Buying a house – How long can you mess about?

If you want the house and have paid all your surveys etc… You might risk pissing off your buyers by putting back the completion date, then why not just complete as currently progressing and move your stuff in at the end of June. No risk of losing the sales and maybe a months extra mortgage payments.

Are you paying with Paypal Gift?

How much disruption is moving going to have on your son? It wasn’t that much hassle for me when we’ve moved the last few times and I did all the packing and moving. All he’s got to do is tidy his room.

nd moving. All he’s got to do is tidy his room.

Now you see what the problem is. 😉

Thanks for all the advice. I’m happy that as soon as we are ready to exchange then we will let the vendors know there are some timescale issues that they’ll need to discuss at that point.

??? You really do need to tell these people now.

Tell em, be honest, most people appreciate honesty instead of being **** around.

As for estate agents they are all uselss b’stards (as are solicitors). We found our house 1st/2nd Dec 2009, and i had the keys by the 24th, though it took an extremely large amount of chasing solicotors and estate agents to get it done this quick.

So, you leave it until just before exchange and go, ‘oh by the way we can exchange tomorrow but can’t complete for another 8 weeks’. If that happened to me I’d be seriously chissed off.

Speak to them now – if its a deal breaker for them now it will be a deal breaker for them just before exchange also. Nothing will change.

You need to know their position and they need to know yours. Don’t lose the house through lack of communication.

Cheers

Danny B

??? You really do need to tell these people now.

Instead of next Tuesday?

Ah. Ahem. Ok, fair enough. That’s pretty soon.

I must not be making things clear.

Thanks everyone for the advice, it’s really appreciated.

But as I said in my original post, the exchange is being scheduled for the start of next week. This is less than a week from us receiving the home buyers report and two working days after receiving the agreed mortgage offer from the bank. That sounds really **** quick to me, way faster than they could have possibly anticipated and that was the whole reason for the question. I also said that I was considering telling them about when we were looking to finalise because our adviser suggested not doing that and it felt wrong to me. Finally, I pointed out twice that we originally felt no need to explain when we were expecting to finalise because all the advice we were given suggested normal timescales would be appropriate for our needs and there would be no need to manage their expectations and put them on edge.

I’ve also said I will happily pay them for the ONLY thing they have expressed concern about which is the council tax bill.

I’d be interested to hear how many people who seem to be getting a little anxious about this, make their offer and then without drawing breath say when they expect to finalise. I simply don’t believe anyone does that. I reckon everyone will do exactly what we’re doing, get all the valuations and surveys out of the way, accept that the house is definitely a buyer and then discuss timescales but because it normally takes longer to get to this specific stage, there is more opportunity to discuss.

Imagine if we were in a chain, they’d have to sit around for a lot longer waiting for us and we wouldn’t have to justify anything.

make their offer and then without drawing breath say when they expect to finalise.

We did…there’s the offer, we’re in no chain and we want to be in as soon as possible.

If you’re in a chain it’s more difficult to set the completion date, but people expect when an offer is made people are ready to go. Not that they want the house some point in the future. I think it’s fair to assume the sellers thought you were a good buyer as you’re not in a chain and they are probably expecting a quick sale…especially if they’ve corrected things before you’ve even known about them.

Tbh samuri I have this conversation at offer stage so I know what to expect timescale-wise going forward.

A good estate agent (there is the odd one) would tend to ask as well, as it may have a bearing on which offer the seller chooses to accept.

Cheers

Danny

They may have accepted the offer based on the knowledge there is no chain and are expecting a quick move.

Yeah, I appreciate that.
They’re getting a quick sale. 4 months from offer to completion still sounds pretty good to me especially in the current climate where houses we looked at a year a go are still on the market. I’m happy enough to move it back a few weeks if its a major issue for them.

Your OP suggested that while the intention of erveyone else was to get the exchange done next week, you were planning to hang on and not signe anything. If your buyers are amenable to it, there’s no reason for you to delay the exchange any further than that, just set a completion date at a mutually agreeable time

Fair point

when we sold our back in December ,first time buyers ,mortgage in place, took from offer to completion 8 wks.

We are now buying in Eire and have been now waiting 10 weeks for the land registry to pull the preverbial finger out,to remove a burden ,before we can complete.
This is now a cash purchase too.

But as seller I wanted completion asap ,also now as a buyer ,as living with inlaws 3 months is wearing thin……

Thought it was advisable to get your mortgage first and then go looking for a property