The NEW waiting to exchange thread...

Sanne

After lots of backs and forth this morning it’s happening - exchange is currently going through the chain (four parties), fingers crossed!

All in all exactly five weeks since offer has been accepted, completion is set for 19/10 (teacher in chain so works with half term - and we only have a one month overlap rent & mortgage).

Excited!!! And now I need to work until midnight, arranged to work from home but it’s been taken up by making exchange happen!

Finchy2018

I feel like progress is being made kind of!

8 Sep - Viewed property
10 Sep - Offer put forward/ negotiations/ offer accepted
24 Sep -Applied for Mortgage
2 Oct - Mortgage Valuation
3 Oct - info and fees sent to sols
4 Oct - Mortgage office received and informed chain is completed

We are FTB in a chain of 5, I've been advised we are looking at 6 - 8 weeks as everyone wants to move quickly. is that optimistic?

We're in rented and in no rush so it's not the end of the world if it takes longer, I have 2 months rent saved as planned to serve notice after exchange, which will allow us to refit bathroom before we move in.

Emma2409

Have been lurking on here for a while- hearing that we haven’t been the only ones completely messed about by the seller has made me feel marginally better!
We had an offer accepted on a house on the 27th June on the basis that it was chain free and the people living there were friends of the seller who could move out with a weeks notice. It took his solicitor 3 weeks to send any paperwork over and this was not the draft contract but confirmation that half the garden was owned by someone else! So we patiently waited until 26th September for the adverse possession claim to be resolved by the land registry and signed all our paperwork last week. We were assuming that we would be able to exchange and complete almost straight away but now he is saying he can’t complete until November, some story about how him mother is in hospital and he needs to get the people living there out. To say we are fuming is an understatement- every time we seem to be making any sort of progress he slows things down again and again! If it was just us it would be fine but we have to move our daughter to a new pre school and mess about with giving notice to nurseries and settle her in to the new one. I also have a 6 month old baby and feel like most of my maternity leave has been ruined by all the stress of this transaction. I’m not convinced he even wants to sell- if he did he would be making some sort of effort to speed things up. We love the house but we are now 4 months on from a simple no chain property purchase and I just feel like there’s no end in sight.

happytails

UPDATED TIMELINE
House went on market late July, offer received 27th September and the chain is complete now, 4 sets of people in it - not too bad i hope! I'm crossing my fingers for a pre Christmas house move.

Timeline -

27/09 - Offer accepted on ours and our offer accepted on new house
28/09 - Solicitors appointed
02/10 - Mortgage advisor starts application to port existing mortgage & borrow additional funds.
03/10 - Pack arrives from Solicitors to fill in. Memoradum of sale arrives for the property we wish to purchase. Also contacted a surveyor for a home buyers report to be carried out in due course.
04/10 - MA emails to ask for Valuation fee. - Holding off for now until those below us in the chain are at that point. The Mortgage company are sending documents via post to read/sign.

Really hope things pick up and the 2 below us get their valuations/surveys done soon! I would love to get to thinking of a move date soon - I need to plan!

Sarah

mooma29

mooma29 wrote: »

I'm still thumb twiddling/trying to convince myself to put my house back on the market.
accepted an offer on our house on 10th July. Had an offer accepted on the house we want to buy on 15th July. the buying part is going swimmingly, the selling part is not. our buyers have had snag after snag, and are still waiting for a mortgage offer, they say that their broker has said it will be ok, but two of the brokers on this site have answered my questions on another thread and it sounds like they probably wont get one, so I know remarketing is the sensible thing to do..... I cant do it for a couple of days anyway for various reasons but I'm struggling to decide, because if it is only a case of waiting another week or two, I'm going to be at least that looking for another buyer aren't I. it all makes my head hurt.

well wonders will never cease I have had a message from my buyer to say their mortgage offer is finally on its way. Maybe just maybe I might get to put my Christmas tree up in a new house....

Sanne

We’ve exchanged!

28/08 - offer on house 2 made and instructed solicitor to hold fire on house 1
30/08 - offer on house 2 accepted
30/08 - 1st full mortgage application cancelled and new full mortgage application submitted via broker
03/09 - survey for homebuyer report taken place
07/09 - valuation survey taken place
07/09 - received search results from our solicitor (some purchased from previous buyer’s solicitor hence that quick). Solicior also received draft contract & other paperwork from seller’s solicitor this week
10/09 - received mortgage offer (email, waiting for paper version)
11/09 - checked in with solicitor and confirmed that all search results are back and they’ll go through paperwork in a couple of days when solicitor is Back from holiday
14/09 - finally received survey report. Few things flagged up and losing the will to live trying to get someone to quote for the work
25/09 - chain has agreed to completion date of 19/10. Should receive contract at the end of this week to sign.
28/09 - contract and other paperwork received, one enquiry still outstanding
02/10 - returned paperwork/contract
04/10 - last minute panic over an outstanding enquiry - solicitor suddenly wanted a TPO which would have delayed things. Luckily sellers solicitor knew that a solicitor further up the chain had one so all resolved within 1/2 day
05/10 - exchanged contracts 🎉

bigstevex

We’ve been on holiday for 3 weeks, tried contacting our solicitor 3 times in last week to make sure we’re good to exchange the week we get back off holiday and we’ve been completely ignored. Emails ignored, phone calls not returned. What happens if we choose to swap solicitors at such a late stage? It’s not a small company either, well known local company with multiple offices.

The most worrying part is the most recent auto reply direct to our solicitor ...
‘This email address is now closed, please contact the office...’

Has our specific solicitor left I wonder...

PassingOutInTheParade

bigstevex wrote: »

We’ve been on holiday for 3 weeks, tried contacting our solicitor 3 times in last week to make sure we’re good to exchange the week we get back off holiday and we’ve been completely ignored. Emails ignored, phone calls not returned. What happens if we choose to swap solicitors at such a late stage? It’s not a small company either, well known local company with multiple offices.

The most worrying part is the most recent auto reply direct to our solicitor ...
‘This email address is now closed, please contact the office...’

Has our specific solicitor left I wonder...

It could complicate things even more if you were to change solicitors at this late stage.

Most conveyancing work isn't even done by solicitors themselves; it's their secretaries and paralegals that do it. So, you may end up with the same people.

Are you able to go into their office and sit and wait to speak to someone? Your presence in the waiting room may be enough to get them to respond.
Ask to speak to a senior partner.

Emma2409

So now we have been told that our seller doesn’t feel like he is ‘emotionally in a place to clear the property’ due to his mother’s illness and that he hopes we will be patient with him- he can’t suggest any dates to exchange or complete at this stage. I am absolutely beside myself and have even offered to clear the property and pay for storage myself to try to just buy this house! Because we haven’t exchanged we will be out of pocket with no recourse and with nowhere to live! We’ve given him a deadline of close of business tomorrow to decide whether he actually wants to sell his house or not- he isn’t even living there so could easily hire a man with a van to clear the house. The tenants are also firmly still at the property, I just cannot understand how people can act like this! 😡

pinkduvetdiva

Updates in bold:


24/6/18 - 1st viewing - this was the 4th property we'd viewed

31/6/18 - 2nd viewing

3/7/18 - 1st offer

4/7/18 - Offer rejected and 2nd offer made

6/7/18 - 2nd offer rejected

11/7/18 - 3rd offer

12/7/18 - Counteroffer

13/7/18 - Counteroffer accepted by us

14/7/18 - Accepted by seller

20/7/18 - Mortgage approval in principle

2/8/18 - Mortgage offer approved and homebuyers report paid for

21/7/18 - Proof of deposit & AIP received by EA - house taken off market

9/8/18 - Homebuyers report completed

17/9/18 - Draft contract received by our solicitor from sellers’ solicitor

18/9/18 - Searches submitted

19/9/18 - Contract queries raised with seller’s solicitor

2/10/18 - Search results received

5/10/18 - Found out from our solicitor that the sellers actually only own 75% of the house (a management company owns the other 25%)! I'm not overly concerned though - the sellers can hash that out with the management company once the sale has been completed.