The nervous wait to exchange....

[HungryHippos]

What's everyone's thoughts on an emergency budget announcement? I'v read that it'll likely be announced in the first week of October, and there are several key aspects - notably the rumoured halving of stamp duty over a certain amount, whilst a very distant claim indicated scrapping of the second home surcharge.

I can't imagine the latter will happen, but the former is something I think Boris would implement, and this would have a real and significant impact upon my wife and I. Saving half our stamp duty would cover a huge amount of renovation costs. Combined with a lack of second home surcharge would be unreal. We're deep into our process, with the estate agent wanting to exchange this week or next, and then complete early September when we return from our holidays. I'm having a think as to how best discuss building in a delay in the process so that we see how an emerging budget would impact us.

Saving half the stamp duty would be amazing, as mine is going to come in at £7K~.

However there is no guarantee on time frames, or even if they will change it, and I don't want to mess my chain about on a maybe.

Pulling out of my sale/purchase would probably already cost me £1k or so, so for the sake of saving a couple of grand I will forge ahead as things are.

It would be nice if such a change would allow recent buyers to reclaim the additional fees, but fat chance of that happening!

 

[toshj]

Saving half the stamp duty would be amazing, as mine is going to come in at £7K~.

However there is no guarantee on time frames, or even if they will change it, and I don't want to mess my chain about on a maybe.

Pulling out of my sale/purchase would probably already cost me £1k or so, so for the sake of saving a couple of grand I will forge ahead as things are.

It would be nice if such a change would allow recent buyers to reclaim the additional fees, but fat chance of that happening!

Yeah, it's a difficult balancing act of loads of "what ifs". We're pushing the boat out in terms of cost and the stamp is a significant expenditure for us. Our vendors don't live in the house - it's in probate and being sold by the children of the previous owners - so despite wanting the cash as soon as possible, there are no other time pressures involved for either party. I'm wondering how they'll react to requesting a 6-8 week pause before we exchange.

We're all the way there in terms of docs, so we could arguably exchange and complete as quickly as humanly possible thereafter.

 

[HungryHippos]

Yeah, it's a difficult balancing act of loads of "what ifs". We're pushing the boat out in terms of cost and the stamp is a significant expenditure for us. Our vendors don't live in the house - it's in probate and being sold by the children of the previous owners - so despite wanting the cash as soon as possible, there are no other time pressures involved for either party. I'm wondering how they'll react to requesting a 6-8 week pause before we exchange.

We're all the way there in terms of docs, so we could arguably exchange and complete as quickly as humanly possible thereafter.

You not have a buyer?

 

[toshj]

You not have a buyer?

We're keeping our existing place, taking as much equity out of it to part fund the new place, and then renting it out once we've moved.

 

[b0rn2sk8]

Are you not more worried about the house prices tanking?

Think about the big picture, the only reason for cutting it is to stimulate the market. I'd be worried about what that tells us about how they expect the economy to perform going forward.

Given Brexit is the end of October and its likely to go all the way to the wire, early October seems a bit premature for an emergency Budget.

 

[toshj]

Are you not more worried about the house prices tanking?

Think about the big picture, the only reason for cutting it is to stimulate the market. I'd be worried about what that tells us about how they expect the economy to perform going forward.

Given Brexit is the end of October and its likely to go all the way to the wire, early October seems a bit premature for an emergency Budget.

Less concerned about house prices as we're buying to stay put for as long as possible - the only reason we'd sell in the mid-term would be if my business took off and we wanted to step up to a larger place, but we've structured things on the basis that this is our long term primary residence until we downsize after retirement. I'd read that they'd put a date on the budget announcement (7th October I believe) which I was hoping to use as the timeframe for a negotiation with the vendor.

The same with our let-to-buy property. If the housing market hasn't improved between 24-36 months (the period we can claim our second home surcharge refund whilst not being hit by early repayment charges) then we'll look to hold on to that property for the long term and let the mortgage draw down through rental income. Can't see it ever dropping below the current mortgage value given that it's a Central London 3 bed.

 

[HungryHippos]

Management companies are total jokers. I am selling my house which is on an estate with a management company.

I will compress events, but I have been trying to get a completed FME1 management pack for about the last month or so.

Me: Asked MC (management company) whether they could supply FME1 management pack.
MC: Advised they can, cost is £144.
Me: Paid £144 for FME1 management pack.
MC: Gave some stuff to my solicitor.
Me: Missing stuff so my solicitor asked a series of questions.
MC: That'll be £50 per question please.
Me: My solicitor advises that the questions should be part of FME1.
MC: Oh, you need the better management pack. Please send another £180.
Me: I sent £180 extra for the more comprehensive management pack (Total: £324).
MC: Here's the FME1, but you know what, we can't actually do everything here that is meant to be included.
Me: My solicitor asks them for a refund! We have evidence that this question was specifically asked, and they confirmed they could supply it.

 

[Funky-Melon]

Anyone purchased a probate house recently?

If so, how long did it take? Our sellers allegedly applied for probate in April and have still not had it granted.

Though on a document from our conveyencer last week, it says it was applied for on 24th June....No idea now!

 

[Skillmister]

Anyone purchased a probate house recently?

If so, how long did it take? Our sellers allegedly applied for probate in April and have still not had it granted.

Though on a document from our conveyencer last week, it says it was applied for on 24th June....No idea now!

Probate timescales are currently about 3 months so if they did apply at the end of June you've got a bit of a wait yet!

 

[toshj]

Anyone purchased a probate house recently?

If so, how long did it take? Our sellers allegedly applied for probate in April and have still not had it granted.

Though on a document from our conveyencer last week, it says it was applied for on 24th June....No idea now!

I'm not sure the total length, but ours were expecting it to last a month longer than it actually did.

 

[montymint]

Well my papers are signed with an estate agent, house will officially be on the market.

Got a tiny bit more tidying to do before internal photos are to be submitted. However the external photos are due to be taken this week and the listing going live, as houses in my area are known to be bought be buy to let owners who gut the houses regardless.

 

[HoneyBadger]

Driving from Kent to Aberdeen this weekend. We're leaving in the early hours tomorrow morning to view 2 properties. We're staying the night and driving back Sunday - Going to be a long weekend!

 

[Semple]

What's everyone's thoughts on an emergency budget announcement? I'v read that it'll likely be announced in the first week of October, and there are several key aspects - notably the rumoured halving of stamp duty over a certain amount, whilst a very distant claim indicated scrapping of the second home surcharge.

I can't imagine the latter will happen, but the former is something I think Boris would implement, and this would have a real and significant impact upon my wife and I. Saving half our stamp duty would cover a huge amount of renovation costs. Combined with a lack of second home surcharge would be unreal. We're deep into our process, with the estate agent wanting to exchange this week or next, and then complete early September when we return from our holidays. I'm having a think as to how best discuss building in a delay in the process so that we see how an emerging budget would impact us.

Decreasing stamp duty could certainly stimulate the market by making it much more affordable for people to move, it's certainly been an incentive for FTB'ers, the house we're purchasing is costing is 2k in stamp duty, if we were to then move into a same priced property it would cost us 7k in stamp duty.

I would be very surprised if they scrap the second home surcharge. The intention is to drive people away from owning multiple properties and make it only worthwhile to those who have a large property portfolio. Scrapping this would only make the housing market worse, if anything in my personal opinion second home ownership duties should be increased.

 

[jimjamuk]

Well just exchanged so if this stamp duty change is coming I've missed it. Shame as ours is £12k on this buy

 

[toshj]

Decreasing stamp duty could certainly stimulate the market by making it much more affordable for people to move, it's certainly been an incentive for FTB'ers, the house we're purchasing is costing is 2k in stamp duty, if we were to then move into a same priced property it would cost us 7k in stamp duty.

I would be very surprised if they scrap the second home surcharge. The intention is to drive people away from owning multiple properties and make it only worthwhile to those who have a large property portfolio. Scrapping this would only make the housing market worse, if anything in my personal opinion second home ownership duties should be increased.

Whilst I don't disagree with the sentiment about second house ownership, Johnson (and Javid) have very few tricks up their sleeves in order to stimulate the economy. I don't think cutting the 3% surcharge is likely to happen, but things can change quickly depending on how desperate the country's finances get. There are large parts/staff of the current government that look woefully inexperienced and that can lead to funny decisions.

A halving in stamp duty costs across the board - as has been mooted - would be a significant impact upon our finances and could seriously help us with our renovation costs. I've got no idea about how to/when is best to broach the subject with the estate agent, but it's certainly a priority for us to drag this out. I spoke with another estate agent today and he said that his entire sales pipeline had ground to a halt as buyers wanted to see what's in the budget.

 

[friddela]

Getting increasingly annoyed with the solicitors I've gone with. Accepted an offer in April and things are moving slowly!

Unfortunately I didn't take the advice that I see everywhere and went with the solicitors that Yopa advised. Huge mistake. Every time I request an update there's suddenly a question to answer from the buyers. It's painfully obvious that the buyers have asked the question and they just wait for contact from me before forwarding it on. Looking at online reviews they openly admit they have too much work on.

Anyway, hopefully we will exchange soon!

 

[krooton]

Well just exchanged so if this stamp duty change is coming I've missed it. Shame as ours is £12k on this buy

We got hit with at 20k, painful :'(

 

[toshj]

We've been told that the stamp duty liability is based upon the stamp duty rates at the time of completion, not exchange. Which means that we may exchange in the next week, and build in a completion date in November (to be brought forward if needs be) so that we may be able to lower our stamp duty costs.

Sweet.

 

[montymint]

I've found the house I think I want, just a little way out of Newcastle.

I have one more house visit tonight (don;t want to cancel last minute - it's rude) and if it's not as good - I'll be putting an offer in.

Now I need to get mine sold!

 

[HoneyBadger]

We're a bit fed up!

We have two houses in Kent, we've just reduced one from £525K to £500k but it's not getting much interest. We've had viewings and one offer at £425k but its a big house that needs complete modernisation.
The second house that we live in isn't even on the market yet, hoping to have it on in the next 2 weeks, we've already instructed Purple Bricks.

We want to relocate to Scotland, we drove up weekend just gone to Banff and Strichen, viewed two properties. One was OK, although the home report said some of the double glazed windows had failed and it turns out all of them had. It also had like 20 odd windows!! What no one told us was that directly opposite the house there's a new housing development so that's a non-starter for us. Really disappointed as I really liked the house.

On to the second one, house was lovely, very grand but it needed too much work done to it, and the seller owned all the surrounding buildings and fields and that put me off a bit.

So we did almost 1300 miles in 48 hours with nothing to show for it. We stayed over night in Peterhead travel lodge, that was....interesting.

We've now found another house we really like, this time on the west coast of Scotland, so we're going to drive up again in the coming weeks, just waiting on confirmation of viewing.