The NEW waiting to exchange thread...

novelle

novelle said:

after reading all the documents from the local authority searches and the fitting and contents form etc, we had some queries e.g. the boundaries of our house, along with other issues. Emailed my solicitor and of course she doesn't reply. 

that was 2.5 weeks ago.

Today I felt like i had enough waiting so I emailed  her and said please reply my emails because I have no idea what's going on and what is the next step.

Then I got a reply from her locum asking when is my ideal completion date, along with answers to all the queries we had in the previous emailssss!

Why does it have to be like that?! 

Both the seller's solicitor and my solicitor's locum are very efficient now. Seems like we are at the final stage of this enquiry process, because the seller's solicitor doesn't seem to want to answer anymore of our questions hahahhaaa. It's ok to us, they are not major issues at all. Let's see what my solicitor says after she comes back from annual leave on next Monday. 

Just need to find out if seller agrees to complete on 1 Nov too (which I believe should be ok as she told the EA that the house is cleared and ready to complete at anytime)!

climbthatwallseegar

novelle said:

climbthatwallseegar said:

novelle said:

@climbthatwallseegar sorry to hear that you have to go through all these. 

Sometimes i think the system should change for example, once your offer has been accepted then you should pay a deposit to secure the house. It makes it less likely for people to pull out a sale. 

Yes, I do wish there was something in place to ensure both buyer and seller make a firm commitment.

My latest purchase fell through this morning. The vendor is demanding £50k - £60k more despite accepting my offer 2 weeks ago. Purely because another house on her street has gone up for sale at a higher price.

@mrsbrush - congrats on your move. You've given me a tiny bit of hope!

wow 50 to 60K?! That's a lot! 

She cannot go on forever like this,  marking the price up just because of that! 

And that's why I think there should be some sort of deposit right after the seller accepted an offer.  It can prevent things like this happen.

Unbelievably I’ve just seen the property listed tonight with a new EA. I’m on their mailing list and I opened their newsletter to see the house now listed for £100k more than the offer she accepted from me 2 weeks ago! 

I’ve spoken to the original EA who said they spent days trying to get her to see sense and understand her house is different from the other house (plus no mortgage lender will value her property at this new crazy price) but she won’t budge. Feeling thankful it has all ended before I wasted any more time or money with this seller! 

FTB2021HELP

Hi all,

We are FTBs and our brief timeline so far is as follows:

6/5/21 added to the market. Called and booked viewing

8/5/21 viewing took place and offer communicated to the EA

8/5/21 EA called and best offer was matched, they said will pass onto the seller and be in contact Monday 

10/5/21 chased EA at 5pm. EA called back after 8pm saying that someone else wants to view however unless they offer substantially more than us then they won’t show the house 

10/5/21 EA text at 20:41 confirming offer accepted

11/5/21 instructed solicitor, searches applied for 

13/5/21 memo of sale received by solicitors from EA, go back to MA with further queries

14/5/21 send final documents to MA and apply for official mortgage 

14/5/21 HSBC conducted a hard credit search

24/6/21 survey done (homebuyers) 

25/6/21 mortgage valuation complete

3/7/21 mortgage offer receive on property 

27/8/21 CHAIN COMPLETE

September 2021 - vendor solicitor starts replying to queries & all answers received

We are currently renting and have to give a months notice. Everybody was happy to exchange and complete in October half term. On 29/9/21 we chased EA for an update on whether we could give our tenancy notice to our landlords so we could move. We were told no because the people at the top of the chain still had not received their searches back. We notified EA that we could now not move until 8th December at the earliest due to personal circumstances (final professional exams which can’t be rebooked). 

Our mortgage offer runs out on 4th December but we are allowed 5 working days grace. So we put the week of 6th-10th December to the EA and explained that we cannot move after this date and if we were able to get another mortgage after this, due to work commitments, we physically cannot move until February 2022. Our vendor is happy with the dates, however the two people further up the chain don’t want to move this close to Christmas. We had a rude phone all from EA (not the person we normally deal with) saying how it’s too close to Christmas and they don’t want the date of 12th. The EA suggested we complete on 30 November and move out of rented on 3rd, which is in the middle of our exams, clearly this will not be possible for us. Please note also that we will not be contactable during week commencing 29th! 

We have been waiting for this since the beginning of May 2021, and have had to put up with continuous ignorance from vendors solicitors as well as updates from EA being extremely rare, we are always the ones chasing. We have communicated every single date to EA and we were told the ball is in our court by the normal woman we deal with, after finding out we couldn’t complete in October half term. 

Are we being unreasonable? Our exams are our finals and we made it clear we can’t complete earlier than 8th December when it got pushed back from October. 

Sorry this is so long, this purchase has just been a long time coming. Our vendors seem to be flexible, however the issue is clearly above them. I feel like if those above them had been quicker with searches etc then we would have been completing next week... they took a very long time. 

[Deleted User]

I can’t take much more now the new house isn’t going to be ready until end of January! Mortgage offer expire February 2nd

Chooru

We are beginning to get quite stressed! We reached the end of the chain literally 2 days after our offer was accepted (and all buyers and sellers are through the same estate agent, which we thought my speed things up as they would be able to put additional pressure where needed.) We were hoping to exchange by this week (October half term - I'm a teacher) but the seller's solicitor is becoming slower and slower to respond to enquiries. 

I'm becoming quite nervous. We all have all searches back and it just seems that we are waiting on enquiries back before we can proceed. The problem is that the seller's solicitor, who was initially incredibly quick to respond is becoming incredibly slow. Sometimes up to a week to respond. Apparently they are still keen to sell and nothing has changed, but it's making me so nervous how slow things have become. 

Newdrake88

Chooru said:

We are beginning to get quite stressed! We reached the end of the chain literally 2 days after our offer was accepted (and all buyers and sellers are through the same estate agent, which we thought my speed things up as they would be able to put additional pressure where needed.) We were hoping to exchange by this week (October half term - I'm a teacher) but the seller's solicitor is becoming slower and slower to respond to enquiries. 

I'm becoming quite nervous. We all have all searches back and it just seems that we are waiting on enquiries back before we can proceed. The problem is that the seller's solicitor, who was initially incredibly quick to respond is becoming incredibly slow. Sometimes up to a week to respond. Apparently they are still keen to sell and nothing has changed, but it's making me so nervous how slow things have become. 

We are the same we need to complete on 29th due to family circumstances and my vendor is on his second solicitor and waiting for them to send the enquiries back! 

I don’t know what I can do to make them understand how badly we need it done by Friday!!!

FTB2021HELP

Newdrake88 said:

Chooru said:

We are beginning to get quite stressed! We reached the end of the chain literally 2 days after our offer was accepted (and all buyers and sellers are through the same estate agent, which we thought my speed things up as they would be able to put additional pressure where needed.) We were hoping to exchange by this week (October half term - I'm a teacher) but the seller's solicitor is becoming slower and slower to respond to enquiries. 

I'm becoming quite nervous. We all have all searches back and it just seems that we are waiting on enquiries back before we can proceed. The problem is that the seller's solicitor, who was initially incredibly quick to respond is becoming incredibly slow. Sometimes up to a week to respond. Apparently they are still keen to sell and nothing has changed, but it's making me so nervous how slow things have become. 

We are the same we need to complete on 29th due to family circumstances and my vendor is on his second solicitor and waiting for them to send the enquiries back! 

I don’t know what I can do to make them understand how badly we need it done by Friday!!!

I would call EA to remind them that you want to complete on 29th and say you need to see some sort of movement. I would also ask whether or not it is likely to be able to complete on 29th and make it known that you are unlikely to go ahead with the purchase if it is after 29th due to family circumstances. The EA's will want their commission and won't want to have to re-market the house, so they are likely to chase vendors solicitor straight away and you should see queries coming back. Good luck

Moneybear

I'm getting really nervous about my chain situation. When we viewed and offered 10 weeks ago we were lead to believe the chain was complete. 2 weeks ago EA confirmed the vendors onward purchase needs to find somewhere and they're struggling so my vendor will start viewing new properties too. We've also got solicitor enquiries outstanding for over 4 weeks with no sign of being answered 

I am really really hoping for good news this week! 

Newdrake88

FTB2021HELP said:

Newdrake88 said:

Chooru said:

We are beginning to get quite stressed! We reached the end of the chain literally 2 days after our offer was accepted (and all buyers and sellers are through the same estate agent, which we thought my speed things up as they would be able to put additional pressure where needed.) We were hoping to exchange by this week (October half term - I'm a teacher) but the seller's solicitor is becoming slower and slower to respond to enquiries. 

I'm becoming quite nervous. We all have all searches back and it just seems that we are waiting on enquiries back before we can proceed. The problem is that the seller's solicitor, who was initially incredibly quick to respond is becoming incredibly slow. Sometimes up to a week to respond. Apparently they are still keen to sell and nothing has changed, but it's making me so nervous how slow things have become. 

We are the same we need to complete on 29th due to family circumstances and my vendor is on his second solicitor and waiting for them to send the enquiries back! 

I don’t know what I can do to make them understand how badly we need it done by Friday!!!

I would call EA to remind them that you want to complete on 29th and say you need to see some sort of movement. I would also ask whether or not it is likely to be able to complete on 29th and make it known that you are unlikely to go ahead with the purchase if it is after 29th due to family circumstances. The EA's will want their commission and won't want to have to re-market the house, so they are likely to chase vendors solicitor straight away and you should see queries coming back. Good luck

Thank you I originally asked for the 22nd and the vendor solicitor said the 29th was more likely so I’m hoping as they suggested that date they can get it done! 

Hebblethwaite

I had a phone call from the EA this week, proposing a completion date of 10th December. However, it's ridiculous to start thinking about that as the probate (that the vendor only realised they needed four months into the sale, and only applied for last month) hasn't been granted yet.

Also, my mortgage offer expires on 1st December, though can be extended by four weeks if we are definitely going to complete in that timeframe. My current offer is at 1.25% with a 35% deposit. It's now closer to an 18 month fix than a two year fix as it's been so long since the offer was made. Also, since I applied, there have been better deals come on the market and I could happily now go to 40% and still have some savings for a rewire/new kitchen etc.

Given I'm waiting on my vendor's probate, it would make sense to just apply for a new mortgage now, right? Except, the better deal with the current provider (which would hopefully avoid any new valuation shocks, or demands for the solicitor to make new enquiries) is only available direct from the bank so my broker would lose his commission, which doesn't seem fair.

I don't really know what to do. Has anyone changed mortgage providers late in the game before? Did it mess things up?