First Time Buying, Excited!!!

[Solemn]

Hi All,

The other half and I are in the process of buying a house and no longer living in rented accomodation! I am really looking forward to it!!

We found a lovely 4 bed detached house ticking almost all of our boxes and in a very nice area! And most importantly, will have FTTP!!!!

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-41526590.html?premiumA=true

We put in and had our offer accepted on the 31/05 and paid the CountryWide guys the first fee. About a week later when calling hte Estate agent to ask about something related to CountryWide we were told that the Vendors have found a place and it has no Chain, so very short chain indeed!

At the moment we have had the following complete

Identity checks done

• Payment on account received (withdrawal fee and search fees)
• 'Purchase Information Form' received
• Complete contract pack received from your seller’s lawyer
• Title checked and enquiries raised with your seller’s lawyer
• We have a complete signed contract
• We have a completed and signed 'Stamp Duty Land Transaction Return’
• Drainage search satisfactory
• Environment Search Report sent to you

Items in Prgoress:

• Local authority search satisfactory - Status (Waiting on Vendors response to questions raised)
• Initial title enquiries (part complete)
• Mortgage legal work complete (part complete)
• We have a completed, signed mortgage deed (part complete)

Items Still outstanding

• Legal title satisfactory
• We have finished the legal work and exchange can now be planned.
• Contracts exchanged
• Completion

I think things are moving along quite nicely and hope this doesnt end up taking the usually 3 / 4 months most people seem to say it does!
Most of the Mortgage stuff is done and we have signed all the stuff we need and sent it and had it recieved from Country Wide.

Any else ever delt with CountryWide? Should I be chasing on a daily basis? I think the only thing we are waiting for now is the Mortgage details to be looked over by the lawyers and the Local Authority Seach questions to be responded to by the Vendors. After this I think we will be able to plan Exchange and then soon after that Completion! Yay

The Vendors are selling and moving, does that mean that they will need to be out of their current house on the same day that they recieve the keys to their new one? not sure how that side of things work?

 

[Solemn]

RE: CountrySide. Chase them everyday until you've received the report.

When you say the Report, which one are you reffering to, sorry I don't know all the bits an pieces when buying so every bit of advice is very much appreciated!

We have had so far the Mortgage Valuation Report (sent to us from our Lender) and the Drainage and Environmental report.

On another Note, The vendors asked us to pay 5k in fixtures and fittings which we outright refused but did agree to 1.5k I think they were just trying to drive the pirce up as they are soo close to stamp.

We would like a list of these Fixtures and Fittings (to know if they will be leaving things like the fridge and the washing machine) We did ask for this from the estate agent in the beginning but never did recieve anything, who should we chase this up with? is it normal to ask for a list or am I being pedantic?


All and any Advice suggestions, are welcome!

 

[Solemn]

It's up to you whether you want them or not, you don't have to buy them. Anything you are interested in, you basically come to an agreement with the vendors.
Don't feel pressured to buy anything extra.

They did say that the fitted dishwasher stove and kitchen cupboards where the reason that they wanted the 5K. Honestly I thought that would have been part of the house price? We do not want them wrecking the kitchen as it was one of the selling points for us, which is why we agreed on a price. But the Vendor was talking about light fittings and curtains, and for 5K.... So we told her she can keep them then but eventaully agreed to 1.5k.

Should I ask Country Wide to ask for the List? or do I contact the estate agent directly?

anything we can do to speed things up and keep things moving would be great!

 

[Solemn]

about 12k worth of property taken.

Wow, thats rubbish!!!

I know the Vendors are moving to Newport Pagnell which is actaully where I am renting now. So they aren't leaving the country at least! We met the Husband and he seemed like a really decent guy. I honestl think the fixtures and fittings is just a way of getting more money for the house because no one is going to give them 255 (which is what hte house is really worth) because of the Stamp.

 

[Solemn]

We plan to have the carpets replaced in two bedrooms to be laminate (as they are both offices) and the lounge to be Laminate as well. So the only carpets in the house would be on the stairs, landing and main bedroom.


As for the Curtains, I am very fussy about light and really would want light blocking curtains so may be replacing those as well.