Is the whole property buying process too complicated?

p00hsticks

in_my_wellies said:

Much simpler in NZ too.
My niece saw a property go on the market on a Thursday am, viewed pm. Offered Friday am, accepted pm. Moved in the following Friday 

Did they have to arrange finance, or was that all done prior to intially seeing the property ?

 And was a survey of the property available ? If not, what took place for them to be happy that the house was sound and worth what they agreed to pay ?

I can't help feeling that some of these examples are consisting of many of the same steps that happen here, but done in a different order and/or by different parties (for example, buyers having to obtain a mortgage before even starting to view a property, or the seller having to have a survey available prior to the house even being put onto the market).  Or are mortgage companies, solicitors, surveyors etc really that much quicker elsewhere ?

davidmcn

p00hsticks said:

in_my_wellies said:

Much simpler in NZ too.
My niece saw a property go on the market on a Thursday am, viewed pm. Offered Friday am, accepted pm. Moved in the following Friday 

Or are mortgage companies, solicitors, surveyors etc really that much quicker elsewhere ?

This, probably. In the 90s it wasn't that unknown (in Scotland at least) to be able to instruct a survey in the morning and have a verbal report back by the end of the day - but that's in the days when there was actually a demand for it, and buyers were prepared to possibly "waste" their money on one (because the norm was to get your survey before making an offer).

AdrianC

AskAsk said:

i find the delay is with the solicitors.  they have too many clients and so you have to wait in line for them to get round to your transaction.  it would be better if they charge more and take on more staff to work faster.

You are, of course, free to find such a solicitor now.

Most people, though, buy solely on price, and ignore the actual value for money.

Salemicus

You cannot shorten the process without removing some of the steps. That means giving up something. One reason you can buy a car much more easily than a house is because your neighbours have no say regarding your car. We allow (rightly or wrongly) a whole range of different interests, other than the owner's, to be recognised over property. Just look at this forum, where every day we get a raft of people worrying about whether they should reduce an offer, or pull out of a purchase entirely, due to a whole raft of issues (planning, building regs, easements, covenants, land contamination, EWS1, ground rent, party wall issues, tree protection orders, etc) that would never occur in a car transaction.

If you could simplify a lot of this - e.g. so that you only had to do a search at the Land Registry, rather than the additional searches with local authorities and various other bodies - you could speed things up.

However, I have no time at all for people who complain that it's too easy for the buyer or seller to pull out. You are absolutely free in the current system, prior to exchange, to sign a binding contract obliging both parties to proceed or lose a deposit, unless there is a defect in title, failure to obtain a mortgage, or something similar. There are even companies offering such packages off-the-shelf. If you don't want this, that's on you, not the system.

joe90mitch

Salemicus said:

However, I have no time at all for people who complain that it's too easy for the buyer or seller to pull out. You are absolutely free in the current system, prior to exchange, to sign a binding contract obliging both parties to proceed or lose a deposit, unless there is a defect in title, failure to obtain a mortgage, or something similar. There are even companies offering such packages off-the-shelf. If you don't want this, that's on you, not the system.

It's not solely on you though, is it? If there's no obligation then the other party can tell you to do one. Even beyond that, I would hardly say this is common knowledge. Property transactions are confusing enough at the best of times, especially for first time buyers, and I wouldn't say such knowledge that you can easily come to such an agreement whilst everything else is being thrown at you is common.

Mickey666

Salemicus said:

You cannot shorten the process without removing some of the steps. That means giving up something. One reason you can buy a car much more easily than a house is because your neighbours have no say regarding your car. We allow (rightly or wrongly) a whole range of different interests, other than the owner's, to be recognised over property. Just look at this forum, where every day we get a raft of people worrying about whether they should reduce an offer, or pull out of a purchase entirely, due to a whole raft of issues (planning, building regs, easements, covenants, land contamination, EWS1, ground rent, party wall issues, tree protection orders, etc) that would never occur in a car transaction.

If you could simplify a lot of this - e.g. so that you only had to do a search at the Land Registry, rather than the additional searches with local authorities and various other bodies - you could speed things up.

However, I have no time at all for people who complain that it's too easy for the buyer or seller to pull out. You are absolutely free in the current system, prior to exchange, to sign a binding contract obliging both parties to proceed or lose a deposit, unless there is a defect in title, failure to obtain a mortgage, or something similar. There are even companies offering such packages off-the-shelf. If you don't want this, that's on you, not the system.

Good point!

Part of the problem, I think, is that the process isn't very well understood - judging by many of the qustions on here - and there's a lot of convention involved.  Eg deposits on exchange are widely expected to be 10%, yet I've never paid that much and have always negotiated significantly less.  And that's the point - the whole process is a negotiation and there are few, if any, legal rules governing the actual process.  If someone wants to buy a house without doing the searches, they can.  It would likely speed things up but it would also be quite risky, probably too risky for a mortgage lender anyway.

If there was an easy way to speed things up it would have been found by now.

AdrianC

Mickey666 said:

If there was an easy way to speed things up it would have been found by now.

Of course, there are a whole load of properties which routinely exchange contracts at the point of accepted offer, and complete within 28 days...

Auctions.

davidmcn

Salemicus said:

a binding contract obliging both parties to proceed or lose a deposit, unless there is a defect in title, failure to obtain a mortgage, or something similar.

The devil is in how you define all of those things though.

In Scotland we have theoretically binding offers, but invariably they'll be conditional on the buyer getting an acceptable mortgage offer - which leaves them pretty much non-binding until whatever stage that condition can be struck out. The sellers can't realistically have any oversight over the buyers' attempts to get finance or insist they take out a particular mortgage product.

ccfc1972

Definitely correct regarding the process not being fully understood by most people. This is my second house purchase and I still have no clue what's going on most of the time! 🙈

newsgroupmonkey_

davidmcn said:

p00hsticks said:

in_my_wellies said:

Much simpler in NZ too.
My niece saw a property go on the market on a Thursday am, viewed pm. Offered Friday am, accepted pm. Moved in the following Friday 

Or are mortgage companies, solicitors, surveyors etc really that much quicker elsewhere ?

This, probably. In the 90s it wasn't that unknown (in Scotland at least) to be able to instruct a survey in the morning and have a verbal report back by the end of the day - but that's in the days when there was actually a demand for it, and buyers were prepared to possibly "waste" their money on one (because the norm was to get your survey before making an offer).

It's not unheard of for a valuation survey to be done in 24 hours. The surveyor will provide the valuation same day. Now, whether the lender instructs in a reasonable time.........

So I have a question with those who've bought and moved in within a week or two.... do your lenders not need searches done? For us as buyers, this was the biggest hold up. I'm told we did OK as ours were only 6 weeks. I'm being told now that they're taking 3 months or more.