Hopefully someone will get back to me from the sols next week with an update to stop me from stressing about it. 

Those are definitely good signs. Our last seller was a bit like that - just trusted to the process. If you don't want to seem pushy, you can go through agent and make sure they're pushing at the right moment (which it sounds like you are). If your sols are uncommunicative then I wouldn't look to them for reassurance & don't let them worry you. Their silence rarely means that things are going wrong. It's hard to manage the stress at times though, I know. 

Good advice. I may try that too.  My solicitor is not communicative.  It's just waiting and waiting each day 

Hebblethwaite

Things may finally be moving forward for me. I've been given an estimate for probate on my vendor's house coming through in 4 - 8 weeks. How accurate that is, goodness only knows, but it's not a year. I've also had assurances that the remarketing of the house was an accident and caused by a glitch resulting in the EA's entire portfolio being relisted!

One question for those further along than me: How are you all managing to arrange your buildings insurance? I don't know half the details that I need to know in order to set it up, and I'm not in direct contact with the vendor. I tried asking the EA to put the questions to the vendor, but they have refused and said to go via my solicitor instead. I can do that, but suspect that will add a huge amount of extra time as my vendor's solicitors are incredibly slow. Is it normal to raise these queries via the solicitor, or should I push a bit harder with the EA/try to arrange another viewing?

birdmadgirl8

@Hebblethwaite Really glad to hear things are moving forward for you. Our insurance company asked questions that I could answer from draft contact pack (first thing you get from vendors' sol) & survey report (we only had home buyers). Our buyer was asked some questions he didn't know answers to, so agent sent them to me in email and I answered the same day. I'd go back to the agent if I were you with a short list of things not covered in contract pack - it would be easy for them to ask. I know I'd get  no joy from my solicitor on this. Seems pretty unhelpful of the agent to refuse.

TheScone

A new week begins!

We're supposed to be working towards exchanging this week, but I'm not sure how doable that is. My sol apparently had the searches back early last week when I chased, but I haven't seen anything about them myself yet so hoping that won't hold anything up (will we need to read and sign anything for these?), and then we just have like 4 enquiries with the sellers solicitors which should be simple answers. I called my solicitors this morning to get an update and see if exchanging this week is doable, but they just said they would take a look at my file and call me back.

Really want to try and get it done this week so we can put our notice in - we have until Friday. Otherwise we will have to pay an extra months rent for November when I'm very doubtful we will still be here! My solicitor said a few weeks ago that exchanging before the 8th would be "very doable and easy" but with the above I'm not so sure?

Hebblethwaite

birdmadgirl8 said:

@Hebblethwaite Really glad to hear things are moving forward for you. Our insurance company asked questions that I could answer from draft contact pack (first thing you get from vendors' sol) & survey report (we only had home buyers). Our buyer was asked some questions he didn't know answers to, so agent sent them to me in email and I answered the same day. I'd go back to the agent if I were you with a short list of things not covered in contract pack - it would be easy for them to ask. I know I'd get  no joy from my solicitor on this. Seems pretty unhelpful of the agent to refuse.

Thank you for this. I haven't actually had a copy of the draft contract (now nearing five months since my offer was accepted) - I think my solicitor was waiting for the grant of probate. My survey definitely answers a lot of the questions, but things like types of lock (which I'll need to know to set up joint buildings/contents insurance) are still a mystery! Maybe if I just go for a pure buildings insurance policy, I will need less information? It will be more expensive to have two separate policies though.

HopeAndDriftWood

Morning all! 

Just had the valuation done. He was here for all of five minutes... he didn't give anything away. Now the nervous wait for the buyer's mortgage offer begins again! He was underwritten fine last time, so as long as the valuation is good, we should be okay. Then I believe the buyer has the searches and pack, so it's over to his solicitor. He is convinced she's said 4 - 6 weeks and it won't be faster than that... 

@TheScone Our searches were sent over to us for our reference, but there wasn't anything concerning on them and we didn't need to sign anything. So it'll depend on the responses to enquiries, I think! How responsive has the vendor's solicitor been so far?

MissBizzita

Things are going to the wire for us. We’ve agreed a completion date for this Thursday 7th but our solicitors won’t exchange until they have confirmation that funds will be released from our mortgage provider Halifax. Funds were requested last Thursday. Does anyone have experience with Halifax and how quickly we can get this confirmation? 

I’m currently on hold to them myself and we’ve emailed our broker to see if he can speed it up! I’m assuming it’s just an email saying “yes, we confirm funds will be released” that is all we need?

We didn’t have this issue last time round so I’m guessing it’s another covid precaution?!

Everything else is sorted and the rest of the chain are ready.. so frustrating!

TheScone

HopeAndDriftWood said:

Morning all! 

Just had the valuation done. He was here for all of five minutes... he didn't give anything away. Now the nervous wait for the buyer's mortgage offer begins again! He was underwritten fine last time, so as long as the valuation is good, we should be okay. Then I believe the buyer has the searches and pack, so it's over to his solicitor. He is convinced she's said 4 - 6 weeks and it won't be faster than that... 

@TheScone Our searches were sent over to us for our reference, but there wasn't anything concerning on them and we didn't need to sign anything. So it'll depend on the responses to enquiries, I think! How responsive has the vendor's solicitor been so far?

That's good to hear - I doubt anything will be concerning on them so hopefully we just need these answers on the other enquiries. They were just simple things like on the fixtures and fittings they had listed the washing machine as fitted and staying at the house, but the washing machine isn't fitted so an enquiry was just to confirm if it was staying or not. They also had a new boiler in 2019 so another one was for the certificates for that. they were sent a few weeks ago so I'm hoping that with the stamp duty out of the way now they will get back to us this week. We haven't requested funds or closed our ISAs yet either so I'm just not sure how long these things take until we can actually exchange. 

If the vendors solicitors reply to the enquiries this week do you think exchange is possible? I think the vendors solicitors have been decently responsive, but as these enquiries were sent several weeks ago now I'm starting to question that haha!

I hope all goes well with your valuation!