Topic: The 'Eeeek...buying/saving for a house' thread

[Drinks Sangria]

Know a few people trying to sell by ours and its a nightmare. There's been an influx of Hong Kong Chinese moving into the area and what they do is offer the asking price on every property they view, then fucking pull out of all but one. Old neighbours of the wife had this happen, had an offer accepted on a place in Warrington,paid out for surveys etc and then the fuckers pulled out, now friends of ours have had the same, trying to sell the house they were left by the Mum, two of her brothers had been living there since the Mum died, both got other places sorted, again the fuckers pulled out. Its just fucking everyone about.

Weird you should say this Rob, a bloke I know - not a friend, an acquaintance - bought 3 houses in a 4-block terrace on a new build estate near me about 5/6 years ago. With the interest rate rises, he’s been trying to get out of it and sell them all. My mate lives in the one house in the block the bloke doesn’t own. He said that all of them were bid on by one family from Hong Kong and this landlord didn’t know until he’d accepted offers and his solicitors started the process. They pulled out of all 3 and bought another house elsewhere on the estate.

I wonder what the thinking is? It’s bizarre.

[rob1966]

Weird you should say this Rob, a bloke I know - not a friend, an acquaintance - bought 3 houses in a 4-block terrace on a new build estate near me about 5/6 years ago. With the interest rate rises, he’s been trying to get out of it and sell them all. My mate lives in the one house in the block the bloke doesn’t own. He said that all of them were bid on by one family from Hong Kong and this landlord didn’t know until he’d accepted offers and his solicitors started the process. They pulled out of all 3 and bought another house elsewhere on the estate.

I wonder what the thinking is? It’s bizarre.

I've been told they're getting 40% of the purchase price off their government to move to the UK and so can afford to go full price. I suppose they offer asking on all places they might want to live in so it comes off the market and then pick the one they actually want. Our mates have told the estate agents if any Chinese make an offer they're to leave it open to all other offers so they don't get done again.

[redbyrdz]

Maybe that's how the housing market works in HK. I can see it being really competitive.

[rob1966]

Maybe that's how the housing market works in HK. I can see it being really competitive.

It could welll be, but it highlights glaring issues in how houses are bought and sold in England. The old neighbours ended up something like £850 out of pocket, lost the sale (that was likely never happening), lost the house they had had an offer accepted on and it goes down the chain.

[reddebs]

Maybe that's how the housing market works in HK. I can see it being really competitive.

We definitely go about things arse about tit in this country compared to France specifically.

[redbyrdz]

It could welll be, but it highlights glaring issues in how houses are bought and sold in England. The old neighbours ended up something like £850 out of pocket, lost the sale (that was likely never happening), lost the house they had had an offer accepted on and it goes down the chain.

Yes, its not a good system. But from a buyer's point of view, there's nothing stopping you from making multiple offers on houses and then only taking one.

I think a way to stop it would be to sign a pre-contract when an offer gets accepted. From that point on, either side can only back out for serious issues (survey brought up serious unknown things, mortage offer got withdrawn, etc). If you back out anyway, you're liable to pay costs the other party had because they believed the sale would go through.

[Mark Walters]

We definitely go about things arse about tit in this country compared to France specifically.

How does it work in France?

[rob1966]

Yes, its not a good system. But from a buyer's point of view, there's nothing stopping you from making multiple offers on houses and then only taking one.

I think a way to stop it would be to sign a pre-contract when an offer gets accepted. From that point on, either side can only back out for serious issues (survey brought up serious unknown things, mortage offer got withdrawn, etc). If you back out anyway, you're liable to pay costs the other party had because they believed the sale would go through.

That's whats needed, as from what I'm being told, they're having offers accepted on 5/6/7 or more houses, as they are going in at full asking price, so then people are making and having offers accepted, surveys are getting done etc

[reddebs]

How does it work in France?

The seller provides all the info re work done, the age of electrics, septic tanks, roof etc, what conforms and what doesn't so you know before even viewing what needs doing. 

Plus the deposit is binding so if you pull out after paying it, you forfeit it.

[Mark Walters]

The seller provides all the info re work done, the age of electrics, septic tanks, roof etc, what conforms and what doesn't so you know before even viewing what needs doing. 

Plus the deposit is binding so if you pull out after paying it, you forfeit it.

Makes a lot of sense that does.  Would also help set a realistic sale price as all the potential costs can be deducted before making an offer.

[reddebs]

Makes a lot of sense that does.  Would also help set a realistic sale price as all the potential costs can be deducted before making an offer.

Yep.  It's lots of reading but you know exactly where you are before you start rather than having surprises to renegotiate later in the process.

[Mark Walters]

Yep.  It's lots of reading but you know exactly where you are before you start rather than having surprises to renegotiate later in the process.

Or worse, discovering major problems after you bought the house!

[reddebs]

Or worse, discovering major problems after you bought the house!

Absolutely

[UntouchableLuis]

On average how long should house sale/purchase take to complete once solicitors instructed.

We are 3 and a half months in with a chain of 4. Searches are all done, everyone's got their mortgage in place or don't need a mortgage. Everyone seems eager to move.

Every time I ring my solicitor he tells me they're close but waiting on a few enquiries from the management company of my leasehold flat.

Getting totally fed up and disinterested now. We really want to move in before the December weekends start as everyone starts making Christmas plans then.

If I don't ring my solicitor I never hear much at all.

[reddebs]

On average how long should house sale/purchase take to complete once solicitors instructed.

We are 3 and a half months in with a chain of 4. Searches are all done, everyone's got their mortgage in place or don't need a mortgage. Everyone seems eager to move.

Every time I ring my solicitor he tells me they're close but waiting on a few enquiries from the management company of my leasehold flat.

Getting totally fed up and disinterested now. We really want to move in before the December weekends start as everyone starts making Christmas plans then.

If I don't ring my solicitor I never hear much at all.

I'm not sure there is an average. 

Ours took exactly 3 months from offer accepted to completion but then it took over 6 months to complete on an empty flat, as cash buyers with no searches or surveys done.

My sister similar.

She had an offer accepted on an empty property in April, has nothing to sell as in rented and should get the keys next Friday.

[UntouchableLuis]

I'm not sure there is an average. 

Ours took exactly 3 months from offer accepted to completion but then it took over 6 months to complete on an empty flat, as cash buyers with no searches or surveys done.

My sister similar.

She had an offer accepted on an empty property in April, has nothing to sell as in rented and should get the keys next Friday.

How on earth did it take 6 months? What was the hold up?

[reddebs]

How on earth did it take 6 months? What was the hold up?

I have no idea mate other than solicitors just not following up anything with each other, even when pressed.

[gazzam1963]

On average how long should house sale/purchase take to complete once solicitors instructed.

We are 3 and a half months in with a chain of 4. Searches are all done, everyone's got their mortgage in place or don't need a mortgage. Everyone seems eager to move.

Every time I ring my solicitor he tells me they're close but waiting on a few enquiries from the management company of my leasehold flat.

Getting totally fed up and disinterested now. We really want to move in before the December weekends start as everyone starts making Christmas plans then.

If I don't ring my solicitor I never hear much at all.

I think If you skip a few pages back you’ll see I was buying a leasehold flat , the wait from the management company was used a lot . Mine took 12 months from offer to completion , some was down to strikes solicitors but I know the management company were not very forthcoming probably as there is nothing in it for them

[UntouchableLuis]

I think If you skip a few pages back you’ll see I was buying a leasehold flat , the wait from the management company was used a lot . Mine took 12 months from offer to completion , some was down to strikes solicitors but I know the management company were not very forthcoming probably as there is nothing in it for them

Did you ever ring the management company yourself? Seems absolutely mental they can delay things for that long with no consequences.

[Rhi]

Did you ever ring the management company yourself? Seems absolutely mental they can delay things for that long with no consequences.

I offered my leasehold owner £200 to get the paperwork done ASAP and it worked. But I knew the bloke a bit so had a direct line to him.

It might also be that they’re requesting asbestos reports or fire safety reports that the management company can’t be arsed doing / don’t want to pay for. I think I ended up paying half for that kind of stuff as well but it did at least get it done.

Obviously this stuff is reliant on trusting the person / management company will get things done quicker with a little financial incentive. But people are pricks so might not work!

[gazzam1963]

Did you ever ring the management company yourself? Seems absolutely mental they can delay things for that long with no consequences.

I wasn’t selling the property so had no idea who to contact but knew the seller was In touch and very exasperated with them . Luckily it was his deceased mums house and I was buying as an investment so no chain , we were both committed to see it through

[UntouchableLuis]

I wasn’t selling the property so had no idea who to contact but knew the seller was In touch and very exasperated with them . Luckily it was his deceased mums house and I was buying as an investment so no chain , we were both committed to see it through

Fair enough.

We need this done ASAP before our buyer pulls out as they've ben angsty all the way through.

I'm going to keep pestering solicitor and management company until it's done. Pathetic that you have to do that when you're paying so much for solicitors but it seems their version of chasing is to send an email once a week.

[Too early for flapjacks?]

On average how long should house sale/purchase take to complete once solicitors instructed.

We are 3 and a half months in with a chain of 4. Searches are all done, everyone's got their mortgage in place or don't need a mortgage. Everyone seems eager to move.

Every time I ring my solicitor he tells me they're close but waiting on a few enquiries from the management company of my leasehold flat.

Getting totally fed up and disinterested now. We really want to move in before the December weekends start as everyone starts making Christmas plans then.

If I don't ring my solicitor I never hear much at all.

These things tend to drag on unless you get involved yourself. I'd ask your solicitor to forward you the outstanding queries and say you'll follow up with the management company. Either that will smoke out the solicitor to get off his arse and do something or give you what you need to put pressure on the management company.

[UntouchableLuis]

These things tend to drag on unless you get involved yourself. I'd ask your solicitor to forward you the outstanding queries and say you'll follow up with the management company. Either that will smoke out the solicitor to get off his arse and do something or give you what you need to put pressure on the management company.

Lo and behold. I rang my management company and the woman there said she would respond if the solicitor emailed today. I rang my solicitor who said he emailed on 16th October. I told him to email this specific woman and what do you know, the woman has emailed to say she's now got the email from solicitor!

Wow. Who would have thought a 1 minute phone call could solve so much over an email sent weeks ago.

[.adam]

These things tend to drag on unless you get involved yourself.

Yep, exactly my experience when buying/selling in the past.

To be honest, it can be applied to many things in life. Had an extension built a few years back and nothing would move unless I chased the subbies etc.

[UntouchableLuis]

Anyone ever bought a property with leasehold involved?

We are 4 months in to our purchase of a freehold house with no issues, everything ready to exchange but they're waiting on a management pack to be sent for their onwards purchase which is a leasehold house. The seller of that house is moving into a vacant flat but that's also leasehold and they're also waiting on a bloody management pack!!

We've chased this for weeks, same with our seller's EA and their solicitor but we are getting nowhere.

We've decided to sell out flat and live with family temporarily as didn't want to lose our buyer but thinking we'll give our seller maybe until mid February otherwise we'll have to look for another house as it surely shouldn't take 5-6 months. Just completely ridiculous this country trying to buy a property.

[reddebs]

Anyone ever bought a property with leasehold involved?

We are 4 months in to our purchase of a freehold house with no issues, everything ready to exchange but they're waiting on a management pack to be sent for their onwards purchase which is a leasehold house. The seller of that house is moving into a vacant flat but that's also leasehold and they're also waiting on a bloody management pack!!

We've chased this for weeks, same with our seller's EA and their solicitor but we are getting nowhere.

We've decided to sell out flat and live with family temporarily as didn't want to lose our buyer but thinking we'll give our seller maybe until mid February otherwise we'll have to look for another house as it surely shouldn't take 5-6 months. Just completely ridiculous this country trying to buy a property.

We bought a leasehold flat that took 6mths to complete on even though the flat was empty and we were cash buyers but weren't going to be moving into it and we constantly pushed the solicitors.  I still had to chase them for the actual leasehold pack as it wasn't included with all the other documents.

There's so much mystery with leaseholds, made all the more complicated with the recent legal battles going on for new builds.

[Ciara (with a capital "C")]

I believe things like sellers (of leasehold properties) not being up to date with service charges/ground rents can hold up management packs as the management company issue them, but won't do it if there are ongoing disputes which results in any service charges beind upheld. Anything like that could be going on in the backround.

[UntouchableLuis]

I believe things like sellers (of leasehold properties) not being up to date with service charges/ground rents can hold up management packs as the management company issue them, but won't do it if there are ongoing disputes which results in any service charges beind upheld. Anything like that could be going on in the backround.

Yeah I think this may well have happened by the sounds of it as well as the management company changing hands as well.

Just absolutely incredible that 3 sales could fall through because of a third party under no legal obligation to do anything about it. Madness.

[UntouchableLuis]

Anyone ever bought a property with leasehold involved?

We are 4 months in to our purchase of a freehold house with no issues, everything ready to exchange but they're waiting on a management pack to be sent for their onwards purchase which is a leasehold house. The seller of that house is moving into a vacant flat but that's also leasehold and they're also waiting on a bloody management pack!!

We've chased this for weeks, same with our seller's EA and their solicitor but we are getting nowhere.

We've decided to sell out flat and live with family temporarily as didn't want to lose our buyer but thinking we'll give our seller maybe until mid February otherwise we'll have to look for another house as it surely shouldn't take 5-6 months. Just completely ridiculous this country trying to buy a property.

Both our seller and the one above them now have these management packs with their solicitors but we only have 5 more working days for our mortgage offer to be valid.

I don't trust the solicitors above our one to get the job done in time.

Both sellers aren't willing to break the chain to let us complete in time.

Basically accepted we are losing around 4 k in early repayment charges and having to live with my parents/put stuff into storage for hopefully no more than a few weeks. We will have to apply for a new mortgage offer as well which is a pain in the arse, although rates do seem to be coming down.

The alternative was to lose our buyer and go through this whole shambolic process again.

Never moving again if this all goes through.

[reddebs]

Both our seller and the one above them now have these management packs with their solicitors but we only have 5 more working days for our mortgage offer to be valid.

I don't trust the solicitors above our one to get the job done in time.

Both sellers aren't willing to break the chain to let us complete in time.

Basically accepted we are losing around 4 k in early repayment charges and having to live with my parents/put stuff into storage for hopefully no more than a few weeks. We will have to apply for a new mortgage offer as well which is a pain in the arse, although rates do seem to be coming down.

The alternative was to lose our buyer and go through this whole shambolic process again.

Never moving again if this all goes through.

The mortgage situation may be a blessing as I've been reading there's loads of reduced fixed rate deals being offered now.

[UntouchableLuis]

The mortgage situation may be a blessing as I've been reading there's loads of reduced fixed rate deals being offered now.

Yeah that's what we are hoping might soften the blow.

Next week is crunch time anyway.

We're going to give our sellers probably another 5 weeks max then going to seriously look at other houses. It will be past 6 months after offer then. The hold up is above them but that's not my problem, we offered on a house and we were told that the person at the top was happy to break the chain if it came down to it to allow a reasonable time frame for the chain to complete but they've completely gone back on everything they said and been a pain in the arse.

[The G in Gerrard]

The mortgage situation may be a blessing as I've been reading there's loads of reduced fixed rate deals being offered now.

Indeed we've just renegotiated ours that we'd agreed to before Christmas (which comes into effect from next month).

[UntouchableLuis]

Yeah that's what we are hoping might soften the blow.

Next week is crunch time anyway.

We're going to give our sellers probably another 5 weeks max then going to seriously look at other houses. It will be past 6 months after offer then. The hold up is above them but that's not my problem, we offered on a house and we were told that the person at the top was happy to break the chain if it came down to it to allow a reasonable time frame for the chain to complete but they've completely gone back on everything they said and been a pain in the arse.

We exchanged on Friday, finally! Get the keys this Friday.

Seller is breaking the chain as the arse at the top still hasn't got everything in order.

Any tips for completion day?

We are getting all our stuff (mainly a bit of furniture) to storage the day before and living with my family for a bit while we get stuff done to the house.

[The G in Gerrard]

We exchanged on Friday, finally! Get the keys this Friday.

Congrats!

[Riquende]

We're off out viewing a couple of possibilities tomorrow. For reasons I don't want to go into (just yet) we're quite motivated buyers, so on one place certainly I'm feeling a bit of an itchy offer finger if a couple of the rooms feel big enough.

Thing is, I'm trying to navigate the Scottish property system and I know there are some significant differences. We had a meeting with a mortgage broker attached to local estate agent at the start of the week who took our basic info and gave us a top number that's a good chunk above what we'd need for the sort of property we're looking at, but I know you also need a solicitor to make a proper offer on your behalf and they need to also have all the relevant information to hand such as proof of funds etc. I don't have a solicitor lined up, I'm not really sure how you go about choosing one - only time I've brought property before I had a family connection to someone involved in conveyancing so they were able to deal with it all on the cheap.

In his follow up email after our meeting the broker said he can appoint a lawyer when it comes to making an offer and liaise with them, does this just seem a bit 'chucking work your mate's way' or something potentially dodgy going on? Should the two be completely isolated?

[Riquende]

We got over our misgivings, looked up the solicitor in question and the firm seemed okay so have proceeded, our offer was accepted seems like bloody ages ago (14th Feb) and it took until Tuesday just gone for the mortgage application to be approved, so we're just waiting on the paperwork to go over before starting to make the actual arrangements. We're in a rented flat right now so the plan is to not have a single day where we need to uproot everything in one go and can spend a week moving across (the house is only 5 mins drive away).

Hopefully not too many hiccups along the way now, we've been told there's no chain beyond our own purchase and the Scottish system is supposedly quite robust once the solicitors are involved, financial penalties involved for either party if something happens to collapse the move.

[Drinks Sangria]

Good luck Riquende, hopefully everything goes well with it.

There seems to be greater housing stock than for at least the last five years, presumably because prices are still historically high, but interest rates are high comparable to recent years, so people essentially can’t afford the level of house they could’ve - on paper at least - 2-5 years ago.

We have lived in our home for around two and a half years now and I love the area but do want something even more rural (currently semi-rural village setting) and more land/privacy. Issue with that is the cost and the lack of availability of those sort of properties. £500k doesn’t seem to actually get you anything particularly spectacular these days which is mental when you think about it.

[Riquende]

We've had through some paperwork from the solicitor today, all the terms are agreed and it just needs us to go through all the documentation, pretend we can understand legalese and give them confirmation in the morning that we want to proceed. As long as the sellers can sort out their onward purchase (etc etc up the chain) then we're set...

Basically the back story is this. In mid-January we got an scary-looking letter from a solicitor representing one of the big banks, turned out our landlord is in mortgage arrears and had 2 months to pay up or they would potentially start proceedings to repossess the house. The letter was addressed to any occupants in the property as a courtesy as essentially we would be evicted when the back took possession. Looking into the purchase history and the numbers in the letter, the landlord put down a 10% deposit 20 years ago and has only ever paid the interest since, as they still owe the 90% balance. The letting agents have told us the landlord has assured them it's all some big mistake and there is no mortgage at all, but they have no way to confirm that. And separately, we've raised a maintenance ticket over the hot tap in the bath not working and despite being classified as an 'emergency' on their system, weeks later they haven't even contacted us about it to even inspect it. This tells me all I need to know about their confidence they'll still be managing the property down the line!

Those 2 months ended on Tuesday this week, but the solicitors now won't even respond to me asking them if there's still an ongoing case against the landlord so we're entirely in the dark about current proceedings. I did at least find out from a legal charity that the earliest we could be chucked out would be 4 weeks after that date, but we wouldn't even know about it until 2 weeks before that deadline, a notice that could come any time after April begins...

So anyway! The plan was always to buy a property together and we'd managed to put a fair bit aside, but we started that journey just before Truss detonated the economy and skyrocketed the interest rates which put it on the backburner. As things have settled a little we went househunting and found a place the right sort of size, right sort of price and in the same area we're now, just a few minutes less convenient for the commute & public transport. With the still-slowed market our offer probably could have been a little less but I didn't want to risk losing out and having to wait on the market to throw up another good option. So here we are, potentially 10 days away from the keys!

[fridgepants]

We are hoping to actually buy this year for the first time, after years of being convinced it wasn't possible - things have fallen into place and to be honest the insecurity of renting/costs (we have a decent landlady, but it's never ours forever) really worries me to the extent that it's been affecting my mental health quite a bit. (We've already discounted leasehold places because from everything I understand the same worries are going to be there in the background - no idea how costs will rise, the headache of extending leases etc, still needing permission for certain things). At some point I want to be able to retire, we need a change of scene, and the past couple of years have made it a lot more important to be able to get to our parents' quickly, and now we've got the deposit, the remote working agreement so we don't need to change address and jobs in one go, and a couple of other things we were waiting to sort out sorted, so it could....actually happen?

Been trying to get my head around the whole process, but most fora I've looked on assume you're buying with one eye on the "property ladder" whereas I just want somewhere to live and to know nobody's going to ask me to move from it again. I really couldn't give a stuff about building equity or up and coming areas, I just want to know I'm in the same place this time next year and get to paint the walls whatever colour I want. I've had 15 different addresses since I left home and I'm just done with it. My attitude is that anywhere we buy in our budget will be at least as, or less, crappy than anywhere we could afford to rent where we live now, but it's still daunting!

The complicated bit is that we're moving from one end of the country to another so I have not a clue how the search process is going to work, really.