Been there Colin, felt the stress. As you say it is a proper game of whispers, with no-one taking charge of updating and making something happen.

Horrid for you.

As Rich_s says – I’d be on to your buyers solicitor straight away.

If your solicitor is so shit I’d not be believing a word they say. They may not even have all the details to proceed.

Where is your solicitor? A personal visit may help. It’s harder to bullshit face to face.

Again good luck! 😬 😱

Is there a Stamp Issue thing going on here. With rumour about stamp duty being lowered, ae buyers holding back in the hope they might save some money?

Doesn’t help you at all though, the system shouldn’t be allowed to (not) work like this.

Is there a Stamp Issue thing going on here. With rumour about stamp duty being lowered, ae buyers holding back in the hope they might save some money?

Not impossible I suppose, but any buyer buggering about like that with a couple of days to go risks loosing a whole lot more if their purchase falls through! There are some real idiots out there though.

…they paid their deposit last week…

Be nice if they were non-refundable. 😁

Thanks everyone.

I’m pretty much reduced to nothing at this stage. Lots has happened since my last post. To cut a long story short, we got an apology from the buyer, everything is in place now. Got emails from the buyers solicitor and ours to say everyone is ready to complete on Friday, but there is an issue with the buyers lender that needs resolved ASAP, although they have stated something about funds requested and approved for release on Friday. They are hoping to get an answer today. And…the buyer doesn’t know what the issue is. So, it’s all up in the air again with about 3 hours to go with nobody knowing what the issue is with the lender.

Last minute stresses with lenders is relatively routine though, sounds like you are in a much better place now

Be nice if they were non-refundable. 😁

Only if they’d exchanged contracts! Which it sounds like they haven’t.

Mortgage rates are due to go up again tomorrow. They may have tried another mortgage company to the original one they were approved with and now it’s causing issues?

Can you push for exchange today?

But what could it be though? Nobody is giving us any idea of what it could be. I’m stressed a lot about the movers too, I need to let them know by 4pm otherwise I’ll lose part of the booking cost.

Didn’t get that impression from our estate agent. It was my partner who spoke to him and he said the buyer seemed miffed at what it could be as he was assured all was fine. I couldn’t care less about stamp duty, I just want this done.

We still expect it all to come crashing down like a house of cards and have not celebrated as it’s wrung out any emotions we had long ago.

Hope it all ends well! It’s sad that such a positive thing should be dragged down by the incompetence of others.

We have friends who move every 2 to 3 years. I don’t know how they have the energy to do it. Once in 25 years was enough for me! 🙂

Thanks for the sentiment but it didn’t work unfortunately.

Got hit with a double whammy after 12 weeks of waiting the buyer finally got mortgage approved only for our seller to drop an undisclosed section 20 (external works on the block) for £10k 2 days before exchange (i had proof from management co they had known about this 2 months previously) then our buyer pulled out day before exchange.

we are used to the disappointment though so didn’t have the energy to be upset about it, it’s the waste of my time over the last year and 3k down the drain that’s doing my head in.

luckily we found a new chain free flat on same development the very next day and had an offer accepted and partners flat under offer after 3 days and 3 offers with queue of 20 people wanting to view.
now we (both buyer and us) have been told there are long delays with valuations taking 6-8 weeks. FFS.

any emotion has been sucked out of the process now and it’s just a thing you have to throw time and money at with no guarantee it will ever resolve itself.

It’s shite

Didn’t get that impression from our estate agent. It was my partner who spoke to him and he said the buyer seemed miffed at what it could be as he was assured all was fine. I couldn’t care less about stamp duty, I just want this done.

It could be simply a form not signed in the right place, or they were on the edge of affordability before and the mortgage company are getting nervous.

If that’s the case, it definitely wont be happening tomorrow.

My buyer tried to pull out after i’d emigrated. Unless i took several thousand quid off the selling price.

I told the estate agent to relist it.

He came up with the readies the following day.

Hope the house fell down.

My buyer tried to pull out after i’d emigrated. Unless i took several thousand quid off the selling price.

I told the estate agent to relist it.

He came up with the readies the following day.

Hope the house fell down.

Funny how people feel they should ‘get one over’ i often feel it’s the solicitors pushing this.
we had an offer that was fine with us but certainly not the highest (decent deposit, no chain, no rental contract) asked them to come up 2.5k (on a £400k+ property) to “match a middle offer and it’s yours”.

He said yes but wanted the freehold extended?? it’s 126 years so not low and would require 2 other co-freeholders to pay for theirs at the same time, not expensive but the other 2 are part way through their own refurbs/kitchen/bathrooms and they are just going to say “why do we need to do this now?”
he got told to jog on, he really loved the flat as well, might work on a property on the market for 6 months but this was 3 days with 3 offers and another 15 viewings booked in..

Buyers lie – sellers lie – estate agents lie – solicitors lie. The whole process is based on lies.

If you can afford to take the hit – I’d probably still give the removals company the go ahead. It does sound like you’re not far off getting things sorted.

Can you phone the buyers solicitor to find out what the issue is with the mortgage. They’re the ones who should be driving it and asking questions.

I’m tempted to just take a gamble to make sure it happens on Friday if it can. It would be my luck that I’d cancel and 10 minutes later get a call to say it can go ahead.

Unless my hand is forced, I hope to never move again.

So, another update. Issue has been resolved, and we are ready to exchange, either this afternoon or tomorrow.

It was brilliant buying here (Sweden) more like buying a fridge than a house.
Make sure you’ve got the financial coverage, find a house, agree a price (usually open bidding), pay the deposit, get someone to check it over/survey, if all is ok you then wait until moving date, when you pay the balance/sign the final contracts.

If the survey comes back with an issue, you can either renegotiate or pull out (and get your deposit back), we got 50000 sek off because the drainage needed redoing. If you pull out as buyer you lose a percentage of the deposit, pull out as seller you’ll end up owing the buyer some extra cash.

Then when you’ve bought the place you even get a warranty of sorts from the seller as well if any other mayor faults come to light.

But what could it be though?

I’ve experience of two things:

1) someone, deep in the lenders organisation, just didn’t sign the right form or click the right button.
2) (and I apologise) lender after we had exchanged changed thier mind on lending on a Buy To Let. That got twitchy….

r as well if any other mayor faults come to light

I suppose they could result in a broken chain…..

stcolin, Karma may help you with a stamp duty holiday, you’ll know by Friday.

Update?

I’m not really sure if I want to talk too much about it. Basically we are exchanging and completing tomorrow.

I’m done. I’m so utterly exhausted and stressed, sat in a house that is pretty much packed up.

stcolin…

Hopefully you are far too busy today to be looking on here! But just wanted to say good luck! 👍👍👍😱

…that beer tonight will be one of the best you’ve ever tasted!

Stcolin well done! Once you’ve unpacked and unwound you’ll soon forget all the stress and aggro. Bugger the alcohol thread, get some in!

Good luck for today @stcolin

We’re selling MIL’s house after her death. Got an offer agreed by the first and only viewers (big family 4 bed detached, but it’s just off a council estate and most folk there haven’t moved in over 20 years, so some weird valuations). All agreed months ago, but we’re just waiting. The buyer’s surveyor only turned up last week.

Yep, fingers crossed for you today stcolin. What a horrible and ridiculous business it all is.

It’s been a marathon. Hop everything goes well today stcolin!

Another well-wisher for a smooth move, stcolin! Enjoy that brew later.

Hope it’s going well sir.

I think that we are all hoping that Colin is too busy moving boxes to post! I have bought two houses in my time (Scotland, so WAY less stressful) and I have noted that lawyers have very high tolerance for getting things done at the last possible minute, but it always comes together and they don’t get that you find it excruciating. I paid for an expensive one for my house purchase in 1998, from offer to living there in three weeks! My last one I went for The Only Lawyer in Town and that was only a month, but I had sold my house already and had the cash waiting.

I wonder if you qualify for any stamp reduction? Your solicitor could submit the paper work next week.

Now Colin – this is unacceptable!! We can’t got to bed tonight without knowing if you moved or not!! 🤣🤣🤣

Last I heard he was sitting outside the new place waiting.
I’ve pinged him a WhatsApp

Winner winner chicken dinner

Hope that means it’s all gone through? If so, congratulations and enjoy the next few months of recovery!

🎉🎉🎉🥳🥳🥳

…hopefully!!

And…. We’re in. What an unreal couple of days. Thanks for all the messages over the last 24 hours. We ended up exchanging and completing yesterday, and got the keys around 2:30. We’re both so happy with the house and after a trip to IKEA (it’s the law) we finally got into bed around midnight. I’m still exhausted but a huge weight of my shoulders from the stress of it all. Removals guys were great too, they took away the stress of that part of the day.

Good luck to anyone still in the process. I’ve never, ever doing that again by choice.

Oh, and we do qualify for a stump duty saving. We’ll get about 25% back which is great news.

👍👍👍