The nervous wait to exchange....

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413x said:
They need some laws around house purchasing and gazumping

It's a horrible situation. I guarantee if we bought this house now we would have had the same.

It's also disgusting you have to wait months. All the way to exchange to be locked in. Really, I can't believe there isn't some penalty for this
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There really should be laws. We are going to go as slow as possible now to let the seller stew as they have finally booted out their tenants so have no rental income. They supposedly needed the money for medical bills (they live in Switzerland) but took a loan so don’t have the same pressure to sell as before. However this stunt won’t work when I’m not in a chain and I’m not in any pressure to actually move.

Most of the want to move came from the lockdowns and wanting more space in the garden and wfh, that’s gone now. They think we need to move urgently as we really drove up the pressure on them to get the tenants out asap and also we have an expanding family imminent. However we have enough space where we are to cope for another 4-5 years but they don’t know that.

We have a mortgage offer that will last until June so we can delay them for a few month so there’s another interest rate rise and it approaches summer where the market slows down. What else can they do, relist and wait another 4 months while they have no rent and loan payments to make, plus some more solicitor fees (I expect). I’ll turn the tables back on them next week, but I’ll wait for their call.
 
There's a clause in our contract that we have to become members of a Residents Association. The only thing is, I'm pretty sure it doesn't exist anymore. It's mentioned in a 1967 conveyance which refers to the original 1965 conveyance also. But there's one other conveyance from 1978 where the construction company was voluntarily dissolved and all clauses seemed to be released. Meaning the construction company, the Residents Association, and the home owner are all absolved of the original responsibilities to each other. So to me that sounds like it's no longer a requirement?

Solicitor has queried it with the vendors', but I'm wondering if this kind of vestigial covenant is common when buying houses of a certain age?

FWIW I can't find a single mention online of either the association or the construction firm... So I suspect they're long since gone from Companies House etc.
 
LuckyBenski said:
There's a clause in our contract that we have to become members of a Residents Association. The only thing is, I'm pretty sure it doesn't exist anymore. It's mentioned in a 1967 conveyance which refers to the original 1965 conveyance also. But there's one other conveyance from 1978 where the construction company was voluntarily dissolved and all clauses seemed to be released. Meaning the construction company, the Residents Association, and the home owner are all absolved of the original responsibilities to each other. So to me that sounds like it's no longer a requirement?

Solicitor has queried it with the vendors', but I'm wondering if this kind of vestigial covenant is common when buying houses of a certain age?

FWIW I can't find a single mention online of either the association or the construction firm... So I suspect they're long since gone from Companies House etc.
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Has the local search come back to say that the roads etc fronting the property are adopted? If so, and there are no other shared areas nearby that might need private maintenance, it's probably no longer relevant.
 
Having a major dilemma about a potential house.

It's marketed for £350k and needs a fair bit of work especially as it's a foreverhome type property so would want it done properly. So we're talking a full rewire to get it up to scratch, has no central heating only storage heaters so would need to consider whether to put in a new central heating system (no mains gas so either oil or LPG or look into heat pumps) or just go with a couple of multi fuel stoves (2 fireplaces) with electric radiators, new kitchen then full decoration (inc new floors/carpets etc throughout)...

We've put in an offer below asking price given the work it needs and given it's on at what I would consider an inflated price with how the market is at the moment. They seem interested, it wasn't a no but the agents said "can you up your offer?". When asked how much they want us to up it, they can't answer. They have another offer, but won't tell us how much. When asked what price the sellers would accept, they can't tell us. Why is the agent game so BS?!

We can up the offer by £5-10k but that takes away from the cash we have to do it up. Also have the issue that I own the house we live in currently which means we would have to pay an extra ~£14k stamp duty... We can get that back if I sell after which I do plan to do but the upfront cost is grim. I have considered renting it out but don't want to the hassle for the lesser returns these days plus I morally don't want to contribute to the 2nd home issue in Wales that is causing such a market problem. We can't really sell it at the same time as purchasing as the potential house isn't liveable in it's current state and it's a 35-40 min each way journey as it is, if we sold up and moved in with gf's parents while renovating that becomes 90 mins each way. Not feasible. Plus given working in conveyancing I have vowed never to sell and buy on the same day. Could move into a rental but there are so few available and that seems like a waste of money.

So many questions and so few answers.
 
Skillmister said:
They seem interested, it wasn't a no but the agents said "can you up your offer?". When asked how much they want us to up it, they can't answer. They have another offer, but won't tell us how much. When asked what price the sellers would accept, they can't tell us. Why is the agent game so BS?!
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I can't help with most of your post other than go with your gut instinct, it's almost never wrong.

Specifically the answer the bit quoted above, the method they are employing is purely to get as much money for their client (and it will likely work). You'll never know if there is another bid, you'll never know if you can get away with offering £5k more or need to go for £30k more.

If it was me, and you really wanted to property I'd up it slightly and give justification - the property is worth £350k to you when up to modern standards, it's not at the moment and requires around £15k of immediate work such as a rewire, roof doing etc.... so you'll offer £335k up from your original offer of £330k.
 
Skillmister said:
When asked how much they want us to up it, they can't answer. They have another offer, but won't tell us how much. When asked what price the sellers would accept, they can't tell us. Why is the agent game so BS?!
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I'm surprised that's come as a shock to you with you working in that industry. No EA will tell you what other parties have offered because either a) you won't be able to match it and withdraw leaving less offers on the table, or b) you'll only increase your offer by a tiny amount over the leading offer rather than potentially a bigger offer.
 
Skillmister said:
Has the local search come back to say that the roads etc fronting the property are adopted? If so, and there are no other shared areas nearby that might need private maintenance, it's probably no longer relevant.
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Thanks, that's my suspicion - the RA was responsible for painting the properties and there was some coverage of landscaping too. But I don't think any green space is left, and the roads are adopted. So I think there's no real issue anymore.

Semple said:
or b) you'll only increase your offer by a tiny amount over the leading offer rather than potentially a bigger offer.
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This was a challenge for us too really. Our place only had 3 views, but there was at least one other offer than ours. Given the property and the price I wouldn't be surprised if the other buyer was offering below asking - whereas coming from London we were basically prepared to offer our full budget. So it's perfectly possible that this other offer was raised to the asking price, while we bumped ours from asking to 15k over (asking was 250k so a good bump).

Thankfully a typo was made that saved us 3k - the seller was happy with the "only" 12k above asking. Just working in the blind really aren't you!
 
Thanks guys. Yeah I'm familiar with what they are doing it's not a suprise just venting!

But then again some of the agents I work with are quite open about the fact increases in purchase price don't make much of a difference in their commission so they are mostly bothered about getting them sold and off the books ASAP.
 
delta0 said:
There really should be laws. We are going to go as slow as possible now to let the seller stew as they have finally booted out their tenants so have no rental income. They supposedly needed the money for medical bills (they live in Switzerland)
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I just wanted to say I hope you do string then along. An absentee landlord living in not-cheap Switzerland would get zero sympathy from me. Medical bills? My ****.
 
Scam said:
I just wanted to say I hope you do string then along. An absentee landlord living in not-cheap Switzerland would get zero sympathy from me. Medical bills? My ****.
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Already doing it. Waited for the estate agent’s call. As soon as they started talking about the extra money the seller wanted I mentioned I had spoken with my solicitor and surveyor. They were pushing for a cash top up and I said the solicitor advised against a side agreement. Then I mentioned I had spoken with my surveyor and they reiterated the top end of the valuation is still what we agreed to originally. This was then used to cast doubt on a quick resolution with the bank and that it would be unlikely to be successful or could be complicated. I said we can get on with it now at the current offer or we could be delayed for a long period. He’s taking that back to the seller.

I also said I’m waiting to speak with the bank and as it’s half term my contact at the bank is not available to meet to discuss it yet. Either the seller will cave in this week or they will contact me to try and get an update on the bank. I’ll tell them I have a meeting booked with them a week later. Again reiterating it’s going to be complicated and slow or we can take the current offer as it stands.

I have a few other delaying tactics up my sleeve. I’ll throw the whole going into a chain thing in again and that will really test if they want to wait 4 months for more money. That should break them especially if I can run them out for a month or so before we get to that point.
 
Skillmister said:
Having a major dilemma about a potential house.

It's marketed for £350k and needs a fair bit of work especially as it's a foreverhome type property so would want it done properly. So we're talking a full rewire to get it up to scratch, has no central heating only storage heaters so would need to consider whether to put in a new central heating system (no mains gas so either oil or LPG or look into heat pumps) or just go with a couple of multi fuel stoves (2 fireplaces) with electric radiators, new kitchen then full decoration (inc new floors/carpets etc throughout)...

We've put in an offer below asking price given the work it needs and given it's on at what I would consider an inflated price with how the market is at the moment. They seem interested, it wasn't a no but the agents said "can you up your offer?". When asked how much they want us to up it, they can't answer. They have another offer, but won't tell us how much. When asked what price the sellers would accept, they can't tell us. Why is the agent game so BS?!

We can up the offer by £5-10k but that takes away from the cash we have to do it up. Also have the issue that I own the house we live in currently which means we would have to pay an extra ~£14k stamp duty... We can get that back if I sell after which I do plan to do but the upfront cost is grim. I have considered renting it out but don't want to the hassle for the lesser returns these days plus I morally don't want to contribute to the 2nd home issue in Wales that is causing such a market problem. We can't really sell it at the same time as purchasing as the potential house isn't liveable in it's current state and it's a 35-40 min each way journey as it is, if we sold up and moved in with gf's parents while renovating that becomes 90 mins each way. Not feasible. Plus given working in conveyancing I have vowed never to sell and buy on the same day. Could move into a rental but there are so few available and that seems like a waste of money.

So many questions and so few answers.
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without written consent from the owner, the agent cannot legally tell you what the other offers were.

i suspect you would be pretty annoyed if you found out the agent was telling the other side what you offered and vice versa.
Doesn’t mean the overall system isn’t a pain in the rear of course.

similarly, if you were the owner (the one paying the agents fee) would you really appreciate it if the agent went about telling potential buyers what your bottom line was without getting authorisation from you first?

the difference in fee between an offer of 325k and 330k is nothing to an agent so if they can’t tell you what the owners bottom line is it’s probably because they either don’t know or, cannot obviously tell you as that would be against the wishes of the seller and a betrayal of their trust.
 
Missed out on another house today. We put in 10k over asking and still had others bidding higher than us…really quite sucky out there at the moment.
 
Itchytrigg said:
Missed out on another house today. We put in 10k over asking and still had others bidding higher than us…really quite sucky out there at the moment.
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We had 9 offers over asking for ours in March 2021, it was on the market for 3 days (at our insistence, we booked ALL viewings into a long weekend*). We sold for asking +32k. It was absolutely wild.

*When we were looking for a new place we found one house we loved. We called to book a viewing, they booked us in and called back the next day to say they'd accepted an offer. 3 weeks later it was back on, so we booked again, and AGAIN they called to say they'd accepted an offer. We didnt get to see it at all. Why do people cancel viewings? they don't know what we were willing to offer for that house? Based on this, we promised to let everyone who wanted to view our house make an offer before we made a decision, and boy am i glad.

Sorry ro you and anyone else having to go through it. It's a terrible system anyway but right now its out of control.
 
DampCat said:
We had 9 offers over asking for ours in March 2021, it was on the market for 3 days (at our insistence, we booked ALL viewings into a long weekend*). We sold for asking +32k. It was absolutely wild.

*When we were looking for a new place we found one house we loved. We called to book a viewing, they booked us in and called back the next day to say they'd accepted an offer. 3 weeks later it was back on, so we booked again, and AGAIN they called to say they'd accepted an offer. We didnt get to see it at all. Why do people cancel viewings? they don't know what we were willing to offer for that house? Based on this, we promised to let everyone who wanted to view our house make an offer before we made a decision, and boy am i glad.

Sorry ro you and anyone else having to go through it. It's a terrible system anyway but right now its out of control.
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Is this because lots of people now have disposable income and there's more people looking for a property and not enough supply?
 
32k over just absolutely crazy. We’re looking at 340k properties so I thought our offer wasn’t and. Apparently it was between us and one other, and they were not the highest apparently. My assumption is we were both the only first time buyers and they took slightly less to secure a quicker closure as they had just had a collapse lower chain.
 
Itchytrigg said:
Missed out on another house today. We put in 10k over asking and still had others bidding higher than us…really quite sucky out there at the moment.
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We nearly gave up with my other half. We budgeted 500k for a first time house and have deposit etc ready, we’ve been maxing out our life time isa for a few years now and when we started the budget/max house price was comfortably in our range.. silly us to forget about that limit and learn that it is now set to 450k. If we wanted to take out our savings we’d lose the “benefit” which I accept but also would get fined on top :( so we have to find a property for under 450k which seems difficult where we live and everything goes massively over asking. E.g of a 3 bed bungalow, last year sold for 325k, now back on the market for £450k. Literally less than a year since it was sold.

so the government penalising us for taking out our savings is a pig. On top of everything else. As an example:

put in £4k a year
Government end of tax year adds £1k
Have £5k in total

decide to buy a property under the limit? Fine you get the £5k

decide to go over and have to take the money out? We’ll deduct the £1k bonus you got to help you to buy and we’ll also penalise you £250 for the privilege.

so your £4k ends up being £3750.

just a kick in the balls. And when you have a good chunk in there you end up losing thousands. Stupid system.
 
grudas said:
We nearly gave up with my other half. We budgeted 500k for a first time house and have deposit etc ready, we’ve been maxing out our life time isa for a few years now and when we started the budget/max house price was comfortably in our range.. silly us to forget about that limit and learn that it is now set to 450k. If we wanted to take out our savings we’d lose the “benefit” which I accept but also would get fined on top :( so we have to find a property for under 450k which seems difficult where we live and everything goes massively over asking. E.g of a 3 bed bungalow, last year sold for 325k, now back on the market for £450k. Literally less than a year since it was sold.

so the government penalising us for taking out our savings is a pig. On top of everything else. As an example:

put in £4k a year
Government end of tax year adds £1k
Have £5k in total

decide to buy a property under the limit? Fine you get the £5k

decide to go over and have to take the money out? We’ll deduct the £1k bonus you got to help you to buy and we’ll also penalise you £250 for the privilege.

so your £4k ends up being £3750.

just a kick in the balls. And when you have a good chunk in there you end up losing thousands. Stupid system.
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holy crap really? i also bought into that hosue Help to buy ISA saving crap!!! wow just wow!!!
 
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