First to exchange

ohdarn

Pepod said:

How many viewings you have and how quickly properties become sale agreed is almost irrelevant to your situation. The only thing that really matters to you is that someone can exchange within 4 weeks. Whether a buyer is BTL or resi doesn't really matter either, as neither person will want to just throw money away to solicitors knowing that the house could go somewhere else on the last day. I think the best think you can do is to declare your deadline to buyers and if one is happy to take the risk and proceed then take it off the market for them. It still leaves them open to risk as if (from what you say) exchange is missed by one day due to an anomaly or hiccup then they will be out all their fees.

Thanks, I would agree with that but in order for that to work, we'd have to cancel our current buyer and we're not prepared to do that.
We'll declare the situation to anyone viewing, if they choose not to go ahead then that's fine.
Anyone could say they'll complete in four weeks no problem, especially if they think they'll get a last minute bargain before the stamp duty deadline but there's no guarantee they'll honour it and then we'll be stuffed.

Pepod

I somehow missed that you still had the original buyer on the table. Can you not push for more details from them as to what the hold up is?

Whilst I agree people can (and do) lie/deceive, don't forget that if you're up front about taking the house off the market if exchange doesn't happen in 4 weeks, someone lying about that is only shooting themselves in the foot too with their own fees.

hazyjo

ohdarn said:

hazyjo said:

You're looking for a needle in a haystack. Do a poll here if you can to see how many people here would entertain a contract race. Especially with an entirely unrealistic deadline. I'd literally be throwing my money away, so you could definitely count me out!

Are the majority of the people on here BTL investors?
If not, the poll wouldn't accurately reflect our situation.
I don't think a month is an unrealistic deadline for a cash buyer, particularly if they own other properties in our local area.
Plus, it's not optional for us to have it go on for months again, so it's either four weeks or nothing.

Do remember to come back and update the thread. Would love to know the final outcome...

ohdarn

Pepod said:

I somehow missed that you still had the original buyer on the table. Can you not push for more details from them as to what the hold up is?

Whilst I agree people can (and do) lie/deceive, don't forget that if you're up front about taking the house off the market if exchange doesn't happen in 4 weeks, someone lying about that is only shooting themselves in the foot too with their own fees.

I have talked to the buyer on the phone on Friday. He does seem to be genuine and very keen (even offering us more money not to relist it).
The issue is that his lender has appointed its own solicitor and that solicitor has requested enquiries and wants to double check all of the work his conveyancer has done.

Our conveyancer has dealt with the lender's solicitor before and he didn't have kind words to say about them.

Also, no one can contact this solicitor apart from his conveyancer via email.
So it could take a day, or it could take three months, we just don't know.

Our buyer seems to think it should be next week, but then they have said something similar to that for the past three months.

We've had three offers this afternoon and it's all terribly confusing. One guy said he'd guarantee exchange within two weeks. He had an AIP but when I asked how long his lender might take to do the valuation and enquiries, he said his lender doesn't require a valuation or enquiries.
So I dunno what's happening 😁

ohdarn

hazyjo said:

ohdarn said:

hazyjo said:

You're looking for a needle in a haystack. Do a poll here if you can to see how many people here would entertain a contract race. Especially with an entirely unrealistic deadline. I'd literally be throwing my money away, so you could definitely count me out!

Are the majority of the people on here BTL investors?
If not, the poll wouldn't accurately reflect our situation.
I don't think a month is an unrealistic deadline for a cash buyer, particularly if they own other properties in our local area.
Plus, it's not optional for us to have it go on for months again, so it's either four weeks or nothing.

Do remember to come back and update the thread. Would love to know the final outcome...

Will do, it'll most likely be a just a wail of despair though 😁

Thrugelmir

ohdarn said:

Pepod said:

I somehow missed that you still had the original buyer on the table. Can you not push for more details from them as to what the hold up is?

Whilst I agree people can (and do) lie/deceive, don't forget that if you're up front about taking the house off the market if exchange doesn't happen in 4 weeks, someone lying about that is only shooting themselves in the foot too with their own fees.

The issue is that his lender has appointed its own solicitor and that solicitor has requested enquiries and wants to double check all of the work his conveyancer has done.

No lender is simply going to part with thousands of pounds because you are in a hurry. 

TBG01

ohdarn said:

Pepod said:

I somehow missed that you still had the original buyer on the table. Can you not push for more details from them as to what the hold up is?

Whilst I agree people can (and do) lie/deceive, don't forget that if you're up front about taking the house off the market if exchange doesn't happen in 4 weeks, someone lying about that is only shooting themselves in the foot too with their own fees.

The issue is that his lender has appointed its own solicitor and that solicitor has requested enquiries and wants to double check all of the work his conveyancer has done.

Where's the issue? It's standard practice to raise enquiries.

One guy said he'd guarantee exchange within two weeks. He had an AIP but when I asked how long his lender might take to do the valuation and enquiries, he said his lender doesn't require a valuation or enquiries.

AIP isn't a formal offer. Lenders don't raise enquiries. It's the Solicitor that does. Stop listening to people who don't know what they're talking about. Conveyancing takes time. 4 weeks is unrealistic. 

HampshireH

ohdarn said:

Pepod said:

How many viewings you have and how quickly properties become sale agreed is almost irrelevant to your situation. The only thing that really matters to you is that someone can exchange within 4 weeks. Whether a buyer is BTL or resi doesn't really matter either, as neither person will want to just throw money away to solicitors knowing that the house could go somewhere else on the last day. I think the best think you can do is to declare your deadline to buyers and if one is happy to take the risk and proceed then take it off the market for them. It still leaves them open to risk as if (from what you say) exchange is missed by one day due to an anomaly or hiccup then they will be out all their fees.

Thanks, I would agree with that but in order for that to work, we'd have to cancel our current buyer and we're not prepared to do that.
We'll declare the situation to anyone viewing, if they choose not to go ahead then that's fine.
Anyone could say they'll complete in four weeks no problem, especially if they think they'll get a last minute bargain before the stamp duty deadline but there's no guarantee they'll honour it and then we'll be stuffed.

So all those with viewings booked have had this declared to them or are you potentially just wasting their time and planning on telling them during the viewing.

This should really be in your advert.

You also say BTL but you are doing viewings with FTB - are they cash buyers to be BTL?

I'd be fuming if I had taken an afternoon off work to view a property I thought I could be my first house to be told you already have a buyer and to gee them along you are conducting further viewings and its first to exchange wins.

Just wasting people's time by not being upfront about it at the time of booking or in the advert.

ohdarn

Thrugelmir said:

ohdarn said:

Pepod said:

I somehow missed that you still had the original buyer on the table. Can you not push for more details from them as to what the hold up is?

Whilst I agree people can (and do) lie/deceive, don't forget that if you're up front about taking the house off the market if exchange doesn't happen in 4 weeks, someone lying about that is only shooting themselves in the foot too with their own fees.

The issue is that his lender has appointed its own solicitor and that solicitor has requested enquiries and wants to double check all of the work his conveyancer has done.

No lender is simply going to part with thousands of pounds because you are in a hurry. 

I don't really understand what your point is, but cheers anyway.

ohdarn

TBG01 said:

ohdarn said:

Pepod said:

I somehow missed that you still had the original buyer on the table. Can you not push for more details from them as to what the hold up is?

Whilst I agree people can (and do) lie/deceive, don't forget that if you're up front about taking the house off the market if exchange doesn't happen in 4 weeks, someone lying about that is only shooting themselves in the foot too with their own fees.

The issue is that his lender has appointed its own solicitor and that solicitor has requested enquiries and wants to double check all of the work his conveyancer has done.

Where's the issue? It's standard practice to raise enquiries.

One guy said he'd guarantee exchange within two weeks. He had an AIP but when I asked how long his lender might take to do the valuation and enquiries, he said his lender doesn't require a valuation or enquiries.

AIP isn't a formal offer. Lenders don't raise enquiries. It's the Solicitor that does. Stop listening to people who don't know what they're talking about. Conveyancing takes time. 4 weeks is unrealistic. 

Yes I realise enquires are standard practice. Enquiries for our property have already been raised by our buyers conveyancer and satisfied by our conveyancer.

The issue is that the buyers lender has appointed a separate solicitor to act on the lender's behalf and that solicitor has raised enquiries about our property (and possibly the entirety of our buyers property portfolio) and passed those enquiries onto our buyers conveyancer.

Once those enquiries have been dealt with, the lenders solicitor wants to check all of the work carried out by the buyers conveyancer.
We don't know how long that process might take.

As I've pointed out, we only have four weeks. Whether that is realistic or not is immaterial.
If there's a possibility that a buyer can complete within that time, then we'll give it a go