Never moving house again!

dinosaur66

i used to be a house flipper in south east england and have bought lots of probate property / so no chain at all / no mortgage / straight forward as you can get and have found local solicitors / specialist conveyencing firms / out of my area solictors  / have found all of them deliver a very sub par service compared to the ammount  of money we have to pay them / 4 months the quickest

exception to the rule is conveyencing in scotland -fraction of the cost of england and 4 weeks offer to receive the keys

RHemmings

dinosaur66 said:

i used to be a house flipper in south east england and have bought lots of probate property / so no chain at all / no mortgage / straight forward as you can get and have found local solicitors / specialist conveyencing firms / out of my area solictors  / have found all of them deliver a very sub par service compared to the ammount  of money we have to pay them / 4 months the quickest

exception to the rule is conveyencing in scotland -fraction of the cost of england and 4 weeks offer to receive the keys

But, surely you are reliant on the other parties, including their solicitors. 

In my case I was: cash purchase, no chain. My solicitors (who were local and not cheap) didn't delay anything as far as I was aware, and I didn't delay anything. But, sometimes we were left waiting for the other side, who would take ages and then complain that things weren't going fast enough. 

Havanese

Anybody had issues with negligent surveyors? I'm stuck in a horrendous ordeal and have been for three years.
No faith in RICS, CEDR or Estate agents

koalakoala

Four to six weeks in Scotland 

dinosaur66

RHemmings said:

dinosaur66 said:

i used to be a house flipper in south east england and have bought lots of probate property / so no chain at all / no mortgage / straight forward as you can get and have found local solicitors / specialist conveyencing firms / out of my area solictors  / have found all of them deliver a very sub par service compared to the ammount  of money we have to pay them / 4 months the quickest

exception to the rule is conveyencing in scotland -fraction of the cost of england and 4 weeks offer to receive the keys

But, surely you are reliant on the other parties, including their solicitors. 

In my case I was: cash purchase, no chain. My solicitors (who were local and not cheap) didn't delay anything as far as I was aware, and I didn't delay anything. But, sometimes we were left waiting for the other side, who would take ages and then complain that things weren't going fast enough. 

TBH not got a clue what i was waiting on bar the conveyencers dragging there feet

the propertys i bought were empty by and large owners deceased or had gone into care / all bungalows / all needing full refurb

i was buying cash like yourself

no chain below or above me

when i bought in the town where i live i refused all searches conveyencers wanted me to have

i did not need a survey or valuation or mortgage

proof of funds was sorted when i put the offer in

the process just drags and drags and is galling when you want to do the work before winter kicks in .

in scotland by contrast you are texted /phoned/videocalled nearly every 2 days going through paperwork/ missives/ contracts /

they are really on top of it and if you are all ready and prepared it is done in 4 weeks .

in essex and london which is where i bought like you they were not cheap and thats even stripping out there extras it always took 4 months with very  little contact

BungalowBel

We recently sold our buy-to-let flat to a first-time buyer.  So no chain at either end and the buyer's mortgage was sorted very quickly.  Ten-year-old purpose built flat with no issues, no cladding etc.

It still took six months for the conveyancing.  That seems to be the normal timescale now.

twopenny

Perhaps I'm fortunate in that my solicitors and agents are a 10min walk away so know I'll be there wanting answers if it's not going right.

Worst was trying to deal with buyers online agents who were never there.

I've only sold once but first buyer changed their mind, second offered a bonus to wait till their house sold - but no one told me it wasn't even on the market!! 

Final buyer dragged their feet as suggest on the internet, long gaps between surveys and last minute appointments, make it difficult for the seller right into winter and for long enough and they'll reduce the price. Like heck they will.

So I've sworn that if there's a next time I'll sit back and relax, pay the removals to pack everything and stay in a hotel/caravan until it's sorted.

Not my usual take on life but reckon it would be worth it.

SadieO

[Deleted User] said:

Got to be fair its been 25 years since I last moved and I'm staying here until I die. The entire house sale/purchase is a nightmare.

I don't know who's worse other people or the solicitors.

I don't understand why you'd take 3 weeks to send a form back to your solicitor when you're buying or selling a house? I did every form in max 2 days..... Solicitors don't help because they appear to just sit back and wait for something to happen.

I had the seller of our house "disappear" for 3 weeks for no apparent reason. The estate agent and their solicitor left many messages for them in this time. Ended up having to cancel the survey I'd booked - they "forgot". Jeez.

I feel your pain! Our sellers went on holiday twice for two weeks at a time while we were buying, and went incommunicado. Their solicitor told ours they were in a hotel in Europe so I'm sure they could have found WiFi once a day and checked their messages at least. It's not like they were backpacking in Peru or something. You'd think they weren't keen on facilitating us giving them hundreds of thousands of pounds?!? It was an empty house that they'd inherited years ago, rented out and then decided to sell so it was basically bonus money for them. We were moving from rented so no chain either - I sometimes wonder if it would have been quicker if there was a chain, as there might have been more pressure on them to keep things moving??

We wanted to make sure no delays were on our part so we filled in and returned everything we were sent on the day we got it. Even for things that we needed to sign and return in hard copy (why in this day and age??) - we opened the post, signed the forms, went into town and hand delivered them back to the solicitor's office the same day. 

[Deleted User]

Elliott.T123 said:

I was in a fortunate position a few years back to be buying a property off of a close family member. We used different solicitors, as my buyer was already using the same solicitor as I was and the solicitors said they had enough staff to easily do those two but adding the 3rd property in the chain would make it harder to keep conflicts out so recommended one of us use a different one.

As we were in constant contact we always knew what was happening and were able to use that as a bit of a stick to hit the solicitors with. When we were told "we are just waiting for your seller to return XYZ" we could say, well I know for a fact that was sent 3 days ago so that's not true. I think in the end they just got things done ASAP to get rid of us as we called them out so often!

Yep I've caught our solicitor with that lie

[Deleted User]

Jeez the system is just awful. 16 weeks now and theres no chain.

Like someone said, you can't tell whos lying (I suspect all of them are at some point). Your solicitor, their solicitor or the vendor. All blame each other.