The NEW waiting to exchange thread...

Effusive

As it currently stands, my deeply distressing, drawn-out sale is due to both exchange and complete today.

My ex-partner who was residing in the house handed over the keys to the estate agent this morning.

TBC. 🙏🏽

badger09

RS2OOO said:

RS2OOO said:

Contracts exchanged - 2 day removals commences tomorrow, completion on Thursday (Even less time than you've got @Moneybear)

Wow.

Thank you everyone for reading and putting up with my stress!

Well, after 7 of the most stressful months of my life, would we finally get the perfect stress free completion day?

Don't be silly, of course we didn't.

Removals were brilliant, 2 lorries arrived an hour early before we had finished packing so they helped us out which just means we have no clue where anything is, no big deal.

2x 7.5 tonne lorries fully loaded and gone by 11am (the 3.5 tonne loaded up yesterday).

Confirmation we had completed at 11:30 just as we arrived at new house, perfect.

Our buyers were waiting at the estate agents so they were in immediately.

Then the problems - vendors solicitor having problems with their bank account and couldn't verify they'd recieved payment so wouldn't release keys.

Still no news at 13:30 so I'm chasing my solicitor who's chasing vendors solicitor who have closed for lunch.

At 15:00 the funds still not showing. My Solicitor decides to email vendors solicitor proof the payment has been sent and fortunately they agree to release keys via estate agent.

EA is 40 minutes drive away but fortunately the owner lives nearby and was working from home with a key to the property and he agreed to bring it to us.

18:00 and removals are fully unloaded, albeit with a £120 key waiting charge - it should have been £420 but the guys said they were happy not to tell their boss about the delay if I was happy to give them a "drink". Works for me!

19:00 I finally manage to reset the boiler (in the loft) and get heat into a house that's been empty for 4 months.

That's it, I'm done, good night and good luck to all of you no matter where you are in the process.

Just caught up with this thread after a few days. So glad to hear it all finally went through for you after your horrendous journey. Now the fun begins

Just a tip from my experience, if your removal men packed any damp towels or tea towels, like ours did, try to find which box they're in sooner rather than later. 5 week old mouldy towels will not add much to the ambience of your long awaited new home  

MickeyFTB

MzH_2021 said:

Getting close now, last enquiries answered and will be setting dates soon! No chain, we're buying before we sell so all ok on our side. Seller's EA insists that no-one does 2 weeks between exchange and completion anymore, "not for years" and 1 week max is more likely, most do 3 days between apparently! Bit of a shock, we've requested 2 weeks as there's never been an internet connection to the house and we both work from home, so need that sorted asap and need the notice to arrange the engineer to set up as soon as we're in. Am I being unreasonable? 

I don’t think it’s unreasonable if it’s agreed. Especially as there is no chain, I could understand if you had to meet a certain date as mortgage offers expiring! 

Also just because everyone else does it in 3 days doesn’t mean you have to. 

When we finally exchange we’ll be requesting the same as I’ve already been through changing things once and had to revert it all back when exchange didn’t happen.

GeenBeen

Love reading everyone's journeys so far! Glad I'm not alone in a state of anxiety

Last time I posted on here was back in November when we were literally unable to reach a single person at our solicitors firm. Couldn't even get the details to pay the money they were requesting for the local searches! We got our survey back on 10th Jan (nothing to worry about, phew!) and our local searches came through the next week (all fine, yay!).

We popped round to see the house one weekend and bumped into the vendors, who wanted to know a completion date. We were all hoping for today (28th Jan) so we all let our solicitors know. After a week with no response, we scheduled a call with our lead contact this Monday (it's actually the first time we've ever spoken, I had started to worry he didn't actually exist). They said this Friday was unlikely, so we set next Friday as the target date and were told we would be sent the paperwork asap.

Nothing since then, so we call this morning and it appears the "team" (not sure they exist?) haven't even started on the paperwork. Partner is trying to stay calm, but I nearly hit the roof. We're chain free, moving into an unoccupied house from a rental. Every box has been ticked and we've prepped everything we need to do. This should be quick and shouldn't need to drag out, right?

Of course I followed up partner's calm call this morning with a more assertive email to ask if next Friday is realistic, and whether we would receive the paperwork before the weekend (I assume not, but I want them to actually tell me this themselves). 

Am I being ridiculous here? I feel like we are constantly being put on the back burner at this firm, and they rarely respond to our calls or emails. Getting a timeframe is impossible. Gahhh! 

Sending all of you moving this weekend good vibes!

Croon979

concrete confirmation we will exchange Monday. We had everything in place by the end of today but missed banking hours. Completion definitely 7 Feb. I am off to furniture shop at the weekend!!

Moneybear

After a chaotic morning I finally got the keys around 3pm this afternoon. I am beyond relieved and the reality of owning a house has started to sink in. I've been sitting on the floor with a take away just looking at what I now own. Thank you all for your support/advice/friendship on this thread. 

I wish everyone the best of luck with your exchange and completions! 

Folksriker

That's it I'm moving to Scotland I can't handle this stupid, backwards bureaucracy any longer. When will they do something about this in E&W?

Loges1966

Hi just wondering if anyone went with Santander and had a second credit check prior completion 

MickeyFTB

Moneybear said:

After a chaotic morning I finally got the keys around 3pm this afternoon. I am beyond relieved and the reality of owning a house has started to sink in. I've been sitting on the floor with a take away just looking at what I now own. Thank you all for your support/advice/friendship on this thread. 

I wish everyone the best of luck with your exchange and completions! 

Good luck in your new home! 

pomegranate12

mightyblu said:

So happy to catch up on so many new messages in here and lots of people exchanging and completing too.
Congrats to you all!

I'm unfortunately still waiting and my anxiety is slowly getting worse due to all the uncontrollable variables! 

There's no definitive completion date for my property (new build), the last update I received was by the end of the first week of May.
My exchange is currently set for the 31st of this month, and I received an update from my broker yesterday that my lender has finalised all background checks & surveys, and my application is currently with quality control.
I'm not sure what quality control does, but i'm assuming it's to make sure there are no errors, mistakes, fraud etc.
Anyway they're advising that the worst case scenario for this to be complete is Tuesday, but they'll work on the weekend to get it complete before then. 
That's not the end of the world.

My main problem now is that I have around £10k of my deposit in a LISA account, so upon hearing the update from my broker I contacted my solicitor to send them the portion of my deposit not in the LISA. I also let them know that I've instructed my LISA provider to withdraw the money to them. 
My solicitor has informed me that they can't use the money from my LISA because they can only hold the funds for 90 days, and because my house is likely to complete in around 100 days, I need to find additional funds to use instead.

So stressful and I'm not sure how they think I can muster up £10k within a few days legally, or without potentially raising red flags.

Anyway, I've asked them if they can use the LISA funds anyway and by the end of March I will send them an additional £10k from my income savings, that way if the completion is still outside of the 90day deadline, the money is still there and I can be refunded on completion.

Fingers crossed they are happy with this, otherwise i'm worried I could lose out on this property.

This LISA situation was sprung on us as well just the other day! I'm buying a new build too and both the sales advisor at Barratt Homes and our solicitor when first instructed knew we were using our LISAs for our deposit. Our house won't be built until this Summer and they have been pushing to exchange since early December.

We're now due to exchange Monday as our solicitors have our contracts and we're not handing over any money just yet. Barratts is happy to accept just our £500 reservation fee paid back in November for now and our full LISA deposit will be transferred closer to completion.

We had no idea about the 90 days! Our solicitor asked if we had any other deposit money we could give them and whilst we could fork out about 50% of our deposit, I didn't exactly want to defeat the purpose of my LISA and rinse my accessible savings, although from your post it sounds like it could be refunded which is great!

If you're with a big house developer I would see if anyone else buying on the development has also exchanged but delayed transfer of the deposit. As if so, I imagine they should be happy for you to go this route also.

Fingers crossed it works out for you!