The NEW waiting to exchange thread...

Tiglath

Turns out our buyer has two companies and two solicitors. He's a property developer offering structured finance to investors, so my bet is one solicitor deals with all the investor money into one company, and the other does the conveyancing on the properties on behalf of the second company which does the renovation work on each property. It's the first solicitor who wasn't around on Friday to release the funds, but the second solicitor who was asking questions about guarantees etc on Thursday night on the first solicitor's behalf (referred to "our lender" which must be the first solicitor) - the two solicitors don't work for the same firm. I'm a financial crime investigator so I found out all the background on the second solicitor and could probably write his biography based on what I found. Anyway, hopefully we'll exchange tomorrow if the first solicitor releases the funds - nobody up the chain seems too concerned because we're not due to complete till 12th March after our vendor asked for more time to clear the smallholding.

The people moving in with us (DH's daughter and BF) are coming round today to start plotting the logistics of the move, because the people who said they'd move our 15 cats now can't do it. My blood pressure went through the roof at that point because we definitely can't fit 15 cat boxes in our car, and can't leave half behind in the house while we move the first half. It's going to involve a proper removals firm for our stuff, a hired Luton van driven possibly by BF's Dad, a hired transit van driven by the BF, two or three private cars depending on family members, and somehow keep the 15 cats away from 4 degus. The roadmap will take in Nottinghamshire, Essex, East London and Kent. It'll be like a chaotic chase with the Benny Hill theme tune (all we need is Ernie who drove the fastest milkcart in the West), but once we're in we're in. I'll never move again and they can carry me out feet first from our new property.

liquoricet

Sorry, your description did make me laugh! I hope the moving is less stressful than you anticipate.

Here's hoping we both exchange tomorrow. I'm hoping it happens first thing as well. I've had enough!

Cheery_Daff

Oh dear Tiglath! :eek:

Gosh I wish I was rich enough to hire in some kind of life admin person to do everything for me :rotfl:

Fingers crossed here for exchange tomorrow too else I'm going to renegotiate the completion date which I'm sure won't go down well, but with bottom of the chain's Granny still on a cruise til Thursday (and therefore apparently unable to provide proof of ID), and our buyers going on holiday on Friday, we really shouldn't have been talking dates at this point anyway as bottom of chain is not ready!

:mad:

(sorry, on the warpath this morning as I've also been trying to sort out car insurance with a renewal quote more than double last year, for no reason, and they appear to have knocked 5 years off our no claims bonus - going to have to cancel and change the whole thing anyway as soon as we move but I want the right number of no claims years on the record! Sadly they won't speak to me as I'm only the named driver and bill payer and therefore not as important as my partner :mad: )

Think it's probably about time I had some breakfast :rotfl: :rotfl:

Vampyr

Amanda_Cm wrote: »

Vampyr, thank you!
I will be chasing every day from Monday till we get something.
The enquiries are basic I think. 9 in total. Is about building regulation of extension, fensa certificates and eventual electric work done. Also we didn't get any fixtures and fitings.
We are ready with searches, contract and transfer signed, Mortgage granted and mortgage deed signed. Deposit is ready to be send to solicitors.

Maybe not everyday but yeah I would chase every few days . The lawyers often won't send out replies until they have all 9 answers, so even if there are 8 easy questions and 1 hard one, you might not see anything or a while. The other possibility is that the vendor themselves is the holdup since a lot of those points look like questions for the vendor rather than legal things the solicitor do. Either way, definitely worth chasing.

liquoricet wrote: »

Here's hoping we both exchange tomorrow. I'm hoping it happens first thing as well. I've had enough!

Cheery_Daff wrote: »

Fingers crossed here for exchange tomorrow too...

Yes agreed! Good luck everyone! :T:T:T

Tiglath

Cheery_Daff wrote: »

Oh dear Tiglath! :eek:

Gosh I wish I was rich enough to hire in some kind of life admin person to do everything for me :rotfl:

DH doesn't work so he's doing all the chasing of people and booking services. No way could I do any of it inbetween meetings - it was bad enough taking 2 hours to go through our mortgage application over the phone and online. Didn't have my own office at that point so certain bits were done at a whisper. My work life is also insane, but we won't go there! I'm very tempted to go abroad for a week before the removals arrive and come home to the new place all unpacked - I'm not really adding any value because I don't drive (yet). I'm just a bum on a seat in a vehicle. But that wouldn't be fair - getting the removals people to pack for us the day before without letting any of the cats out of the house will be a challenge. We'll have to clear a room at a time, and herd various cats in and shut the door. I don't even want to think about it - that will be the most stressful part because there are alliances, factions and totally obnoxious mavericks. The house is already split into upstairs and downstairs zones, two semi-ferals in the middle bedroom who've never in their life been outside, another one recovering from a cancerous ear, another one in a dogcrate with metalwork in her leg, and the three amigos in the main bedroom who simply won't leave the room.

Because we're moving on a Monday, it may be the removals pack up most of our stuff on the Saturday if they don't work Sundays and store it in their lorry, and we live with minimal stuff and boxes and furious cats running wild till the Monday, living off takeaway. We've already moved the base plate along the sink unit so they can't get behind the washingmachine and hide, and we'll block up the catflap. We thought moving 2000 books and 3 cats last time was a challenge ... we'll just keep smiling and inhale coffee.

ashe

Joining this thread very suddenly as after zero activity things started moving very quickly!

23/06 house listed on Rightmove with EA1
20/7 discussed fees with EA1 after reading details on here, revamped rightmove ad completely as their photos were terrible and rewrote the description. EA1 not willing to negotiate on fees, they had overvalued the property for the market and despite us reducing it significantly, still wanted their fixed fee, as is their right I suppose. For the record, their fixed fee was equivalent to 4% of the property value now it had been reduced and we were locked in to a 6 month contract.
15/08 got tired of poor quality viewers EA1 was sending over that had no interest to buy (EA on the day was even saying 'yeah they view all our houses, have done for past 2 years but never offer'!), tried one more time to negotiate a fee and said if not willing to negotiate would price back to their original valuation which wont sell and wait out the contract. No movement on their side, so price increased.
01/12 requested quotes from other EA's, played off the ones we liked best and had the best local presence and negotiated 12 week contract with EA2 for 1.2% fee, due to go live mid Jan
23/1 Ad goes live on Rightmove with new EA2
30/1 first house viewing with new EA2, asking price offer next day
31/1 Solicitors instructed for sale
1/2-9/2 Many, Many house viewings, viewed every house that met our criteria in area we were looking to move to
9/2 first 2 offers rejected, 3rd offer accepted on property with l loads of space that meets all our needs
12/2 meeting our mortgage broker to go through the full application. Previously had an AIP but it had expired but should not be an issue
12/2 solicitors instructed, DIP Accept decision received, only asked for payslips

Brings us to today. Well, tomorrow! Financially we should be fine, but we are concerned now as we both do matched betting and we stopped when we first listed the house, but as no progress was being made and house sales take ages to go through etc, we started up again as the money it makes is too good to turn down.

This has all moved very very quickly and its caught us out, so mortgage broker is going to use a lender that is less likely to ask for statements as we have read that if they review statements they only count money going out through betting not money coming back in, in which case it will look like a car crash despite regular profit. The worrying starts now I guess! We both have very good credit and have never missed any payments or had any arrears so hoping it goes through fine. Fingers crossed as it wont be taken off the market until survey is booked in and we confirm we are happy with the results.

Update: DIP accepted and they only asked for payslips, woohoo.

spendinglikemad

Oh Tiglath that sounds like a massive organising exercise - good luck with the planning on that one and hope the cats play ball with you!!

When we moved my biggest worry was the cat as she was a previous feral rescue and hates being picked up and we only really get one chance to get her in a crate!
I had tried leaving the crate out for weeks with the door open and treats inside to get her comfortable going into it!!
We moved out and later that day I went round to find her on the drive sat there wondering what was going on. My son picked her up and lowered her into the crate and we got her in to our relief and drove round to the new house and as we had moved in that day we could just let her out into one room (dining room) for me that was the most stressful part of the move!!

we are all fingers and toes crossed that we hear from our solicitors this week (friday will be their expedited day to sort the land registry boundary and as far as we know thats the current bottleneck.......roll on Friday!!!


SLM

spendinglikemad

Well....I tried to chase up for an update with land registry - they are surprisingly vigilant on their website, unfortunately they will only update the solicitors not me, so they called the solicitors who then called me, no real information, slightly worrying as they said that the survey results needed to be reviewed by the lawyers - I know I shouldn't worry and it will do no good but now they cannot give me a date even though its expedited.

Going to have to find ways of occupying myself, something that doesn't involve eating as I have just comfort polished off a load of fluffy pancakes that I made yesterday morning for my daughter and her friends (I over estimated how much they would eat and now paying the price)

Seriously though this house conveyancing isn't good for my mental and physical health!!!

So as its half term its likely to go slowly - it will probably all happen next week as I have a business trip and won't be contactable easily on Mon and Tues - so bound to happen then!!

Working from home most of this week so will be boring you all with my ranting! In the office tomorrow and will make a nice little interlude by discussing kitchen plans at a showroom (hopefully when we have the money from this sale)

Hope its a productive and communicative week for everyone - I hate the radio silence.....

SLM

Cheery_Daff

Welcome Ashe, hope things go smoothly for you!

SLM I'm eating my way through our house move too :rotfl:

Been sorting out topping up the LPG tank this morning - it's would be helpful if I knew how empty 'nearly empty' was, but I don't without going round again. Going to sort an interim top up delivery as soon as we have a completion date, but they need 10 days notice at the minute so have emailed the solicitor saying if we don't exchange soon we'll have to change dates. He's emailed buyers solicitor (probably useless as it's THEIR buyer who is holding things up, not them - we're all waiting for Granny to get back from a cruise to confirm her ID and that she donated the deposit :rotfl: )

Can't see anything happening this week but I least I know who to ring to sort the gas out when it eventually does happen :rotfl:

liquoricet

We've exchanged! Apparently our buyers were still trying it on today and asked to wait another week to exchange!

So relieved that it's finally happened. Now to sort out all the moving stuff.