FTB - noobie questions

propertyrental

Jami74 said:

Smalltownhypocrite said:

Was it by any chance Reed Reins?

Am I allowed another question please? Do I wait for the mortgage broker/solicitor/estate agents to tell me when to book a survey, or do I do that asap? 

 

The survey, if you choose to have one, is for your benefit so it's up to you to arrange it, when you want.

Some buyers wait eg till their mortgage is approved, so they don't waste the survey money if their mortgage is declined.

However this slows down the whole process. Sellers also like to see the buyer moving forward on their purchase, which a survey indicates. If they think the buyer is stalling they might conclude the buyer is not serious, and so re-market in extreme case.

Note also that your mortgage lender will arrange a 'Valuation' of the property. Sometimes getting the lender to instruct their valuer to do a survey at the same time can save time/money (one visit to the property for both jobs), but this is not always the case, so ask about costs and shop around.

There's are also potential drawbacks to having the lender arrange the survey for you in that they will see the full survey not just the valuation.

NameUnavailable

Get the mortgage agreed (and their valuation survey) first, then get your own housebuyers/structural survey.

Before cancelling the conveyancers make sure that they haven't already carried out any work that might be chargeable (searches etc) or you'll end up paying twice.

EssexHebridean

One thing I will add regarding solicitors paying referral fees to agents - the SRA are very clear these days that these must be declared, and must not be added to any charges to the client. 

I’d echo the advice to steer clear of using the in-house conveyancing service - particularly if, as it sounds, this might be one of the conveyancing factory type firms. Expect your chosen solicitor to issue you with a quotation in the first instance - this will set out everything they expect to charge. If you OK that and say you would like to instruct them you will be  asked to pay a sum on account of costs - I would expect between £350 - £500 - and then issued with a terms of retainer letter and probably a purchasers questionnaire which will ask you to confirm various details including your position for stamp duty. If you have a Help to Buy or Lifetime ISA to use make sure you tell the solicitor that at the outset. 

On the survey - the lender will conduct a valuation which might be in-person, but could well be virtual these days. You choose a surveyor to conduct your own homebuyers report or full survey (depending on which you choose) - you may decide to use a surveyor that a freeing or family member recommends, alternative ask your solicitor - they may well have someone they will recommend (and they will be likely to not want to risk their reputation by recommending anyone less than good) or alternatively the lender might have surveyors they could put you in touch with. 

Things you might want to think about doing now include starting to make a list of everyone you will need to inform of your change of address, and investigating removals firms if you are likely to need one.

Smalltownhypocrite

Jami74 said:

Smalltownhypocrite said:

Was it by any chance Reed Reins?

No not them. 

Okay, so I'll phone L&C first thing tomorrow and ask them to apply for the mortgage asap and I will find out how to cancel the estate agents/mortgage brokers solicitor. Phew!

Am I allowed another question please? Do I wait for the mortgage broker/solicitor/estate agents to tell me when to book a survey, or do I do that asap? 

Thanks everyone for advice.

 

You may want to clear the mortgage valuation first to know your definitely covered to get the house but in general you just book it whenever you want, its not a requirement to even have one (its nothing to do with EA except them organizing a time with the surveyor and nothing to do with the solicitor).

I personally did it sooner as then if it was going to fall down into an invisible sink hole or something shocking I can save on solicitor fees by pulling out before starting all the costly bits.

Bigphil1474

OP, we're just going through the process now. Glad to see you are ditching the EA's mortgage advisor and conveyancing. Usually just about them getting a fee and not what's best for you. We're using a local solicitor and it is working far better than our buyer who is using one of the national companies.

We are lucky that our mortgage was pretty much a shoe in - 15% LTV. We booked the survey as soon as we heard that our buyers survey had been okay and they were happy. As you are a FTB you can do this when you want. When we applied for our mortgage the valuation survey for the mortgage took about 5 seconds on line so not much info for us from that - presumably would have taken longer if the mortgage was more significant. Have a think about what level survey you want - if the house is anything older than 30 years I'd recommend going for a Level 3 structural survey. They cost more - we were quoted from £700 to £1,000 - but the report gives you a thorough understanding of the state of the property. Even if it doesn't say anything to stop you proceeding, it gives you an idea on where to start if fixing up is needed. We were quoted only about £150 to £200 less for L2 surveys, so made sense for us to go for a fuller survey. L3 are generally advised on old properties and properties that have been altered or you want to alter. You could go with a L2 survey if you are happy enough or have someone in the know. 

Albermarle

 Expect your chosen solicitor to issue you with a quotation in the first instance - this will set out everything they expect to charge. If you OK that and say you would like to instruct them you will be  asked to pay a sum on account of costs - I would expect between £350 - £500

Regarding solicitors quotes, this thread is quite interesting.

First time buyer — MoneySavingExpert Forum

FlyMeSomewhere79

We just recently went through the buying and selling process. L&C are really good mortgage brokers and our go to. What I will say is get yourself a good local solicitor, look up Google reviews etc. 

We turned down L&C's solicitor recommendation because we really didn't want a solicitor that was a long way away, our buyer made that mistake and his solicitor did cause a lot of problems and stress with delayed completion dates. It doesn't help.if you are being asked to send them things through the post because you live over 100 miles away and they weren't willing to do things electronically as was the case for my buyer and their solicitor.

Jami74

Thanks everyone! I submitted the mortgage application through the L&C portal last night (Sunday) and it's now 'tracking'. Says it's at the 'Gathering Documents' stage but there is nothing requested from me yet (I have a folder full of downloaded payslips, bank statements, photocopied ID etc all ready to go). Also got a text message from a survey company saying they have been instructed to do the mortgage lenders valuation and it will be a desktop one. Not sure if it meant that they had already sent it or that they would send it soon but either way something is happening.

I did choose to go with L&C's solicitor, and yes they are far away, but their quote was about £500 cheaper than the estate agents and included things like the HTB ISA charge. 

Hoping something more happens tomorrow. 

Jami74

Aaargh, estate agents still giving me a hard time for not wanting to use their solicitors. At that this rate I'm going to end up with 2 solicitors acting for me. Wish people could just take no for an answer and not make it so horrible.

Application moved on to 'Lender assessing'. Bit concerned that they did not want any documents from me .

RHemmings

Jami74 said:

Aaargh, estate agents still giving me a hard time for not wanting to use their solicitors. At that this rate I'm going to end up with 2 solicitors acting for me. Wish people could just take no for an answer and not make it so horrible.

Application moved on to 'Lender assessing'. Bit concerned that they did not want any documents from me .

Can you tell us a bit more about what you mean by 'hard time'? 

In your OP you asked what we would do in this situation. I'd be thinking about walking away. Might put a note through the door of the house to the seller to say that you are attempting to buy the house but you believe that the estate agents are not cooperating. Probably not quite yet, however. 

My buying situation was different, but I had a lot of pressure from an EA to do things their way. Which continued up until the point where I offered to solve the issue by walking away from the purchase. Whereby all pressure instantly stopped and never returned.

As I can be quite passive aggressive, in your situation I might send a letter/email to the EA saying that I feel that they are forcing me to use their in-house EA against my will. And, I'd look up the law to make sure that the way that I describe it describes an illegal situation.