The nervous wait to exchange....

  • Thread starter Thread starter noj
  • Start date Start date
jonneymendoza said:
Congrats mate!

First time buyer?
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Thanks :). No, this is many house purchases and sales down the line, but pretty much where I wanted to end up. Amazingly I’m still learning about the process and certainly encountered surprises along the way with this one. Given how useless the solicitors and EAs were I’m glad this wasn’t a first purchase. I had wonderful solicitors for my first ever home purchase who really held my hand throughout.

Who knows, one day I may fully move down here, but it doesn’t work with my job at the moment, at least for a few years.
 
Completion day! Money all sent on faster payments service. Hate doing bank transfers for large amounts of money - I must have checked the details were correct at least 5 times!

Just got to wait now - hopefully we'll get the keys by early afternoon and we can get the movers and van with all the stuff on the way.
 
BongoHunter said:
Completion day! Money all sent on faster payments service. Hate doing bank transfers for large amounts of money - I must have checked the details were correct at least 5 times!

Just got to wait now - hopefully we'll get the keys by early afternoon and we can get the movers and van with all the stuff on the way.
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Did u do a test bank transfer first?

O and did you notify you're bank that you are about to make the biggest purchase of your life?
 
Hi Chaps,

I've been renting my apartment for the past 9 years at a cost of £550 per month. Myself and girlfriend were aiming to purchase a house towards the end of 2023, once we have a 20% deposit for a £350,000 house.

Yesterday the letting agent called me advising that the current landlord were looking to sell the flat and would I be interested? Now bearing in mind we planned to buy in 12-24 months anyway, but an actual house, not an apartment. Anyway, I've crunched some numbers and I can't seem to make sense of if its worth it financially.

Lets assume we don't and we end up renting again for £700~ a month in the same area, if this is the case then I'd only do it for 12 months as we'd have the deposit by then. Total cost of this would be £8,400 and I'd still have my current deposit (£7000) earning interest.

If I buy for £140,000 (110 year lease left) with just a 5% deposit (MIP approved) then after 24 months my equity in the property would be around £12,000 based on a 3.9% interest rate. However if we remove the buying/selling/service fees from that equity I'm left with a negative figure.

Service Charge - £3,000 (£1.5k per year)
Ground Rent - £200 (£100 per year)
Stamp Duty - £0
Buying Legal Fees - £1,200
Survey - £450
Selling Agency Fees - £2,200 (based on 1.5%)
Selling Conveyancing Fees - £2,300 (including leasehold premium)
EPC Rating - £80

The above add up to £9,430 which if taken away from the £11,900 equity would leave £2,470. However, if I take the future stamp duty in to account this brings this down to -£2530. This is because if the £350,000 house is our first home then it'd be £2,500, however if it becomes our 2nd home then it'd be £7,5000, a £5,000 difference.

So, from what I can see the cost of buying the apartment for 24 months, taking in to account the stamp duty hit would leave me worse off to the tune of £2530. However renting for 12 months would leave me worse off to the tune of £1,400.

All of this assumes that the value of the flat stays stable and doesn't rise or even dip in the predicted recession.

Are my working outs sound or am I missing some key points?
 
Princey said:
Are my working outs sound or am I missing some key points?
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Ignoring a lot of aspects but speaking from a conveyancer perspective consider-

  • It may not be 12/24 months and could be considerably longer once you make the decision to move on. Conveyancing is a nightmare at the moment, leasehold especially and that isn't going to change any time soon, so the selling/buying process could take many months
  • You could have failed sales/purchases which would eat into your costs. Having to sell the apartment doubles your chance of having a failed transaction which could also mess up a purchase and therefore increase the risk of you needing to pay for searches/survey/mortgage valuation on another property if you lost out on one
  • Your purchase legal fees are on the low side - purchasing is usually more expensive than selling due to searches, land registry fees etc
  • Service charges on the apartment are not fixed and can/do increase often significantly on an annual basis. There is also a risk that section 20/major works need carrying out to the building which you would share a cost in. What type of apartment is it? Big block or small converted house for example?
  • Agency fees will be +VAT
  • You would need to pay for leasehold information packs if you sell. Some companies charge hundreds for these, plus "post completion" fees to the leasehold companies when you purchase. These could easily total £1000+ depending on the company/companies

I wouldn't do it.
 
And we're in - didn't get the keys till 3 - all unloaded now. Haven't seen the house since we offered on it but fortunately the Mrs still likes it (thank god). Previous owner has left quite a bit of stuff unexpectedly - but will get that sorted tomoz!


jonneymendoza said:
Did u do a test bank transfer first?

O and did you notify you're bank that you are about to make the biggest purchase of your life?
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No didn't do a test first - just went for it, no need to notify the bank first in my case. Our first purchase was a bigger transfer anyway even though it was a cheaper house as we were bottom of chain that time.

CaptainRAVE said:
Hope it goes through quicker than our CHAPS payment did!
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Ours went through in 10 mins as both sides supported faster payments service thankfully.

Liquid_Entity said:
Thought I recognised the pebbles haha I'm across the cliffs in Eastbourne.
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We're over near Battle - so the OcUK East Sussex massive has just got bigger :-)
 
Princey said:
Are my working outs sound or am I missing some key points?
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All the above points and that the potential market for a flat is tiny compared to a small house, very few people actually want one but only go into them because needs must. Getting shot of it will be much harder than if you buy a smaller house now.
 
I wish I could have stretched to a freehold house but in my situation mentioned earlier (seperating from wife, selling the family home and using half the equity for me) I can only buy a 2 bed flat but it is only a 2 flat house conversion. I'll probably be here for a long time now with no desire to find another wench haha
 
Hiya,

Is it ok to ask for a damp specialist, gas and electrical engineer to check the property out in order to give us a more realistic assesment and quote based off of the survey report i got?

The main issues from the survey are :

  • DPC possibly not being put on property, ground level.
  • Renderer blocking the damp bricks ventilators
  • electricity/wiring needs checking by a specialists
  • Gas needs checking by a specialists
  • Roof needs checking as thare a few things the surveyor saw like: mose, replacing flashing and replacing some tiles. Surevyor also could not see half of the roof due to access. He only saw it from ground level.
  • Check the drains via CCTV survey of the underground drainage system.
We are in the inquiry and searches phase now and wondering if i should start calling up some specialists/tradesmen to take a look at the property for some estimations without disturbing anything on the property .

Ideally i want to get a clearer picture of what work needs to be carried out from day 1 of completion and start planning which gets done first etc and wether i address some of the above rather than everything all at once before i move in.

I have basically a 2month window upon getting the keys to actually living there as i am in a rental accomodation with 2 month notice.

The property is more or less vacent but there items are still there. The owner who lives there is moving to a home care place and her kids are sorting stuff out on the property.

So overall i am not trying to reduce my offer unless the Damp specialist etc comes back to me and say, bro are you crazy? This will cost you 50k+ to sort this out and it needs sorting ASAP, else the property will crash and burn etc etc.

Thoughts? is it ok to get these trademen in and organise a day or two for them to take a look at the property?
 
jonneymendoza said:
Hiya,

Is it ok to ask for a damp specialist, gas and electrical engineer to check the property out in order to give us a more realistic assesment and quote based off of the survey report i got?

The main issues from the survey are :

  • DPC possibly not being put on property, ground level.
  • Renderer blocking the damp bricks ventilators
  • electricity/wiring needs checking by a specialists
  • Gas needs checking by a specialists
  • Roof needs checking as thare a few things the surveyor saw like: mose, replacing flashing and replacing some tiles. Surevyor also could not see half of the roof due to access. He only saw it from ground level.
  • Check the drains via CCTV survey of the underground drainage system.
We are in the inquiry and searches phase now and wondering if i should start calling up some specialists/tradesmen to take a look at the property for some estimations without disturbing anything on the property .

Ideally i want to get a clearer picture of what work needs to be carried out from day 1 of completion and start planning which gets done first etc and wether i address some of the above rather than everything all at once before i move in.

I have basically a 2month window upon getting the keys to actually living there as i am in a rental accomodation with 2 month notice.

The property is more or less vacent but there items are still there. The owner who lives there is moving to a home care place and her kids are sorting stuff out on the property.

So overall i am not trying to reduce my offer unless the Damp specialist etc comes back to me and say, bro are you crazy? This will cost you 50k+ to sort this out and it needs sorting ASAP, else the property will crash and burn etc etc.

Thoughts? is it ok to get these trademen in and organise a day or two for them to take a look at the property?
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It's fine but 'specialist's don't really exist. You'll get a roofer...a sparks.... a damp man - and they'll all quote for the job they want to do. Be quick and get them booked in but take the quote with a pinch of salt.
 
jonneymendoza said:
Thoughts? is it ok to get these trademen in and organise a day or two for them to take a look at the property?
Click to expand...

In the first instance we asked the seller if they could resolve similar issues. E.g: we had them replace some missing roof tiles, have electrical and gas surveys, take some pictures under the floorboards for us, etc.

Some items we agreed would make more sense for us to get a quote and us rectify the issue post-purchase. So I got three quotes, took the highest and then still haven't bothered to have the work done!

Edit - as somebody else has pointed out, our sellers were keen to sell within the stamp duty window so did accommodate a lot of our requests. Your mileage may vary in the current climate.
 
For the spark you are asking for an EICR, for gas you want a gas safety inspection.

Damp people will probably give quote you for a new DPM even if it’s being caused by a leaking cutter. Proper snake oil industry.

Roofers are hard to come by but the work that may need doing should be clear cut. E.g. if a tile is missing it’s obvious, same goes for flashing (which may be causing the damp…)

In first instance you want to approach the sellers to get the remedial done but they’ll probably tell you to politely jog on in this market (sorry, the price reflects the condition). The gas and electrical inspections are on you IMO and they will always be flagged on a survey regardless.
 
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