…eating them and shitting them out! 😡😡😡

Just… aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yep!

Uh huh.

Buying a home is not much better 🙁 The actual number of hours work required by the solicitor as a fraction of the elapsed time it takes is close to absolutely the square root of bugger all.

Interested to know why. We are half heartedly considering a move but a combination of ridiculous prices and very little on the market means we probably won’t bother. Anything half decent round here is gone the first week on the market, for crazy money. Talking to a friendly estate agent, if you are not immediately proceedable then it’s pointless even trying. Seems like it’s taking forever for chains to complete.

Apparently still lots of cash sloshing around in that there London, and more than usual looking to move out to the shires (driven by Covid and WFH) driving prices to infinity and beyond.

Bought mine this time last year and the biggest ball-ache was moving.

From our side – chain is…

First Time Buyers > Us > House We are going to > New Build

…so a nice short chain.

Our FTB made an offer at the beginning of Dec. And basically we’ve had almost radio silence from them since then, a few simple questions from the solicitor. But nothing major.

We’ve never even met them as EA did the viewing – and we’ve been asking EA and solicitor weekly if everything was OK with our buyers as we’re surprised by their lack of questions. And with FTB’s you normally have parents, mates, mates of mates, every man and their dog chipping in with advice. Even solicitor thought it was odd.

So we’re working towards completion for end of March/first week in April and we’re hoping to finalise exchange and completion dates this week. Then on Saturday the EA phoned us saying our FTB wants to send a plumber and electrician round and was it too late for a Homebuyers report! (Thankfully EA had the sense to knock them back on that). And could they also come for a 2nd viewing this Friday.

It’s as though they’ve just realised they’re buying a house!

We’re ruddy fuming as in our minds the time for inspections has passed, and the EA should have been managing this.

New build developers at the top of the chain are putting pressure on for completion so if they decide to move on to the next buyer on their waiting list the whole lot comes down.

I’d have the house back on the market sharpish, first time buyers are extremely skittery usually, they are always looking at other houses and options throughout in many cases, and all the while they’re either awaiting a mortgage offer, or running down their offer.

Sellers can be a complete arse as well!

When I sold my lat house, just before any signing / completion, the buyer demanded access to the house to knock out the kitchen. And was supported by the Estate Agents!!

I asked the Estate Agent to put the house back on the market immediately

The family sold a probate house recently.

Vacant possession

Committed buyer with a short chain

What could go wrong

Mass hack of the buyers solicitors conveyancing systems

It’s a pain in the ar$e and ours was straightforward. Sold very quickly in August, got messed around by our seller and eventually they pulled out. Got VERY lucky in finding another place at the start of December and finally completed/moved at the end of Feb.

Never. Again.

We are waiting on a completion date, we thought the answer to our suggested date would be to bring it forward please as they had previous buyers fall through, but nothing but radio silence. We are first time buyers, and we had EA at the start asking when mortgage app was in, when we were likely to get a decision, and now he is chasing the sellers… who apparantly are moving into a vacant property.

Viewed a house late October, offer in same day. No dice, sealed bids. Did that, won (overpayed? who knows?) Initially agreed to complete by 1st Dec, no problem, money waiting in bank.

House was from a major developer who had bought it and its semi detached pair a few years back to lop a length off the gardens to provide access to their new estate behind. Two weeks delay before we see a legal pack, and when it shows up the boundaries on the plan haven’t changed since the new build.

The new path went in in the spring last year and involves a railway too so all this must have been in planning for literally years, but no, they couldn’t have sent some of those drawings off to the land registry before putting it on the market. Plonkers, and a pain not just for me, but they moved their tenant on before selling who could have had the house another six months and it would have been lived in and heated over the winter.

Buying really isn’t much fun either. We viewed 16 house, between Christmas and last weekend, offered on 6 and kept getting hugely out bid! Finally had offer accepted yesterday, yeah!

Piece of pee for me.
Went to view a house last March. Offered asking price subject to some extras. Asked for trade in value. When they came back with a lowball offer told them to do one. £15k extra in next call and they ask if they can arrange some viewings. OK with me. 24hrs later 3 offers of over £10k more than they gave me for it (I wasnt bothered) and my house was sold. Never heard a peep from anyone, new owners etc. We dropped the keys for our old house off on the weekend we moved out and received a £500 rebate for its condition a week later.

6mths later, i signed my mortgage paperwork and moved into the new house. Job jobbed.

In the background i have a wife with nearly 30yrs conveyancing experience. She did it all for us including pulling the housebuilder on all his paperwork being out of date etc. In the grand scheme of things i could probably have got the extra £10k for my own house with zero effort but in that time i would have had a whole load of stress and would not have been able to agree on the new house so quickly. Within a matter of weeks the same houses were selling for £30k more on same build.

The stories she tells me from both buying and selling perspective would give you all sleepless nights. Trust me you are basically trying to get a chain of people with zero morals to agree to something that most would rather walk over broken glass to agree on. Just remember this when you are slagging off the solicitors about something that is 99% likely out of their hands.

Family member moved last year – chain of 4. They had various hiccups with surveys etc but taking the biscuit was:

– After all the usual minor delays contracts were exchanged and completion date set, 30/9/21
– All going smoothly, removals guys booked and at the door etc
– On the day their buyers solicitor apparently “didn’t work Thursdays”
– You can imagine the shitshow this caused up the chain, especially as the stamp duty reverted on the 1/10/21. All houses up the chain out of pocket by thousands. All because someone didn’t check their calendar.

Our last move was during the first year of the pandemic. Took 1 year exactly from going on the market to moved.

I’ve seen this type of thing before with first time buyers starting to get twitchy about ‘is this what we want’ or ‘the best we can get’, so when they want second viewings, or sending in tradesmen it’s never a great sign, friends had this a couple of years ago, basically FTB’ers dad is doing the once over and you can guess the rest, end result was straight back on the market.

Sold two properties last July, no problems apart from getting stung for guarantees re having a tunnel. Put an offer in in August on a place, over the odds to avoid best and finals, accepted and moved in 13 weeks later. Had to find temparary accommodation for a week but apart from that no problems and the estate agents were really helpful (!)
EDIT: got knocked back on one offer only to get a better house up the hill on the same sttreet with parking. Dodged a bullet there.

This is all filling me with joy. Selling our house, FTB,10% over asking. Just had an offer accepted on the house we’d like after much hassle and disappointment searching. Fingers crossed it’s not such a shower. Bristol is nuts for housing at the moment.

It’s certainly a lengthy process at the moment.

Accepted an offer and had our offer accepted in June. Since when our buyers have f###ed about how they are going to pay, no shortage of money, just none of it available quickly. Foolishly we were patient, we could have sold it times over in the meantime but we were trying to be fair. At least the local ##@# couple that like to put in seemingly serious offers only to pull out months later didn’t try their hand.

Finally exchanged contracts up and down a couple of weeks ago, not smoothly as our esteemed solicitors only discovered that the mortgage redemption certificate had expired when they opened the file that day. My usual solicitors (buying this place and selling my mum’s and uncle’s houses) were not taking on new work as they were swamped. In hindsight the usual solicitor is bloomin’ brilliant.

As my wife likes to be prepared we have had our belongings boxed for months, it will be nice to see our stuff again.

To revisit, the people down the hill (V snotty) who knocked back our offer last August are still there. On Zoopla it says SSTC but Gob knows what’s gone on there, glad we weren’t involved.

Relatively painless process a bit over a year ago buying a property.
Reasonably helpful seller, easy collection of keys (collected from the restaurant where the guy worked, he wasn’t there so we turned up, asked for the flat keys, and the nice lady handed them over…). Decent solicitors acting for us, too.

Yep. In the process now. Mine sold really easily and everything is ready to roll. They had a survey last week and so far haven’t been in touch demanding money off *touch wood*.

The one I want to buy has hit some snags with the sellers not being able to produce the building control completion certificate on a house that’s ten years old. Last week they claimed to know nothing of some covenants on the land, even though their signatures are on the transfer document.

At this point I’ve got a very strong gut instinct that something is wrong. Asked for another viewing to grab some measurements and check that all the windows etc open, and apparently the only date they can manage is three weeks from now in the evening, which is another red light. What don’t they want me to see?

It pisses me off because I take pointless pride in being completely up-front and honest about the houses I’ve sold. Someone asks a question, they get an honest answer. Surveyor comes and asks to look at something behind furniture or under carpet, no problem. Paperwork returned same day. And then you get people who act like they’re doing you a favour by selling their house to you.

What don’t they want me to see?

…the freshly laid new patio!

Feds will be round as soon as you move in.  🙂

We have toyed with the idea of moving for about a year. We hear more horror stories than good ones. But my desire to get out of Manchester are strong right now and have been for a few years, so watch this space….

Buying is utterly hideous right now. Particularly the getting a mortgage bit. We’re down to transaction level inspection of my bank account. Stress is so high that I failed the insurance medical for the revised life insurance policy we were advised to take out as a result of the purchase. That basically means the insurance company actually thinks I’m going to die. I’d like everyone in the process to clear off in a b-ark once we complete.

the freshly laid new patio!

Could live with that, the paving is uneven and needs laying properly…

Nationwide were great for me. No payslips or statements needed – presumably they grabbed what they needed from credit reference agencies.

I recommenda good mortgage broker if you’re having issues with that end. Ours sorted us a great deal.

We’ve got a great deal on the mortgage, that’s not the issue. It’s the actual underwriting and offer bit on the bank side that takes time right now. Plus, have you seen what a mortgage application does to a credit report? Mine went from “excellent” to “fair” with one search. So if the underwriting fails on this one the chances of getting through the basic checks on a second application are slim indeed.

Plus, have you seen what a mortgage application does to a credit report? Mine went from “excellent” to “fair” with one search. So if the underwriting fails on this one the chances of getting through the basic checks on a second application are slim indeed.

That is just somebody’s interpretation of what your credit file means. Banks are a bit more sophisticated in how they analyse your credit file. Yes, lots of applications in quick succession might be a red flag to some lenders but others might take a different view. If you are struggling with mainstream lenders then that is when brokers come into their own as they are often able to talk to underwriters directly.

We were FTB a few years ago for a house for my Mum. It’s a long a complicated story.

We found a place, couple of days of haggling, offer accepted. Mortgage in principle was in place, solicitors ready. This was an empty house, no chain. 5 months later we get the keys.

The seller took ages over every request for documents, etc.

It’s not always the FTB or their solicitor that’s the problem.

Our sale should have been straightforward but it took ages for solicitors to reply to each others’ questions, repeatedly asking the same question that had already been answered, going on vacation at key points of the process, without leaving anyone following the brief. I just felt that if I’d done my job in such a leisurely way I’d have been fired long ago.

It’s always amazing that we have become so technologically advanced over the last 50 years, but house sales and solicitors/conveyancers still appear to be locked in the old paper and post world, even when everything else has been digitized!

It is all pretty much a self sustaining industry, whenever you ask around for recommendations you always get a few horror stories every time, again, how they take so long to do the simplest things, and still don’t take any blame for their errors makes me laugh at times.

We’ve got a great deal on the mortgage, that’s not the issue. It’s the actual underwriting and offer bit on the bank side that takes time right now.

I think that’s the point people are trying to make – Nationwide is by far the quickest and easiest lender at the moment with mortgages going from DIP -> valuation -> formal offer in less than a week.

We actually withdrew from a nationwide application as their processing time was spiralling, they took a load of products off the market and bunged up their interest rates across the board.

Our broker seems to think that everyone is swamped with applications right now with the average processing time being around 45 days.

We’ve gone down the porting and add a product route as that way we escape an early repayment fee. We also thought it might be easier. Seems not.

it is quite incredible how frustrating selling (and buying) a house in England is. it seems everyone that you deal with is **** useless and less than even partially interested in their job or customers. i’ve sold 3 properties in the uk and each time the estate agent was a bit shit.

USA sitcoms and family guy seem to lampoon realtors, but the do a much better job and work harder than estate agents in england.

and i’m always surprised that someone who put in the effort to become a lawyer spends time conveyancing. that said, i know nothing about working as a lawyer.

We’ve just transferred a huge sum of money to the solictor’s account to close on a purchase. But we’re still not 100% sure when the closing will be. How can that be? In what other sphere would this be acceptable?

Always makes me laugh on Location**3 when they phone the estate agent at the end and then shout “congratulations, you just bought a house!”. Did you buggery – the story has only just begun.

I think at the very least there should be a 2k non-refundable* deposit held by solicitor to show commitment.

This would weed out the tyre-kickers who mess you about for weeks then pull out after decide they don’t like the wallpaper.

(*unless a vendor has blatantly lied about the state of their property or a genuine issue arrises).

I think at the very least there should be a 2k non-refundable* deposit held by solicitor to show commitment.

This 100%. Or just use the Scottish system.

Jeesh… for us, BUYING a house is hell..

Me and the OH are VERY near exchange on a 6+ figure house… and teh effing greedy seller feels it’s worth another 45k… Just got off the phone with his EA..
He’s mortgage free, buying a MUCH smaller property and will ahve over a million quid in the bank, and he wants another 45k…

FFS!!!

Honestly, some people deserve 2 tonnes of manure dumped on tehir drive…

I told him to do one..

DrP