The NEW waiting to exchange thread...

mlb95

fleur8 said:

mlb95 said:

fleur8 said:

We’re all ready to exchange but the co-freeholder is essentially blocking the sale. If we don’t exchange by Friday we have to pull out. Never expected this to happen!

Sorry Fleur8 , you've probably said earlier on but there's a lot of messages to read. Why might you have to pull out ? Have they been messing you around a lot ? I hope it gets sorted for you ! 🤞

Well we are buying one of two flats in a building as share of freehold. The co-freeholder has suddenly decided that they want to extend the lease but they’re adding a lot of amendments that may affect us negatively I assume. They refuse to send the LPE1 form unless we agree to the lease extension. This form is conditional on the sale. We have a strict deadline due to our rental property and time is running out so I think we’ll have to pull out. I reckon I can’t be bothered to go through this process again. I’d rather just keep renting really. 

Gosh ! That's incredibly annoying and frustrating for you. I hope you have better luck next time if there is next time. This whole process is so much more stressful than I appreciated... 

FlashBuy

I will not say anything new here because I am in a same situation as many of you: pre xmas exchange. 
No chain ftb, our offer accepted end of August.
All the paperwork is completed, we are just waiting for the bank. First, for two weeks solicitors were saying that they are "reporting to the lender". Does it take two weeks to report? Now, we have been waiting for bank to get back to my solicitor. It's been another two weeks. One of the days solicitor mentioned that they checked post and there was nothing from then lender. Post, really? What if that post may have been lost somewhere! I phoned my broker and asked him to chase lender, he promised to but didn't not get back to me. Next day solicitor said that bank informed that they are doing another evaluation just to see if property didn't go down in price. Another few days and no progress.
I'm starting to think that we will not be able to complete the purchase this year. We really wanted to move to our own property before winter, as the place we are renting is cheap and very cold, and we already got sick. This all is very disappointing, I could not have imagined that "no chain" can take so long. But I have to accept the fact and be calm, and not keep my hopes high. Hope you all will stay sane too.

Bad_Accountant

Bad_Accountant said:

AIP Sept 2019 (Halifax)
... about 20-odd viewings including complete horrors :rotfl:
18/10/2019 Offer accepted on property, £5k below asking price
26/10/2019 Mortgage application via broker done (changed to Barclays for best rate)
04/11/2019 Underwriters approve
05/11/2019 EA confirms that our vendors have found a chain-free property to move into - chain of three complete :shocked:
06/11/2019 valuation
08/11/2019 mortgage approved, solicitor instructed
Good grief - so after all this ...[saga of seller's conveyancers being appallingly slow. Absolute pile of clowns. etc. who made a simple transaction take FAR longer than necessary. Never use Muve conveyancers!]

25/03/2020 pulled out of sale due to my OH's job being on the rocks with COVID. Much wailing and gnashing of teeth
[Lockdown, working from home, you know the drill]Early September got 15% deposit together
Re-offered on former house as it was still on market, offer accepted, solicitor instructed!
Sellers say they're moving in with family once they sell so we are buying CHAIN FREE
26/10/2020 mortgage approved .... again ... a year after we first got it approved!

30/10/2020 - engaged surveyor for homebuyer's report for a truly obscene price ... but they were the only decent ones without a six-week wait. If something's badly wrong I want to know ASAP!

12/11/2020 - Survey booked for 20/11/2020. As long as that's all OK solicitor says we should be able to exchange on the 4th and complete on the 11th December. Might own a house this time next month.
17/11/2020 - searches and queries back. No obvious problems!
20/11/2020 - Homebuyer's report survey done,
23/11/2020 - draft contract and deeds through from solicitor
24/11/2020 - Homebuyer's report back, no showstopping issues! Hooray!

28/11/2020 - returned all signed documents. Sellers conveyancers are now saying they don't want to exchange on a Friday because they're usually very busy Fridays and it might not go through ... eyeroll
30/11/2020 - life savings safely transferred to solicitor. Planning to exchange this week - as early as tomorrow if the two conveyancers respond quickly. Quite positive now.

1/12/2020 - WE HAVE EXCHANGED!!

It took 13 months from offer to exchange (with a little pandemic in the middle)

Just got to avoid death or severe injury, job loss, bankruptcy or (further...) global economic collapse before Friday 11th

It still hasn't sunk in tbh! Thanks to everyone who shares their timelines/experience, it's been a big help.

And we have completed as expected. Good luck to everyone struggling with their transactions. I hope you get things over the line as desired and there is light at the end of the tunnel!

Mineral1

Dont know if our solicitor is happy with the vendors' proposed covid rider, but they have confirmed they will pull out of the transaction if we dont exchange by Friday 18th. Not really sure what to do. Think the issue is it would be too long between exchange and completion (looking at January 29th) even with the covid rider in place so our solicitor wouldnt allow it.

Has anyone else got experience of this? This purchase has dragged on 6 months now and I feel as if it's all going to come apart now after lots of time and expense.

ktf2020

Would love advice! Our seller can't find a removal company with space on the 18th so we're discussing completing on the 18th and then us moving in/her moving out on the 21st.

We've got a good relationship (she's already let us move in some of our furniture and is leaving a lot of the hers for us) and it would actually suit us better to move on the 21st anyway. The next possible moving date being proposed is the 4th Jan which would be really hard for us both as back at work after the xmas break.

Is this is a bad idea?

Slithery

ktf2020 said:

Would love advice! Our seller can't find a removal company with space on the 18th so we're discussing completing on the 18th and then us moving in/her moving out on the 21st.

We've got a good relationship (she's already let us move in some of our furniture and is leaving a lot of the hers for us) and it would actually suit us better to move on the 21st anyway. The next possible moving date being proposed is the 4th Jan which would be really hard for us both as back at work after the xmas break.

Is this is a bad idea?

A terrible idea. But your lender won't agree anyway.

mm1985

We got a call from our solicitor on 10/12 inviting us to come in and sign contracts on 21/12. We got another call today from
our solicitor say this now isn’t an option because our buyers local authority search has not returned yet. There are 3 house in the chain, all houses are in the same city and the rest have received all searches and are ready to talk exchange and completion if it wasn’t for this one search. Any ideas how I could speed this up? I’m half tempted to call my local authority on Monday and find out what the hold up is but I’m not sure if I can as it’s the search on our property for our buyers. 

Beeboo23

We finally exchanged today and will complete on Tuesday!!

badger09

mm1985 said:

We got a call from our solicitor on 10/12 inviting us to come in and sign contracts on 21/12. We got another call today from
our solicitor say this now isn’t an option because our buyers local authority search has not returned yet. There are 3 house in the chain, all houses are in the same city and the rest have received all searches and are ready to talk exchange and completion if it wasn’t for this one search. Any ideas how I could speed this up? I’m half tempted to call my local authority on Monday and find out what the hold up is but I’m not sure if I can as it’s the search on our property for our buyers. 

There is nothing to stop you signing (but not dating) contracts at any convenient time prior to exchange. We signed ours for our sale on 5th November (didn't need to go into solicitors, but as they're local, we posted them through their door rather than RM) and are hoping to exchange before Christmas. Solicitor just keeps them and dates them when everyone is ready to exchange. 

As far as searches are concerned, it is very unlikely that they were all applied for on the same day. We were told by both Estae agent and solicitor that on average, searches in our area were taking 2 -3 weeks. In fact, one took over 8 weeks.

mm1985

badger09 said:

mm1985 said:

We got a call from our solicitor on 10/12 inviting us to come in and sign contracts on 21/12. We got another call today from
our solicitor say this now isn’t an option because our buyers local authority search has not returned yet. There are 3 house in the chain, all houses are in the same city and the rest have received all searches and are ready to talk exchange and completion if it wasn’t for this one search. Any ideas how I could speed this up? I’m half tempted to call my local authority on Monday and find out what the hold up is but I’m not sure if I can as it’s the search on our property for our buyers. 

There is nothing to stop you signing (but not dating) contracts at any convenient time prior to exchange. We signed ours for our sale on 5th November (didn't need to go into solicitors, but as they're local, we posted them through their door rather than RM) and are hoping to exchange before Christmas. Solicitor just keeps them and dates them when everyone is ready to exchange. 

As far as searches are concerned, it is very unlikely that they were all applied for on the same day. We were told by both Estae agent and solicitor that on average, searches in our area were taking 2 -3 weeks. In fact, one took over 8 weeks.

I’m not sure why our solicitor doesn’t do it this way as my dad who is also moving has done the same thing. I am hoping my estate agent can get in touch with our buyers solicitor and find out when searches were submitted to get an idea of when we should expect them back and be able to move forward. We know it’s the local authority searches which apparently are very delayed at the moment.