The NEW waiting to exchange thread...

Myci85

How frustrating! I really hope next week things go more smoothly for you. 

It is hard when there are so many people involved so you don't know who is causing delay. Our solicitor has been waiting for weeks, probably coming on for several months now, for response to enquiries on our purchase, everything else our end done, has chased numerous times she tells us, EA telling us vendors are keen to progress ASAP, so I've no idea where the issue lies. Vendor is now on their 3rd property since our offer, so I'm unsure if their solicitor is just prioritising their purchase now and ignoring the sale side until they've caught up. 

Yankee24

dander said:

Hello all, I'm willing to join in and try and get this thread bursting back into life! I'm in the middle of the world's longest buying/selling process with no expectation of completion until Feb 2025, so I'll be here for a while. Here's my timeline so far...

13 Jan 2024 - House comes on Rightmove that is one of the 3 ideal houses on a specific road that I have been saying for the last 9 months "if one of those comes up, I will try and buy it". Book viewing and start rushing around trying to get my own house on market at a price for a quick sale (ie: it's a hell of a bargain).
20 Jan 2024 - View house, internal condition not great but price is good, which suits me well because I enjoy a project. House is fairly modern so structurally fine. Tell estate agent, like it, want it but not proceedable so can't offer yet. 
29 Jan 2024 - Accept offer on my house (told buyers would like to complete by end April)
30 Jan 2024 - Makeoffer - radio silence - turns out vendors hadn't mentioned that there are tenants in the property on a fixed term contract that doesn't end until 2025 and only now are they trying to work out if they can actually get the house empty in time to sell it.
14 Feb 2024 - Told tenants have agreed to go sooner, so memo of sale issued and all starts to progress.
(around this time I start repeatedly asking for more information about when tenants will leave and what assurance we have - lots of fobbing off, but I'm told they are looking for a property)
March 2024 - start trying to get access to property for second viewing and survey at a weekend. Tenants refuse access completely at weekends. Try for a Friday, tenants refuse access on Fridays. Tenants then refuse all access for entire period of Easter Holidays. Becomes apparent that these tenants are not leaving willingly, I push for info about what the agreement is - fobbed off until eventually told that the vendors don't want the property empty so will not actually ask tenants to go until I am at point of exchange. Stalemate because I refuse to pay out any more money on conveyancing on a property that is essentially unavailable to buy and vendors refuse to do anything to make house available until I am at a point of being so committed it's almost impossible to drop out. Me - very suspicious that they intend to hit me with a "pay us an extra £X so we can bribe the tenants out or you can't have the house".
Early April 2024 - I decide whole thing untenable and pull out. Pull out of sale of my property because I don't plan to move anywhere else (and because buyers have tried to reduce price on mine based on stupid survey and I really can't be bothered getting into another argument about why I don't think my 1920 house having steeper stairs than modern building regs means they should get a price reduction etc)
Mid April 2024 - it's all over and I can destress and resume normal life.
Late May 2024 - My estate agent receives a proposal from the original buyers of my property. They are willing to wait until 2025 to get my house. 
June 2024 - The entire chain of the same 3 parties is reinstated on the basis of completion to happen when the fixed term contract ends in Feb 2025. New memos of sale issue with conveyancing to recommence in Sept 2024. Me agreeing to attend to a few bits of work identified by the survey.

So that's where I am so far, with the end far, far away. I need to sort out getting a whole new mortgage offer because original one expires in September, plus trying to get quotes for what are fairly small and uninspiring jobs. Haven't yet faced up to how stupidly expensive conveyancing will get due to long timescales and having to do searches etc twice.
Also living in fear these tenants could yet cause problems. My hope is that they will go in an orderly fashion when their contract ends because it's a family, and not a low-cost rental by any means, and apparently they already own a smaller property that they rent out themselves, so the profile doesn't fit any sort of needing to stay until they are evicted to be eligible for social housing. 

Hopefully other people suffering through this stuff can read the above and know that we are all having a bad time together!
 

We too just fought thru the sitting tenants thing.  Our vendor didn’t want to serve a section 21 until exchange.  Nope, we were clear that we were not bearing all of the risk.  Supposedly it was issued last week, but haven’t seen the proof.  Why are people like this?   We offered full asking to avoid petty fights. 

annetheman

Thanks, everyone for the comforting words!

The enemy solicitor wasn't working on Friday, apparently, so we did end up exchanging yesterday (Monday) with my buyer and I'm not even excited about it. Just feels like going over a line!

I now have weeks ahead of living at dad's - I'm very grateful to have somewhere free with ample storage for my things; and he's 69, so I'll be glad to have spent this time with him amongst his clutter and mess :'). Think. Positive. Thoughts!

Titles, titles, titles...
Progress on the purchase Title application, not so positive... the Land Registry should be issuing 3-week notices to surrounding landowners to give them the opportunity to object to the application this week - waiting for this.

If they do, there is a chance we could exchange 13th September to exchange; mortgage offer expires on the 22nd September and it was NOT easy to get this mortgage (single skin brick extension for the kitchen).

At this point it's pretty horrifying facing another valuation if we don't make it (Santander insist on new valuations for extensions).

*Think positive thoughts!*

Wishing everyone a good midweek with lots of proactive hard work from their solicitors (lol!)!

RHemmings

Congratulations on exchange, @annetheman. I hope the remaining stuff goes well. Good luck @Myci85. 

booksandbikes

My turn to add to the thread:

12/06/2024 - Our house listed

15/07/2024 - Offer accepted on our house

05/08/2024 - Our buyer has survey on our house done

10/08/2024 - Viewed and offered on our onward purchase. Had offer accepted.

14/08/2024 - Our vendor has had an offer accepted on their onward purchase. Chain is now complete

22/08/2024 - Solicitors have started searches; we have answered queries from our buyer's solicitor

22/08/2024 - Mortgage application (porting) - which has been approved

23/08/2024 - Signed TR1 form, which is now with solicitors

26/08/2024 - Mortgage offer sent to solicitors

28/08/2024 - Survey on our onward purchase to be carried out

annetheman

booksandbikes said:

My turn to add to the thread:

12/06/2024 - Our house listed

15/07/2024 - Offer accepted on our house

05/08/2024 - Our buyer has survey on our house done

10/08/2024 - Viewed and offered on our onward purchase. Had offer accepted.

14/08/2024 - Our vendor has had an offer accepted on their onward purchase. Chain is now complete

22/08/2024 - Solicitors have started searches; we have answered queries from our buyer's solicitor

22/08/2024 - Mortgage application (porting) - which has been approved

23/08/2024 - Signed TR1 form, which is now with solicitors

26/08/2024 - Mortgage offer sent to solicitors

28/08/2024 - Survey on our onward purchase to be carried out

Welcome to the nerve-y thread.... Sounds like things progressing well for you so far, fingers crossed it continues!

Update from me: I didn't even post last Friday to confirm I've completed on my sale, it was so anticlimactic!

I'm officially "between homes" living at my dad's and very grateful for this. Besides his noisy neighbours and leaking roof, it has not been bad!

I am slowly accepting the reality that my mortgage offer will expire 22nd September and I will soon have to apply for another one, waiting to exchange on this place.

If there was literally anything else that I liked in this area, for sure I would just give up on this house, much as I've come to love it...

I don't even know if it'll pass another mortgage valuation (score of 1 fail, 1 pass so far!). That is keeping me up at night somewhat, but I'm upping my church visits and prayers and hoping for the best!! Seems to be keeping me sane lol

All the best with the rest of the week, all. Midweek always slow, but I hope Friday brings good news of some progress for us all!

Myci85

Received an exciting email this morning. Had resigned ourselves to the fact we wouldn't be moving until end October/November at the earliest due to our vendors pulling out of 2 properties and only having offer accepted on current one 31st July. Have also been slightly expecting to hear they've pulled out again and it was feeling like we'd never reach completion. 

Today we've heard that all their enquiries and searches are complete, property they're buying is empty, so they're now looking for a September completion! Only trouble is our solicitor held off applying for our LISA funds until we knew things were looking more sorted, due to her only being able to hold them for 90 days. It apparently takes up to 30 days for them to be received after she requests them, which means unlikely we will make a September date now. 

But feeling relieved that we're finally able to start talking dates!

RHemmings

Great news @Myci85. Good luck with everything and for a September completion. 

annetheman

Myci85 said:

Received an exciting email this morning. Had resigned ourselves to the fact we wouldn't be moving until end October/November at the earliest due to our vendors pulling out of 2 properties and only having offer accepted on current one 31st July. Have also been slightly expecting to hear they've pulled out again and it was feeling like we'd never reach completion. 

Today we've heard that all their enquiries and searches are complete, property they're buying is empty, so they're now looking for a September completion! Only trouble is our solicitor held off applying for our LISA funds until we knew things were looking more sorted, due to her only being able to hold them for 90 days. It apparently takes up to 30 days for them to be received after she requests them, which means unlikely we will make a September date now. 

But feeling relieved that we're finally able to start talking dates!

Amazing progress, this is definitely light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel territory - fingers crossed for you! Any news this week?

From me:
I broke the chain 23 August, my worldly belongings are languishing in my dad's mouse-infested garage (no mice in the house unusually, maybe they smell my cat!).

I've had my wonderful broker apply for a new mortgage for my forward house today. I still have an active current mortgage offer expiring 22nd September - this is just an indication of what a fail this purchase is.

The seller has no one to blame but the enemy solicitors.

Besides submitting an amateur Land Registry application in June that was rejected, they have now been sitting on a Land Registry query on application no.2 since 21st August (no response as of today 4th September)!

I've stopped chasing it because I now have the real possibility the mortgage valuation will not pass to consider due to the dodgy kitchen extension (Myci85 can relate to the horror of the single-skin kitchen).

So... a new hard search popped up on my credit profile today from Santander. I am confident about my chances, my credit profile is good and am on an even higher pay since application (which I will need because I have 1 year less on the term because I had my birthday in this LONG time since my offer was accepted on 26th February)... 

With the high-risk valuation, I have started looking for alternative properties. As soon as something else comes up in my area, I'm viewing and potentially ready to pivot because this is beyond ridiculous.

I'm not sad or mad about it, just kind of done.

Myci85

Thank you annetheman, it does feel like we're finally getting there. I spoke to my solicitor on Monday, amazingly, despite our vendor's solicitors doing an impressively fast turn around on their purchase, we are on week 11 from my solicitor sending enquiries to them, and despite constant chasing and being told they'll send the responses straight over, we are STILL waiting for them! So our solicitor has told EA and vendor's solicitor that we can provisionally agree 27th Sep for completion only if she has full responses by this Friday. Fingers crossed!

I'm a firm believer of things happening for a reason, so if this property is for you, that second mortgage offer will come, and if it doesn't, there'll be a good reason why it wasn't for you and something better will turn up.