The NEW waiting to exchange thread...

jimmymac87

jimmymac87 said:

Bringing me a lot of comfort staying close to this forum as we edge nearer to exchange...

16 Feb: we accepted offer on our house
09 Mar: our offer accepted on onward purchase 

Everything is in place ready to go with our onward purchase. Just waiting for our buyer's solicitors to confirm they're happy with enquiries on our current house. Been going back and forth since 25 March 😞 

If/when the buyer's solicitor confirms they're satisfied with the enquiries, do you know when we could realistically look at exchanging/completing? (We're moving into an empty house and our buyers are FTBs)

So we are still waiting for the buyer's solicitors to report back. We'll over a week after replies sent back. Last update was they are now sending the contract to the buyer for signature. No idea why this wasn't sorted months ago (it was with our sale and our purchase).

So frustrating! Was really hoping to at least exchange for the bank holiday.

Lust_for_Life

We were due to exchange today and the seller at the top of the chain forgot to send a form 🙈

So now we have to wait until Monday! That is providing he has sent his form 😩

Why oh why are people so disorganised? We are due to complete on the 8th. Driving me bananas! 

[Deleted User]

I was supposed to complete today, but it took ages for the sellers solicitor to provide a statement about service charges and rent. By the time it arrived and my solicitor had checked and sent the money over, the sellers solicitor went AWOL for an hour. He eventually re-appeared to confirm cash had been received, but my solicitor had gone home by then as it was past 6pm and sellers solicitors office claimed he had gone home. Lord give me strength. I was told 31st was deadline for the chain. So unclear if it will collapse. Nervously waiting until the morning. The completion date has been missed.

Sellers solicitor very unprofessional and over the top in language being used trying to justify. I wish I could name the firm! That is before I found out he was done for drink driving....

boxer234

Due to exchange tomorrow chain free property the vendor has already moved out.  Feeling nervous, excited and a bit strung out.  I’ve owner before but with my ex who sucked the joy out of everything.  This will be my own house.  I’m hoping we can exchange tomorrow so o can relax at the bank holiday. 

livdawsonn

boxer234 said:

Due to exchange tomorrow chain free property the vendor has already moved out.  Feeling nervous, excited and a bit strung out.  I’ve owner before but with my ex who sucked the joy out of everything.  This will be my own house.  I’m hoping we can exchange tomorrow so o can relax at the bank holiday. 

Congratulations! Wish you all the best of luck for your exchange today.

h2g2

My saga has been running forever, it seems.

I'm moving to be nearer family. My sister had a baby boy (and tells me I have "very important uncle duties" to fulfil), and my parents are now both retired but my mum is ill we don't know how long she has left to live.

I accepted an offer on my flat in late October and had an offer on a new one accepted in early November last year. The flat I'm buying was one I'd had my eye on, and the offer I got on mine was somewhat below the asking price, but it wasn't less than I paid for it either. I was okay taking a slightly lower offer in order to make sure I could make an offer on this particular flat.

My first mistake was to use different solicitors for the sale and purchase. Simply put, one offered great rates on the sale but was expensive for the purchase and the other one was the other way around.

I expected to move in February probably, but maybe March.

At the end of January my selling solicitor ceased trading. They assured me I was very close to completion, but that if I moved my file to a particular company they had an agreement with they would be able to pick up where they left off (everyone else said I had to start from scratch) and would honour the originally agreed fee. So I took that option.

My buyer's solicitor at this point got really vexing. I was expected to compete my purchase around this time, but it depended on my sale. I kept asking how long it would take (my buyer had no chain) and he never gave me an answer. I told him the chain was getting cold feet about lack of an answer and that if it collapsed I would demand the full asking price. (No point accepting a lower offer to get into a chain that no longer exists after all.) He didn't care. What he didn't do was tell me what he actually needed to proceed. Instead every two weeks he'd ask for one more document and then go silent. (Couldn't he ask for all at once? I could have got them all sorted out in a day or two!) Except for the two weeks nothing could happen because he went on holiday.

I made my estate agents aware of this and asked them to keep me updated on what was going on, fully intending to go through with my threat to insist on the asking price if need be. They tell me (and continue to tell me) just to let them know when I have a date and my sellers should be ready.

Finally in May we agree a completion date. It is 16 weeks after the new solicitor took over. I would have been better off starting from scratch! I call the estate agent and the solicitor for my purchase, ask to discuss dates with my sellers.

Once I've exchanged contracts on the sale (I wasn't overly worried if the seller can't complete the same day - I've always said I'm happy to put my things in storage for a short time, and I can stay with my parents for a bit) the estate agent gets back to me that my sellers can't complete yet because they're putting in offers on places. The chain had collapsed.

"Well why didn't you tell me?"
"I can only apologise. We should have told you."

Anyway. I went through with the sale anyway. My nephew's first birthday is coming up and mum's condition is getting worse. If I hold off until my sellers are ready I'd miss his first birthday and there was a reasonable chance I wouldn't get to see my mum again before she dies.

Some things are more important.

The invoice for handling the sale arrives. It's about twice as much as I was expecting. They explain that despite my old solicitor saying they could honour the original fees, that was never actually agreed and not legally binding. The invoice includes a fee for untangling the file passed on to them. Not really having a choice, I pay up.

Only now it's about six months since my mortgage offer was made, and it's due to expire on Monday. We actually applied for an extension to it about a month ago, but we've been waiting and waiting for the mortgage company to get back to us. (No idea what's taking them so long...) I've also applied for a new offer, but with interest rates changing the new offer will be on significantly worse terms so I really want to use the old offer if I can.

My sellers have put in an offer on a place and say they expect to be ready to move into it in August. Even an extension to my old offer won't last that long. The guy they're buying from is going to a new build which will be ready then. I suggested to them that if they move into temporary accommodation in time for me to use the old offer to complete I could contribute to their costs and make it worth their while. They refuse (not unreasonably, it must be said - they'd have to move twice and probably feel I'm at fault for them not being to complete their originally planned purchase). If I fail to get a new offer (maybe the worse terms make it unaffordable for me) I'll have to lose out on this flat I want and they'll lose their buyer. Maybe they'll rethink it at that point.

So anyway. I'm now in an airbnb while I find somewhere I can rent till August. (I could only stay with my parents for only so long before I'm outstaying my welcome - particularly with my mum's health. Also, the mattress I was sleeping on is the same one I slept before I left for university 16 years ago and it was old then.) And I'm just generally angry.

I'm angry with my original solicitors who took my case despite surely knowing they wouldn't be able to complete it. And also for lying to me about the new solicitor being able to carry on where they left off, and that they would honour the original fees. I tried to report their managing director to the SRA, but she had already been struck off it. I've reported it to the legal ombudsman though, hoping to get compensation for the extra fees I was charged, and for the other costs involved in having to delay the sale so much. (I found out that since my friends had used them - and only a few months before I instructed them - the practice had been bought out and turned into a bulk conveyancing factory, but kept the old name including testimonials and google reviews.).

I'm angry with my buyer's solicitor for being so very slow and for his refusal to estimate a date. Despite knowing we'd been delayed and that I had a chain waiting for us he still kept sending one inquiry every fortnight instead of sending all of them at once. (Honestly, even if he'd said when I first asked "we're nowhere it will take till May at least" that would have been better - the chain might not have collapsed.)

I'm angry with the estate agent who didn't keep me informed about the seller's position. At some point when I tried to give them an update they told me I didn't have to worry about the chain. Until I'd already agreed a date with my buyer they didn't mention that my sellers were back searching for properties - something really pertinent to me, I would have thought, especially since I'd asked them to keep me informed on the situation. I don't know how reportable this is, but I will look at lodging a formal complaint over it. I don't really know what obligations agents have to buyers, though.

I'm annoyed at the mortgage company being really slow to approve or reject an extension, leaving me in a weird unsure limbo for weeks as to the state of my offer.

And I'm really angry my mum's being taken from me, and that I lost three whole months of time with her trying to sort out the mess a truly unfit solicitor (not libel - the SRA intervened to shut the practice down, and I didn't name them anyway) left behind instead.

Sacher50

We exchanged on Tuesday! 13 months after our offer was accepted… I can’t quite believe we got there, nor that we hung for that long! (FTB, no chain)

If you look at my post history, you’ll see I started cockily counting down the weeks on this thread just after our offer was accepted. That soon petered off once the difficulties started! At the outset I thought we could be exchanged and completed by August 2021!   

I am glad we stuck with it though, with interest rate rises, price rises and the shortage of properties on the market it still feels like a good deal and I’m so excited to move in after we complete next Friday. Also kudos to the developer, who never tried to renegotiate the price and even knocked a little bit off when we missed the stamp duty holiday in September.

@h2g2 I’m sorry for all the issues you’ve had with your purchase and the worry and loss of time with your mum, I hope things work themselves out quickly. 

babyblade41

@h2g2 that sounds truly horrific & I know financial compensation won't help but you can focus that anger on making someone pay for true incompetence 

Hopefully the rest will fall into place for you

boxer234

livdawsonn said:

boxer234 said:

Due to exchange tomorrow chain free property the vendor has already moved out.  Feeling nervous, excited and a bit strung out.  I’ve owner before but with my ex who sucked the joy out of everything.  This will be my own house.  I’m hoping we can exchange tomorrow so o can relax at the bank holiday. 

Congratulations! Wish you all the best of luck for your exchange today.

3pm yesterday it happened after sitting on the phone all day.  

ironlady2022

When you exchange, I'm guessing completion date is already agreed at that point. Between the two dates, is there a max time limit that you need to stick to?