The NEW waiting to exchange thread...

anerise

curtisdrive said:

Our buyers have waited ages to get their searches done.  No they have them they have decided they want a survey done.  We were hoping to exchange ASAP and our house, a new build is ready and the builders want us in  by end of June or they will remarket the house.  I'm a bit concerned why out buyers have asked for this.  Also, can this be organised in such a short time frame?   We have had a walk through our house, paid upfront for upgrades.  Getting a bit nervous now.

Isn’t it standard to get a survey done as a buyer? I’ve just commissioned a homebuyers survey myself- the firm I’m using is saying a week to get the surveyor out then 3-4 days to get the report back and they’re one of the quicker ones atm 

curtisdrive

Left some info out.  They put their offer in February and thought they would have done this then.  Maybe its all down to Covid but they have been dragging their feet the whole way I wonder why they put an offer in.

Missy79

The searches may well have altered their position with regards to needing a survey. For instance, mine noted the potential for natural ground movement; this along with a lack of paperwork for alterations to the property (which obviously didn't come to light until further in the process) and observing a crack that we hadn't seen at first viewing meant that we then felt the need to get a full structural survey. A full survey is a significant cost, if they have actually arranged this then they are probably still committed to the purchase.

anerise

Got our mortgage offer yesterday so I’m here now, finally! First time buyer, bottom of a short chain of 3.
Our offer was accepted in early March, but mortgage has only just gone through as the property needed a physical valuation. In the interim all the searches have been done and the only issue that has cropped up is that we’re in a radon area so trying to negotiate a possible radon bond with the seller. Homebuyers survey to be done this week too!

What are people’s thoughts about exchanging/completing simultaneously at the moment? I know it was the norm during lockdown but are people still doing it? To be honest I’d prefer it as the situation with COVID-19 is still pretty unstable, we wouldn’t need to move same day though so I don’t know how our sellers will feel about it.

kjelyse

anerise said:

What are people’s thoughts about exchanging/completing simultaneously at the moment? I know it was the norm during lockdown but are people still doing it? To be honest I’d prefer it as the situation with COVID-19 is still pretty unstable, we wouldn’t need to move same day though so I don’t know how our sellers will feel about it.

I'm wondering the same thing! I'd prefer to exchange and complete on the same day (or within a couple of days, definitely not 7+!) but move in a week or two later. The house has artex ceilings and very few plug sockets, so I'd be want to get some work done before I drag all of my stuff from London to Yorkshire. 

I got my homebuyers survey done over a week ago but only just kicked off the searches, fingers crossed there's no big issues ...

StInWom

kjelyse said:

anerise said:

What are people’s thoughts about exchanging/completing simultaneously at the moment? I know it was the norm during lockdown but are people still doing it? To be honest I’d prefer it as the situation with COVID-19 is still pretty unstable, we wouldn’t need to move same day though so I don’t know how our sellers will feel about it.

I'm wondering the same thing! I'd prefer to exchange and complete on the same day (or within a couple of days, definitely not 7+!) but move in a week or two later - the house has artex ceilings and very few plug sockets, so I'd be want to get some work done before I drag all of my stuff from London to Yorkshire. 

I got my homebuyer's survey done over a week ago but only just kicked off the searches, fingers crossed there's no big issues ...

That's exactly what we are planning: exchange/completion on the 19th (fingers crossed!) and then move on the 25th to give us a few days to take care of the walls, repaint a couple of rooms, buy some things we might need... The exchange and completion on the same day was recommended by our solicitor to make sure nothing would delay the completion once the contract would have been exchanged, in these uncertain times. Everything is ready now, we got our insurance in place and transferred our deposit already (I like to be prepared ), we're just waiting for it to happen!

PJBRFC

PJBRFC said:

Thought I might add our long winded story into this thread.
6th December we accepted an offer on our house, same day we had an offer accepted on the house we wanted. Our house had only been on the market for 4 weeks. 

• 8th Jan - Draft contracts sent/received. 
• 10th Jan - Mortgage offer received.
• 18th Jan - Report on title received from solicitors, including all search results. 
• 3rd Feb - Homebuyers report done.
• 14th Feb - Report received, happy with contents. Meanwhile we'd barely heard anything from our buyers solicitors and our solicitors were struggling to contact them.
• 24th Feb - Purchase pretty much ready to go, all enquiries answered. Just waiting for enquiries on our sale.
• Circa 27th Feb - Call from EA, our vendors have pulled out of the sale with no real reason given. Lots of wasted money and annoyance our side. We decide to go ahead with the sale of our house anyway as it was a 5 year old new build and we wanted to escape fleecehold management fees that were beginning to grow. Management company was awful. 
• 17th March - Enquiries almost answered on sale. Struggling to get some info from management company that buyers solicitor requested. Meanwhile we'd had an offer rejected on another house and decided we weren't willing to pay anymore. Viewed 5 other houses, none were what we wanted.
• 21st March - Move most of our house into storage and move in with in-laws.
• 9th April - Agree to simultaneously exchange/complete on 17th April. Had to get new redemption figures from HtB and Nationwide. Originally meant to complete on 27th March, but delays with buyers solicitors prevented that.
• 16th April - Buyers change mind and want £5000 off the price. We say no it's too late and we will re-market the property. A nervous 5 hours later, buyers confirm they will proceed as planned. 
• 17th April - Complete house sale.
• 23rd April - Call from EA we were originally buying from. Original vendor now wants to sell again. We re-negotiated 10K off the price to cover our storage and move to in-laws (we are paying them rent). Solicitor confirms all previous work done was still valid and that we would continue where we left off from our abortive transaction. They went back to vendors solicitors to confirm that nothing had changed with enquiries and the situation. (They are moving to rented).
• 28th April - Revised mortgage application goes into Barclays.
• 21 May - Mortgage offer issued and solicitors/EA confirm we are ready to go as soon as offer is received at solicitors.

Our solicitors have been fantastic the whole way through this process, and have been contactable and working throughout the pandemic. We just want to get into the new house now before anything else can go wrong. I've also learnt that paying for a good solicitor and a good local EA are crucial to the process. Our EA was fantastic at chasing the useless solicitor our buyer had chosen. 

Well we got our mortgage offer and there were issues with address duplication by Barclays and this had to be resolved. Solicitor finally had the correct offer faxed to them yesterday. Funds released to solicitor today and we are due to exchange/complete tomorrow. I hope nothing goes wrong now, this process has taken long enough!

Squirrelz92

Hello everyone,
I thought I would join this thread as my house purchase is moving a lot faster than what we had anticipated so I am very excited! Here is my timeline so far:
28th May - First offer made on the house after viewing
29th May - Offer accepted and solicitors instructed. Mortgage broker informed. 
31st May - All document sent to mortgage broker in preparation for mortgage application.
3rd June - Hard check by lender approved. Lender valuation fee paid and mortgage application submitted.
4th June - Mortgage offer approved pending valuation on the 6th
5th June - Surveyor instructed and paid. Documents signed and supporting paperwork sent across to solicitors to start disbursements/searches.
6th June - Lenders valuation
10th June - Homebuyer's survey report being carried out

It's all happening sooooo fast! There was me thinking all of this alone would take weeks! I am a first time buyer purchasing a house by myself  

broga020

It’s so good to see people moving to exchange and getting their mortgage offers finally in 
I’m hoping Barclays will sort my mortgage out soon but I’m losing hope. Applied early March and had a valuation booked but it was cancelled because of lockdown. Since then, nothing. The broker can’t get any information from them and I can’t either. It’s a new build so needs a physical valuation but I’ve got no idea why they’ve switched on radio silence. I can’t determine if I should just try another lender or not. 

SPAT34

anerise said:

What are people’s thoughts about exchanging/completing simultaneously at the moment? I know it was the norm during lockdown but are people still doing it? To be honest I’d prefer it as the situation with COVID-19 is still pretty unstable, we wouldn’t need to move same day though so I don’t know how our sellers will feel about it.

I am hopefully not too far away from exchange/completion. We haven't discussed it since the beginning of lockdown so I'm not sure what our solicitor is recommending now, but there was another option mentioned before of having a clause in the contract, that would mean if somebody in the chain has to self isolate after exchange  and therefore can't complete on time, it would allow flexibility/no penalties.