Soldato
Have you considered moving into rented for the short term? Gets your sale done and out of the way with no drama AND puts you into the position of being a cash buyer for your next purchase?
The nervous wait to exchange....
- Thread starter noj
- Start date
Have you considered moving into rented for the short term? Gets your sale done and out of the way with no drama AND puts you into the position of being a cash buyer for your next purchase?
Have considered it, but don't want the hassle.
Soldato
You will need to appoint solicitors pretty much as soon as you accept the offer, on the basis the agents will be using the information to send a memorandum of sale to all parties. If you aren't intending to make any progress on the sale until you have found a purchase then you wouldn't need to give the information straight away however you should let the agents know (who will in turn inform the buyers) that is the case.
Thanks. I suppose there is a scenario then where a sale is agreed on our house, we pay solicitor fees for sale, and fail to find somewhere else. Massive lack of properties around here, so must be a common situation.
Soldato
You can still appoint them and not incur costs, just tell them exactly what your intentions are i.e no work to be carried out until you have found a purchase.
Really? Thanks, I did not know that was possible. I will have a chat with them.
Soldato
We're still having issues with our flat sale. We've gone around the useless management company and tried talking to the landlords solicitors. They didn't have much more info then the management company! Trying to get in touch direct with the landlord to get them to try and rectify the situation. The main one seems to be that they don't have any accounts for the last 1.5 years? How do you run a building with no budget and no reconciliation of accounts? Very annoyed!
Soldato
Survey is back, exactly 5 weeks after I instructed them 
Have put in a revised offer of £5k off the price. Would be happy to accept £2-3k off so we'll see...
Have put in a revised offer of £5k off the price. Would be happy to accept £2-3k off so we'll see...
Currently in the process of selling and buying. Our solicitors had an estimated time frame of 6-8 weeks in the initial quote. We are 4 weeks in and was told we are a long way off from exchange. I'm not in a rush and just wanted an idea of where we were. Whats the point in stating a time frame if they aren't going to be any where near it. It took our previous solicitors 5 months to complete moving in to an empty new build flat.
Soldato
Nothing wrong with estimating 6-8 weeks. I prefer to say 8-10 but at the end of the day its a case of how long is a piece of string? Earlier in the week I had a purchase that was 4 weeks on the dot from instruction to completion. Same day I also completed one that we were instructed in April.
Take my purchase for example, I estimated (to myself
) 8-10 weeks. I'm 5 weeks in and have only just got my survey back! Haven't even made my formal mortgage application, requested searches or reviewed any papers yet because I needed the survey first. But if I hadn't had a survey I'd probably have completed by now...It's a lose-lose situation for solicitors. If they estimate and it's not accurate you'll complain. If they don't provide an estimate you'll be asking how long it's going to take right from the off anyway, and complain when that's either not to your liking or turns out inaccurate.
My wife dealt with the last solicitor so I'm new to this. I have no idea where we are, the steps or the process. It would be nice if there was some online portal you could login to which shows the stages with comments, time frames, completed etc. I find i get emails from the solicitors secretary asking me questions but she doesn't reply to mine. My mate told me not to send them too many emails as i will get charged every time they reply.
Soldato
That's not great if you aren't getting anything back. I'd email your solicitor directly just asking for a concise update of where you are up to e.g have the buyers raised enquiries, if so has he responded to all, have they had their searches and mortgage offer (although the agents are more likely to know this than your solicitor), have your searches come back, has he raised enquiries of the sellers..
The issue with what I call the "mid stage" of a sale/purchase is that from the outside it looks like nothing is going on but there is usually a lot of back and forth between solicitors.
If you have been given a fixed fee estimate (which pretty much all conveyancing is these days) you won't be charged any extra for each email/call. Although the time will get recorded so if it falls through an abortive bill may be higher but that's life. Unless like some of my least favourite clients you start emailing and calling multiple times every day in which case you'll get told each one will be charged additionally
Soldato
I did have exactly that portal open to me when I used my last solicitors a couple of years back.
All the key info was in there and it was updated daily, so things such as searches requested, searches received back, mortgage offer received, that sort of level of detail
Just looked back in my mails and it was called case tracking. I found it really useful, i used to log in daily. I did find that my solicitor was really really good. I had a false start with the first one, the estate agent helped me find a good one on second attempt.
Here is an extract from the mail I got on the case tracking,
"Case Tracking: Your case tracking has now been set up. You can access the case any time online using your username and password below. If you have provided a mobile phone number an SMS text will be sent each time an update is made. You will also receive an email each time the progress is updated."
Could be worth asking your solicitor if they use similar
http://www.solicitorcasetracking.co.uk/login/
Soldato
Survey is back, exactly 5 weeks after I instructed them
Have put in a revised offer of £5k off the price. Would be happy to accept £2-3k off so we'll see...
Price renegotiated to £105k so a £2.5k reduction.
Full steam ahead. Will be making my formal mortgage application and submitting my searches on Monday
Soldato
Price renegotiated to £105k so a £2.5k reduction.
Full steam ahead. Will be making my formal mortgage application and submitting my searches on Monday
Got a call at lunchtime to say my sellers have had a change of mind, they have withdrawn and want the property to go back on the market with an even higher asking price than it was when I offered
Estate agent was both annoyed and bewildered.Had literally just submitted my searches, cancelled two but one was already processed so I'm £51 down so far
Back to the drawing board...
Soldato
My solicitors have failed to apply and then return my help to buy paperwork in the correct time. Due to this the earliest I can complete is 5th sept, the exact day I'm out of the UK for work for a month.
On my return I've got 9 days in which to leave my old workplace (a 5 day process minimum) before starting at my new place up the road.
The solicitors have known about this for the 5 months I've been going through it, and have sat on the paperwork despite numerous phonecalls and emails.
It's my first house and I'm doing it on my own, got nobody back in the UK who will be able to sort anything out for me while I'm away.
Can anyone make me a list of things I need to sort out as soon as I complete, my head is all over the place and the stress from all this plus getting ready to go away is making me ill.
On my return I've got 9 days in which to leave my old workplace (a 5 day process minimum) before starting at my new place up the road.
The solicitors have known about this for the 5 months I've been going through it, and have sat on the paperwork despite numerous phonecalls and emails.
It's my first house and I'm doing it on my own, got nobody back in the UK who will be able to sort anything out for me while I'm away.
Can anyone make me a list of things I need to sort out as soon as I complete, my head is all over the place and the stress from all this plus getting ready to go away is making me ill.
Associate
Just started down our next move, from a 1970's bungalow on the edge of town (with stunning views) to a Victorian cottage, in the middle of rural Devon, with an acre of land and (even more) stunning views.... It's a five person chain, and the top three, which includes us, are mortgage free, so I'm hoping things will go as smoothly as possible. I hope we could be in before Christmas unless things go pear-shaped... the nervous wait begins
Soldato
Got a call at lunchtime to say my sellers have had a change of mind, they have withdrawn and want the property to go back on the market with an even higher asking price than it was when I offered
Had literally just submitted my searches, cancelled two but one was already processed so I'm £51 down so far
Back to the drawing board...
Viewed a very similar house yesterday (same size internally, bigger + nicer gardens, smaller workshop, driveway rather than none) and had my first offer of the same I was paying for the other pre-survey accepted. Will see what the survey is like on this one but I expect it to be better, it doesn't back directly onto a hill which should alleviate some of the damp issues. 2nd time lucky.
Associate
I'm after some advice. We're in the process of buying a house with a loft conversion into a third bedroom. It was advertised as being a bedroom and valued as such. It turns out that it was done in the 70s so doesn't have building regs. I've spoken to our solicitor who doesn't seem too bothered, and our bank haven't changed their valuation. I'm just concerned about when it comes to sell and the legality of advertising it as a 3 bed house. I've been reading some horror stories on the internet but trying to take them with a pinch of salt as I know things get blown out of proportion but at the same time I don't want to blindly go ahead and be stuck when I come to sell with a house with a lot less than I thought. Does anyone know the legalities of this and how it might affect a future sale/general opinions?
Soldato
Might be posting in this thread again soon. Been down here 2 years and in house almost a year (after a year of renting) and an opportunity has come up which might see us move back to South Wales.
At least this time work will pay for a lot of it.
At least this time work will pay for a lot of it.