Soldato
- Joined
- 13 May 2003
- Posts
- 8,986
You have my sympathy, just been in the same place and the last few weeks were killer. Stay strong you'll soon be there.
The nervous wait to exchange....
- Thread starter noj
- Start date
Congratulations. In my 4 month experience of being a home "owner" it means constantly weighing up whether or not you want to pay a tradesman to do/fix something that given enough time and YouTube you could undoubtedly do yourself (but there's not enough time in the world
). Perfect example, my other half decided to take the under-sink plumbing apart for a clean. Of course we couldn't understand how to get it all back together without it leaking, so rang a plumber... Not available until next year. Went to Wickes, bought a load of stuff and bodged it together last night after the F1. And that bodge will last until the kitchen needs a refit!Congratulations. In my 4 month experience of being a home "owner" it means constantly weighing up whether or not you want to pay a tradesman to do/fix something that given enough time and YouTube you could undoubtedly do yourself (but there's not enough time in the world
It is still going but fingers crossed we will get over the line we have started transferring money to the solicitors account etc and the vendor is mad keen to complete before Christmas.
Well that's the plan as we are re-doing the kitchen hopefully early next year as part of other renovations (or as soon as we can lock in our builder)
Congratulations. In my 4 month experience of being a home "owner" it means constantly weighing up whether or not you want to pay a tradesman to do/fix something that given enough time and YouTube you could undoubtedly do yourself (but there's not enough time in the world
Excellent, I have lots of experience watching Youtube!
After a flurry of activity and manic emails in trying to make sure we could exchange and complete by Friday (17th), we've had a disappointing call from our solicitor that it appears the vendors have now pulled out just before we exchanged. Haven't even had a courtesy call or contact from the vendors, have also not yet responded to an email from me, and were just last night telling us they were hoping for positive news today. At my wit's end at the moment trying to find out if this is actually true or not.
We've now been told that regardless of that we won't be completing before Christmas anyway, so a Christmas and potentially indefinite future with the in-laws it is...
We've now been told that regardless of that we won't be completing before Christmas anyway, so a Christmas and potentially indefinite future with the in-laws it is...
Ouch. There's a special place in hell for seller's pulling out like that. My girlfriend's friend/colleague was putting her house up for sale last year and then later told my girlfriend she'd "changed her mind" and bailed when she already had buyers lined up and proceeding. Consider we were going through the process ourselves ahead of the stamp duty holiday ending and very stressed as FTBs... well I don't think my girlfriend has spoken to her since
After a flurry of activity and manic emails in trying to make sure we could exchange and complete by Friday (17th), we've had a disappointing call from our solicitor that it appears the vendors have now pulled out just before we exchanged. Haven't even had a courtesy call or contact from the vendors, have also not yet responded to an email from me, and were just last night telling us they were hoping for positive news today. At my wit's end at the moment trying to find out if this is actually true or not.
We've now been told that regardless of that we won't be completing before Christmas anyway, so a Christmas and potentially indefinite future with the in-laws it is...
That sucks! Fingers crossed you get better news soon and it goes ahead!
Ouch. There's a special place in hell for seller's pulling out like that. My girlfriend's friend/colleague was putting her house up for sale last year and then later told my girlfriend she'd "changed her mind" and bailed when she already had buyers lined up and proceeding. Consider we were going through the process ourselves ahead of the stamp duty holiday ending and very stressed as FTBs... well I don't think my girlfriend has spoken to her since
I think given the radio silence, and the fact we've sent an email practically begging them to reconsider (we're chain-free, all searches already done, mortgage application done, completely ready to go) to similar silence is the nail in the coffin. That leaves us in the winter market with nothing available. We doubt anything will crop up before March/April so I guess we're stuck at my girlfriend's parent's house for the foreseeable, probably until at least May/June by the time any proceedings start on a new house.
Had an offer accepted on a place back in June. We went into it expecting like with previous purchases it would take from 3-4 months. Here we are not expecting to exchange until January now. We have had to extended our mortgage offer but do not intend to use much of it.
The main challenge has been the seller refusing to give notice to the tenants until we were ready to exchange which was back in October. The seller had withheld that information and had implied the tenants were on a 1 month notice and had been served back in September. Instead they had 2 months and were served towards the new of October.
We have been flexible knowing it’s not a good time of the year for the tenant to be moving out if they couldn’t find somewhere else early so we were willing to allow a slight slip into the first couple of weeks of the new year. However I received a slightly ominous message from the estate agent asking about the length of the extension of the mortgage offer (it’s 6 months but I only told them it’s 1 month). It does appear to me that the tenants are not wanting to move out and are possibly waiting for a section 21 eviction. This could drag in for months.
My plan of action if the property is not vacant by the 10th Jan is to drop the offer by £10k and completion must happen within a month. In the mean time we will start to look for new properties as there will be a lot more on the market in January.
The main challenge has been the seller refusing to give notice to the tenants until we were ready to exchange which was back in October. The seller had withheld that information and had implied the tenants were on a 1 month notice and had been served back in September. Instead they had 2 months and were served towards the new of October.
We have been flexible knowing it’s not a good time of the year for the tenant to be moving out if they couldn’t find somewhere else early so we were willing to allow a slight slip into the first couple of weeks of the new year. However I received a slightly ominous message from the estate agent asking about the length of the extension of the mortgage offer (it’s 6 months but I only told them it’s 1 month). It does appear to me that the tenants are not wanting to move out and are possibly waiting for a section 21 eviction. This could drag in for months.
My plan of action if the property is not vacant by the 10th Jan is to drop the offer by £10k and completion must happen within a month. In the mean time we will start to look for new properties as there will be a lot more on the market in January.
solicitors will never advise their client gives notice to their tenants until exchange happens. This avoids extensive void periods for the landlord and potentially catastrophic loss of rent should they give notice and you then pull out resulting in the tenant leaving anyway, the landlord having an empty property and a mortgage that needs paying for without rental income to cover it.
This scenario should have been made clear to you right at the very beginning of the transaction by all parties.
Annoying about the notice period shenanigans though - all of this stuff is so important to get straight right at the very beginning of proceedings.
sadly of course you are right - the tenants could just refuse to leave which leaves everyone stuffed.
In this market, throwing a wobbly and knocking 10k off the agreed price will probably result in a fall through anyway and the vendor will just go sell it to someone else - and probably for more at the moment. It’s completely a vendors market, not the other way around.
Your shout and I wish you the very best of luck, just make sure you are prepared to loose it. With that in mind, I would probably get out there looking at other stuff just in case
There’s always that risk when a vendor chooses to not make the property vacant before the sale. This property was on the market for a long time and had several reductions, plus with a lot of properties coming onto the market in the new year I’m not sure they will have any chance of raising the price, the market will be a lot cooler next year, plus the tenants will just do it again to the next buyer assuming the vendor doesn’t follow through with the section 21. How long does it take to get tenants kicked out?
We think with a lot more properties coming onto the market in the new year we will almost certainly find a new one. If the issues with evicting the tenants isn’t going to be sorted for a few months we would likely just find somewhere else and complete in the more normal 3-4 month period.
We probably need to be a bit more tactical with pushing the price on the property. It’s not an attractive property to wait for much longer. Really if the vendor is really serious about shifting the property they will have to make it vacant to make it more attractive to buyers.
If they don’t go on their own accord after the S21 notice has been issued and it needs to go to court and then bailiffs, you are talking months, as in 6 or more. Most don’t go that way though.
It really depends on if they can find something else or not or have the money to put a deposit down and pay the current market rents. The council will not house them until bailiffs turn up.
I’d start the search for something else.
It really depends on if they can find something else or not or have the money to put a deposit down and pay the current market rents. The council will not house them until bailiffs turn up.
I’d start the search for something else.
6 months would be taking this total process to 12+ months. Just a little unacceptable.
I did suggest they look at the distress of rent act to charge them double rent to help focus them a bit more on moving out after the section 21 so they don’t think there is no downside to staying. I’m not familiar with this process so not sure how realistic that is.
So my plan then is to start looking at new properties immediately in Jan and we will look to withdraw the offer if we find something new then. We will also suggest to the estate agent that this upcoming process of evicting the tenants is going to take a lot of time and makes the property much less attractive. If the vendor can do anything to help make it more attractive such as reducing the price it could help.
Soldato
- Joined
- 19 May 2005
- Posts
- 6,892
Just completed on a sale yesterday, took 83 days.
Cash buyer turned into a company purchasing with a bridging loan.
Cash buyer turned into a company purchasing with a bridging loan.
To both; I'm not going to claim to be an expert here but we looked round a property that had tenants in. Two things;- (1) our mortgage was not valid for tenanted properties so it could not be approved until the property was vacant (read: not with tenants having given notice, they need to be out). (2) our solicitor's paperwork mentioned multiple times 'vacant possession' meaning nothing would go ahead until the property is empty.
In short, the impression we got was that no landlord should be trying to sell a house with tenants in situ. Unless he only wants to sell it to another landlord, or someone who is prepared to change their mortgage to allow BTL.
Also, this might be useful; https://england.shelter.org.uk/housing_advice/eviction/notice_periods_during_coronavirus Whilst we were looking to buy, the agent of the aforementioned property was like "oh we'll just find another house for them to move to" and was super-flippant. We had to remind them that due to current rules they'd have to give 6 months notice. Answer "oh, really I didn't know that"
lol agents... To both; I'm not going to claim to be an expert here but we looked round a property that had tenants in. Two things;- (1) our mortgage was not valid for tenanted properties so it could not be approved until the property was vacant (read: not with tenants having given notice, they need to be out). (2) our solicitor's paperwork mentioned multiple times 'vacant possession' meaning nothing would go ahead until the property is empty.
In short, the impression we got was that no landlord should be trying to sell a house with tenants in situ. Unless he only wants to sell it to another landlord, or someone who is prepared to change their mortgage to allow BTL.
Also, this might be useful; https://england.shelter.org.uk/housing_advice/eviction/notice_periods_during_coronavirus Whilst we were looking to buy, the agent of the aforementioned property was like "oh we'll just find another house for them to move to" and was super-flippant. We had to remind them that due to current rules they'd have to give 6 months notice. Answer "oh, really I didn't know that"
nope - a landlord can commence selling whenever they like - the exchange takes place but mortgage funds will only be released upon confirmation of vacant possession - the bank will want confirmation that notice has been given, when, how and as to whether the notice has been accepted - otherwise authority to exchange will never be granted let alone completion.
selling properties with tenants in situ is entirely normal and extremely common - 99% of the time they vacate when asked to and it’s a none issue. But that’s why banks require the confirmation of vacant possession before any money reaches anyone.
But surely "vacant possession" is not the same as tenants in situ who have been given notice. No bank would want to Ioan on a property with tenants in, what happens if they just don't leave etc.?
In our case, it was a crappy student hell hole that the seller was asking way above his station for. Funnily enough it's still in the market with POA (and no tenants) lol. Seller clearly has no clue..
In our case, it was a crappy student hell hole that the seller was asking way above his station for. Funnily enough it's still in the market with POA (and no tenants) lol. Seller clearly has no clue..