The NEW waiting to exchange thread...

jak

Mortgage offer received, signed and sent back next day delivery. Woo. Help to buy isa closed and my solicitor is applying for the bonus. More waiting now I suppose... Really want to start talking dates. Everything is done now. Urgh. The Waiting!!!

julicorn

julicorn said:

julicorn said:

Chain made up of 6 properties, and both our vendor and we have our mortgage offers running out end of this month. 
One big stumbling block was that probate at the top of the chain hadn't been granted yet, but I just found out today that it has been granted finally!
So we have 3 weeks left to complete. Allegedly everyone is almost at exchange state, but I'll believe it when I see it. Feels like our estate agent has been saying the same thing for the last 2 months, so all I can do is keep my fingers crossed and chase. 

Our solicitor sent us the finalised contract for our sale to sign yesterday, buyer has already signed and returned it. 1 transaction ready, potentially 5 more to go. Gonna try to do some detective work tomorrow to find out exactly where everyone is at, but it's definitely easier said than done.

Check-in today with both sets of estate agents. The estate agent we're selling through said she checked in with the rest of the chain end of last week, they're all 'on the last of the enquiries', which I suppose could mean absolutely anything. 

The estate agent we're buying through started discussing dates. He suggested the 28th for completion, exchange a week before. That would work well for us, but we were the first party he spoke to - no idea what the rest of the chain had to say. 

I'm just sat here constantly waiting for some sort of update, when I know perfectly well that there won't be anything more to say for now. I just can't really concentrate on anything else, just constantly thinking about the move / sale / purchase. 

HWBY

Offer expires 7th October and still "waiting for the upward chain to resolve enquiries". I've told our vendor we need to complete by the 7th, her response is "we'll just have to tell our vendor that we'll have to relist". We've spent hundreds of pounds on things our solicitor misled us about, and wouldn't have spent had we known the full situation (they went from "you're ready to go" to "there's an outstanding enquiry that we missed, sorry"). Interest rates have doubled since our initial mortgage offer. We're currently spending £600 a month for my wife to commute an hour and a half each way for her new job near the house.

I've accepted it's not going to happen. But the money and time wasted makes me feel sick. Our solicitor sent a bill for over two grand yesterday, for a transaction that never happened. I just cried on our living room floor.

We're FTBs in a horrible rental, and I'm desperate to get out. We had plans to buy a home, go on a few holidays, then start trying for children. It's all been taken away from us by an incompetent solicitor that doesn't even represent us, so we have no recourse to complain.

It's not even about the house, I always felt that the house was just fine. It's the thousands of pounds gone up in smoke. Over the next five years a mortgage on an equivalent property will cost us £19,000 more. Add to that all the money we've already spent here, my wife's commuting costs, the expense with moving again and finding a new rental, we're down about £25,000. How can this be legal? How is it accepted? It's already so hard for FTBs to get on the ladder, and we're stung with a transaction that takes half a year to fail because a solicitor went AWOL.

trakky14

Well some progress, we've signed the statutory declaration our buyers solicitors wanted...all enquires seem to be answered but our buyers solicitors cannot proceed until our buyers lenders solicitors are happy...so we have to wait again! 

Then our buyers solicitous tell us yesterday that the bottom of the chain are on holiday till the 24th! Nice of them to mention that before!! Grr!! So now aiming for the week of the 26th (we were meant to have completed last week initially)...honestly this is beyond a joke now!

Adam16

Still in a similar situation to lots on here - ready to exchange, but our vendor is still doing enquiries for their onwards purchase. 

Amazed how inefficient and useless a lot of solicitors are. 

Katief12

I’m so stressed at the minute but reading some of these comments does give me some comfort that it’s not just my solicitor being crap. The house buying selling system is so crazy and unfair.

I’m still stuck waiting for enquires - and keep getting fobbed off by my solicitor. Last week it was a management pack was outstanding which I rang around and sorted and now suddenly there are a load of extra enquires outstanding when last week they were all back. I could honestly cry.

there is only me and the seller in the chain. I sold my house and moved in with family she is selling and moving in with her mum till her new build is ready - I don’t understand how this is so hard.

we were aiming for a September completion but that is looking seriously unlikely now unfortunately.

trakky14

Adam16 said:

Still in a similar situation to lots on here - ready to exchange, but our vendor is still doing enquiries for their onwards purchase. 

Amazed how inefficient and useless a lot of solicitors are. 

Yep, I've never known an industry like it!!

Giggidy

HWBY said:

Offer expires 7th October and still "waiting for the upward chain to resolve enquiries". I've told our vendor we need to complete by the 7th, her response is "we'll just have to tell our vendor that we'll have to relist". We've spent hundreds of pounds on things our solicitor misled us about, and wouldn't have spent had we known the full situation (they went from "you're ready to go" to "there's an outstanding enquiry that we missed, sorry"). Interest rates have doubled since our initial mortgage offer. We're currently spending £600 a month for my wife to commute an hour and a half each way for her new job near the house.

I've accepted it's not going to happen. But the money and time wasted makes me feel sick. Our solicitor sent a bill for over two grand yesterday, for a transaction that never happened. I just cried on our living room floor.

We're FTBs in a horrible rental, and I'm desperate to get out. We had plans to buy a home, go on a few holidays, then start trying for children. It's all been taken away from us by an incompetent solicitor that doesn't even represent us, so we have no recourse to complain.

It's not even about the house, I always felt that the house was just fine. It's the thousands of pounds gone up in smoke. Over the next five years a mortgage on an equivalent property will cost us £19,000 more. Add to that all the money we've already spent here, my wife's commuting costs, the expense with moving again and finding a new rental, we're down about £25,000. How can this be legal? How is it accepted? It's already so hard for FTBs to get on the ladder, and we're stung with a transaction that takes half a year to fail because a solicitor went AWOL.

So sorry this sounds awful. Fingers crossed things can still turn around and you manage to complete by the 7th or at least get an extension from the lender if possible. This house buying malarkey seriously doesn't need to be this hard if people just did what they supposed to do, in a timely fashion, especially the one's we pay an absolute fortune to do so. 

Our solicitor sent an enquiry to our lender last week, with the wrong motrgage reference, and I only found out when I chased the lender this morning otherwise we would have another unnecessary delay waiting for a phantom response. 

jak

I sent my first time buyer declaration thing back to my solicitor yesterday for my H2B isa. Waiting to hear about dates now! Eeek! Trying to not get too excited...

mojo293

Spoke to the EA yesterday and my buyers solicitor has confirmed receipt of my answer to a few enquiries they sent through last Thursday ( I answered them straight away). She will chase them again tomorrow to make sure they are happy enough and no more enquiries, and then we may be ready to start looking at dates, I think.

Ever since my vendors found out (from same EA) that my buyer had his mortgage approved, they are now pushing for it to be sorted too. Think we can all now see the finish line approaching. Fingers crossed the next few bits go smooth enough.

One thing that will need sorting. My son is 18 and he will need to sign the contract to confirm he will vacate on completion. But he moves to University this weekend (just down to Teesside), and I have pushed for the contract to be ready (if possbile) before he goes away, otherwise if its next week, it'll mean a dash back to Newcastle for him to sign it.

Sign and exchange contracts this week, with completion next week would do me fine, but we wait and see, and we also have an extra bank holiday now on Monday, which could delay things by a (working) day too.