The nervous wait to exchange....

[Liquid_Entity]

Well what a crazy week it's been. Monday got the survey back and found out the house we were loving was in fact a disaster, Tuesday we spent reevaluating where we could move to within budget and was looking at some really dodgy areas. Viewed one place in creepy Crawley of all places. I don't mind some areas but this house was in a rough area. Kitchen was amazing, brand new in fact but the rest of the place needed a lot doing and for £310k was no way worth it for location. Sadly this seems to be the case, we can't find anything in our budget with 3 decent size rooms and nice enough to live in until we do it up.

Then late Tuesday we saw something back in our original search area of Eastbourne and it had 4 bedrooms, bi-fold doors in an extended ground floor and loft conversion. For £275,000 we wandered what the catch was... Viewed it yesterday evening and made an offer of £270,000 didn't hear anything all morning today and then got a call, offer rejected, went up 2,500 and they accepted.

So the extension is immaculate and the 1st floor with 3 bedrooms is all good, the loft conversion is mostly done but has some cosmetic changes required. The entrance hallway needs work and the first flight of stairs needs a carpet. The actual kitchen before the extension needs work too. New tiles, cabinets and the island needs the same treatment.

But for less than asking price and well within budget we're shocked we managed to find another property within 3 days.

 

[Dan_P]

Put an offer in on our first house (new build) after renting for 10 year last week. Offer has been accepted and mortgage agreement in principle has been approved too. Formal mortgage application has been submited so waiting for that to be approved i'm finding quite nerve-racking.

Solicitors appointed (paperwork to sign this week)
Help to buy application to do this weekend

Anything i should be aware of / forgotten etc?

 

[kitkat9933]

Put an offer in on our first house (new build) after renting for 10 year last week. Offer has been accepted and mortgage agreement in principle has been approved too. Formal mortgage application has been submited so waiting for that to be approved i'm finding quite nerve-racking.

Solicitors appointed (paperwork to sign this week)
Help to buy application to do this weekend

Anything i should be aware of / forgotten etc?

Pray to the gods you have got a good solicitor.

 

[bayo000]

Pray to the gods you have got a good solicitor.

This! To be fair to our solicitor even though he's a trainee he does seem to do a good job I just wish his communication was better. Sometimes it takes him days to get back, I'd much prefer a one liner saying that there's nothing new than complete silence.

Our buyer's mortgage provider requested change to the leasehold, was told it shouldn't be an issue but at the same time it seems that the mortgage offer is dependent on that. Other than that all should be sorted with the sale. There doesn't seem to be anything worrying on the purchase side, received the survey few days ago but generally just maintenance, couple of things that need fixing/ replacing but we are planning to do them anyway.

 

[bainbridge]

Put an offer in on our first house (new build) after renting for 10 year last week. Offer has been accepted and mortgage agreement in principle has been approved too. Formal mortgage application has been submited so waiting for that to be approved i'm finding quite nerve-racking.

Solicitors appointed (paperwork to sign this week)
Help to buy application to do this weekend

Anything i should be aware of / forgotten etc?

You'll need buildings insurance to satisfy the mortgage requirements.

Well done for buying your own place, the missus rented for 14 years and I rented for 22 years before we got our own home in May.

 

[mid_gen]

House in our target village has come up today. Looks good fair bit larger that our in-progress house, but cheaper. Not listed, not as charming. Still a nice Victorian redbrick terrace with v nice renovation.

Head vs heart decision to be made, because it won't be on the market for more than a few days. Do I think my in progress sale is ever going to complete? After all the grief I had with the solicitors to get this far I'm loathe to start again....but...

 

[MrKnifey]

Pray to the gods you have got a good solicitor.

THIS x 10. I fully intend on taking my solicitor to the ombudsmen after my sale/purchase has gone through

 

[fastwunz]

THIS x 10. I fully intend on taking my solicitor to the ombudsmen after my sale/purchase has gone through

you will have to go through an extremely lengthy and arduous process before the ombudsman will even consider looking at your case I’m afraid. Hell of a lot of hoops to jump through before it gets that far

 

[mid_gen]

you will have to go through an extremely lengthy and arduous process before the ombudsman will even consider looking at your case I’m afraid. Hell of a lot of hoops to jump through before it gets that far

Yeah I am just having to hold my tongue until the transaction is complete, then I'll plaster my complaints on every review site I can find. Seems to be the only way to get anything done these days. Appalled at the behaviour of my solicitor.

 

[fastwunz]

Yeah I am just having to hold my tongue until the transaction is complete, then I'll plaster my complaints on every review site I can find. Seems to be the only way to get anything done these days. Appalled at the behaviour of my solicitor.

sorry to hear it’s been so bad - was it an online one by chance or an independent? I remember there used to be one called ‘fridays law’ ot something. They were cheap and had a truly bad reputation if I remember correctly. Think they went bust and then rebranded

 

[mid_gen]

sorry to hear it’s been so bad - was it an online one by chance or an independent? I remember there used to be one called ‘fridays law’ ot something. They were cheap and had a truly bad reputation if I remember correctly. Think they went bust and then rebranded

No it's a fairly well reviewed smallish regional chain. Service was fine up to a point but it came to one particular issue and they just turned utterly obnoxious, like we were causing them a huge inconvenience. Basically refused to resolve the issue unless they got more money. I ended up contacting the Law Society and resolving it myself.

They have you over a barrel once you've started the conveyancing process, have to just suck it up if you want to complete the transaction. I did make a complaint but their 'customer care managed' didn't even bother responding.

Guess it's to be expected from a profession that is essentially a license to charge large sums of money to fill in some paperwork. Ask them to engage a brain cell and it's all too much like hard work.

 

[Thekwango]

Just a quick question for those more knowledgable folks on here. In the process of buying our first home, MIP, price agreed etc, just waiting on the lenders getting their fingers out and finalising the mortgage. Apparently a formality as far as these things go but still a bit of a waiting game.

anyway, in the meantime we’ve got a conveyancing solicitor in place, though not formally as we’ve not signed anything with him and just got his quote through. We’re in a relatively rural area with a couple of solicitors in the town we live in and their prices are more or less the same from what I’ve been able to find out but I ran the house details through one of those online jobbies and have had a few quotes back from firms in Belfast (who id have expected to be dearer) all of which are between 200 and 400ish quid cheaper. So the miserable sod in me is wondering if there’s any point in ‘haggling’ with our local solicitor or is that not the done thing with solicitors?

 

[Thekwango]

So it's been 10 days now since we applied through Danske and they haven't even contacted the seller to arrange their valuation yet...

Wouldn’t fret too much about that dude. 9 days here and our lender has just got back to our Mortgage advisor saying it’ll probs be another 6 working days!? Spoke with the estate agent and they’ve said not to worry as they know things are running very slowly currently and had advised the sellers when they accepted our offer not to expect quick turnarounds.

 

[Skillmister]

No it's a fairly well reviewed smallish regional chain. .

Just proves you can get bad ones of every sort whether it's "local" or online. Same as any business at the end of the day. Sucks to hear that though

 

[Skillmister]

Just a quick question for those more knowledgable folks on here. In the process of buying our first home, MIP, price agreed etc, just waiting on the lenders getting their fingers out and finalising the mortgage. Apparently a formality as far as these things go but still a bit of a waiting game.

anyway, in the meantime we’ve got a conveyancing solicitor in place, though not formally as we’ve not signed anything with him and just got his quote through. We’re in a relatively rural area with a couple of solicitors in the town we live in and their prices are more or less the same from what I’ve been able to find out but I ran the house details through one of those online jobbies and have had a few quotes back from firms in Belfast (who id have expected to be dearer) all of which are between 200 and 400ish quid cheaper. So the miserable sod in me is wondering if there’s any point in ‘haggling’ with our local solicitor or is that not the done thing with solicitors?

You can try it depends whether they need the business or not. You may be judged silently for it though Also bear in mind online ones tend to have a lot more "add ons" so go through the quote and t&cs properly to see if it's actually that much cheaper or not, probably isn't.

 

[Bug One]

Just a quick question for those more knowledgable folks on here. In the process of buying our first home, MIP, price agreed etc, just waiting on the lenders getting their fingers out and finalising the mortgage. Apparently a formality as far as these things go but still a bit of a waiting game.

anyway, in the meantime we’ve got a conveyancing solicitor in place, though not formally as we’ve not signed anything with him and just got his quote through. We’re in a relatively rural area with a couple of solicitors in the town we live in and their prices are more or less the same from what I’ve been able to find out but I ran the house details through one of those online jobbies and have had a few quotes back from firms in Belfast (who id have expected to be dearer) all of which are between 200 and 400ish quid cheaper. So the miserable sod in me is wondering if there’s any point in ‘haggling’ with our local solicitor or is that not the done thing with solicitors?

I guess you could try. But I think I'd be continually worried that if they're busy - and have two piles of paperwork to deal with, they'll be looking at the one who isn't paying them less.

When you're spending hundreds of thousands of pounds, and you're sitting for months waiting for things to happen - a few hundred pounds doesn't seem that important.

 

[Thekwango]

You can try it depends whether they need the business or not. You may be judged silently for it though Also bear in mind online ones tend to have a lot more "add ons" so go through the quote and t&cs properly to see if it's actually that much cheaper or not, probably isn't.

Oh believe me, being judged silently or otherwise is something that long ago stopped being a concern for me
Having gone through the online quotes in detail they do seem pretty much like for like when compared to the local solicitor.

I guess you could try. But I think I'd be continually worried that if they're busy - and have two piles of paperwork to deal with, they'll be looking at the one who isn't paying them less.

When you're spending hundreds of thousands of pounds, and you're sitting for months waiting for things to happen - a few hundred pounds doesn't seem that important.

Seller is using the same solicitors so not overly worried about them pushing it to the side in favour of other work. That’s actually one of the reasons why I’d prefer to use the local one instead of a solicitor 40+ miles away. If I thought the local was dragging their heels I could just pop in for a face to face (covid permitting obviously) to chase things whereas to more distant solicitors would really only be phone and email contact making it much easier for them to ignore.

and yes you’re quite right, having spent or being prepared or spend ~150k, a couple of hundred here or there doesn’t make a huge difference but I’m the epitome of miserable, if I can squeeze a penny or two saving here or there I’ll always give it a try

 

[Skillmister]

and yes you’re quite right, having spent or being prepared or spend ~150k, a couple of hundred here or there doesn’t make a huge difference but I’m the epitome of miserable, if I can squeeze a penny or two saving here or there I’ll always give it a try

Wealthiest client I ever had was also the one who would quibble £3 here and there for title documents he didn't feel were necessary

 

[HungryHippos]

Wealthiest client I ever had was also the one who would quibble £3 here and there for title documents he didn't feel were necessary

Every £ saved is a £ earned!

I like a good deal, sometimes not possible and I pay full RRP, but if I can get a deal on something I will!

 

[Thekwango]

Wealthiest client I ever had was also the one who would quibble £3 here and there for title documents he didn't feel were necessary

i like his style - though i'm no millionaire i still like to same a few quid when i can, often feels like a nice 'win'