House Buying / Moving - stress

essex-commuter

I've always said I don't understand why people find it so stressful buying and moving house.

I've had an offer on my house and accepted, I've had an offer accepted on the property I want. We have a complete 5 house chain, first time buyer at the front, me 2nd, 2 others, and a probate sale at the end.

My first time buyer seems a bit dithery but her works away from home M-F so I guess it's a bit difficult for him.

OK, I'm already stressed.

rubertoe

My missus got very stressed when we bought our flat, as long as you have a competent conveyancer then really their isn't a lot to worry about.

What will be will be. the only annoying thing was negotiating a date for completion, but as there were only 3 of us in the chain so it wasn't to bad, plus the woman that we was buying from was a property solicitor so she smoothed it for all 3 parties really

Ginjafro

You think that's stressful, try selling up and moving countries!

Kieran_Burns

My MUM bought my old house....

You lot have no idea.

wormo

The owner of the house I purchased ended up buying our house as she was looking for something smaller and she liked what she saw. No chain, just agreed between each other the moving date.

Pufftmw

I have physically moved my previous houses myself, mainly on my own but with the help of a nephew for heavy things in a 7.5tonner. Each time I said I would never do it again, but each time I did :roll: The logistics required when we sold the marital home last year were very complicated to say the least - stuff to her new house, stuff to my place, stuff for storage, stuff for Ireland, stuff for recycling/charity, stuff for dumping...

Thats without the stress of the actual sales/purchases!

Headhuunter

We bought our current place from a couple who were in the process of a divorce 1 of them had moved to Canada so every piece of paperwork had to go off to Canada and back to be signed, add to that the general inbuilt medieval slowness which conveyancing solicitors work at and the process took ages. My buyer was panicking as her mortgage offer was about to run out and she was going to pull out if it wasn't done in x amount of time.... So the knowledge that all the money and time I had spent on the process so far could all be flushed down the toilet was quite stress causing...

londonlivvy

House buying. ARHGH. I feel your pain. We've been trying to sell two flats and buy a house since January. I had a buyer, who then pulled out ten days later as he decided he didn't want to live in that area after all. Then boyf had a buyer, and we found a house, but it all fell through when the survey on boyf's flat revealed Japanese knot weed outside the front of his flat and the mortgage provider said no. Much scrambling around to find out about JKW and finding eradication company, who then say they can't start til mid June and it takes six months. More searching for buyers (& endless living in tidyness).

Then I found another buyer and we found a house. Hurrah and offers accepted all round. Buyer is doing a survey on my place today. I am fervently hoping all will be good otherwise it'll be back to square one. Sigh.

el_presidente

My flat flooded AFTER exchange but before completion. I had a 2 week-old baby and a wife who'd been very very ill and only been out of hospital for a week. That was a fun few weeks, still got it done but touch & go at times.

Jay dubbleU

Still waiting to sell - been on the marked since Feb - what's annoying is that two houses we wanted have both been sold

Koncordski

The last flat I sold was a nightmare, mainly due to the managing agents who moved at a glacial pace. Added to that it was near christmas so we were all up against the two week shut down that seems to happen at that time of year. Really affected me for a month until completion, lost a lot of weight and drank far too much. New place is great though!

jzed

Recent house purchase was a pain. Just after paying the mortgage fee, we found out the house was being repossessed. Bank allowed us time to make the purchase but creditors and bankruptcy trustees kept coming out of the woodwork and trying to register charges against the property until the last minute before we exchanged and completed. Never seem to have an easy transaction, the flat was a nightmare too, won't be buying off-plan again.

rubertoe

We only plan to stay at our flat for another 2 more years or so, before trying to move up the ladder. The one thing that I am not looking forward to is negotiating and extension to the lease with the freeholder.

The buying and selling doesn't bother me really.

Headhuunter

rubertoe wrote:

We only plan to stay at our flat for another 2 more years or so, before trying to move up the ladder. The one thing that I am not looking forward to is negotiating and extension to the lease with the freeholder.

The buying and selling doesn't bother me really.[/qu

You should try buying the freehold, might be cheaper in eth long run and will raise the value of the flat

bigmat

Its all pretty unpleasant really, OK for a first time buyer but once you combine buying and selling there's loads of potential for things to go wrong. In a chain - nightmare. All ittakes is one party not being honest and you end up in trouble. We committed to sell our place and moved out before completing on purchase (dodgy market, had good offer which we didn't want to lose, buyer had limited window due to mortgage offer). Our vendor then dickeD us around for about 6 weeks, putting back date for completion repeatedly with no decent explanation. Would have pulled out but such a slow market that nothing better available. Ended up in a holiday let for 6 weeks, with a toddler, whilst working - due to lying vendor who had guaranteed us we would only have to wait a couple of weeks, almost all of our stuff went into storage so we ended up living out of a suitcase for half the summer.

Anyway, all ended well and pretty much forgotten until this thread so don't let it get you down!

phy2sll2

Recent purchase took a long time. I think due to our seller having hired an internet conveyancer, probably based in India as some of the contract docs had Indian place names in due to a cut and paste fail.

jamesco

<rant>

Why is it that the process of buying & selling a house in the UK is such a bloody mess?

Back home, when the price is agreed the buyer will place a deposit, say 5%; unless the house is found to be unsound he can't back out of the contract without losing the deposit, which makes it very unlikely. As the contract is final there can't be any gazumping/gazundering. Everyone knows where they stand and when things will happen.

Also, what is it with these chains where everything depends on everyone else? Why not use bridging finance to cover any period required to sell, rather than having to rely on a bunch of people you've never met who can screw up your purchase/sale for no reason?

</rant>

fossyant

Only ever bought our first house and are still there 17 years later. And even buying brand new was a mare. Should have been ready in May, allowing a few months to do up before we got married. Still a building site in late August when we got married, so two weeks on honeymoon and two more weeks camped at the outlaws before we could get in.

madtam

Only bought and sold a couple of times so haven't much experience, but seem to have been lucky with short chains and no problems. The last time we had sold and then had the buyer give backword which was a bit upsetting, however we had another offer just a few weeks later that was for more money so that was alright. The timing of the offer was a bit poor as it was just a couple of hours before my son was born whilst the wife had been in labour for the previous 12 hours. As I explained to the agent when she called "it wasn't a good time and I would call her back". I think she was a bit surprised when we hadn't called after an hour or two, but we were just a bit busy (it was a home birth as well so it was an interesting time all round).
We had a last minute delay in that the soliciters didn't move the money around quick enough on the day we should have handed over the keys, and having the new owners removal van outside our old house from first thing without letting them in could have been a bit of an issue. However, as we had already moved out a couple of days early (agreed with our new house previous owner) we handed over the keys and left them to it. About 9 hours later we got a call saying we could now go ahead so no harm was done. Although I do wonder what would have happened if the money transfer had gone badly wrong considering that 3 people in the chain were happily moved in at that point.

There probably is scope for a "gentlemans agreement" with buyers and sellers and let the soliciters etc work at their own pace. Well it worked for us.

essex-commuter

londonlivvy wrote:

Buyer is doing a survey on my place today. I am fervently hoping all will be good otherwise it'll be back to square one. Sigh.

Well, how did it go?

Gussio

rubertoe wrote:

We only plan to stay at our flat for another 2 more years or so, before trying to move up the ladder. The one thing that I am not looking forward to is negotiating and extension to the lease with the freeholder.

We did this on a flat a few years ago. It is relatively straight forward (in our case): the Leasehold Advisory Board (I think they are called that) provide a formula which both parties (leaseholder and freeholder) use to calculate the cost of extending the lease. You'll need to get 3 quotes from estate agents (try to choose agents who will give lower quotes) and based upon the average you come up with, coupled with the equation, it will provide a figure. Unless house prices are going down in your area, it is important to remember that the longer you leave it to extend, the more expensive it will be.

If you choose to buy the freehold, check what you will and will not be responsible for in terms of upkeep. It can be bloody annoying having to manage a building with other leaseholders.

Take all of the above with a pinch of salt - I'm no expert

essex-commuter

Just a quick update, 3 months after putting an offer in....I'm moving this Friday...YAY!!!!

Quite spooky really, sold to the first people that looked at our house, and bought the FIRST house we looked at (we did look at others after it!).

Stressful...yeah guess so, mostly driven by solicitors working like antiquated chimps.

So excited right now.

mouth

When we bought our house (FTB) we viewed 47 properties. The one we chose was about number 44 on that list. Looked at it end of August with our mortgage offer in place etc. The vendor then proceeded on a vacant property they wanted and we arranged to exchange last week in October.

About mid-October and the vendor's vendor (?) decided to pull out, and left our sale in jeopardy. Luckily the estate agent convinced them to rent for 6 months or so and we re-arranged the exchange for 25th November. Booked a week off work and a hire van. Got a call on the 23rd saying that actually we can't do the 25th it's gonna be the 2nd December instead. At this point I told the solicitor to call the whole lot off. She called me back half an hour later and convinced me to proceed reminding me that we had a lot to lose financially. Luckily we were living in rented accommodation owned by the father in law so weren't in a rush to move.

Now, about that mail that needs forwarding.............

londonlivvy

essex-commuter wrote:

londonlivvy wrote:

Buyer is doing a survey on my place today. I am fervently hoping all will be good otherwise it'll be back to square one. Sigh.

Well, how did it go?

Ah. Forgot to check in at the time. Badly. Buyer had already got a (very) low price, on the grounds that he was cash buyer, thus able to move promptly and that the flat isn't in showroom condition. Buyer's surveyor took a month to come back with results and invented ALL SORTS of problems. Buyer wanted a price that was frankly unworkable. So back to square one.

Meanwhile found a buyer on boyf's flat who was willing to accept the JKW and found a house. We have now exchanged on the house and complete on the 22nd. YAY. We still haven't sold my flat, however, so will have a HUGE mortgage until that goes through. I do have a buyer (in theory) but it's in a chain that could yet fall through so won't count my chickens. So unlike your first house and first buyer, I'm on buyer No 3, boyf is on buyer no 4 and we're on house no 2. sigh. I'm now 6 months preg which is less than ideal but better now than in two months' time, I guess?

I hope your move goes well and you enjoy the new house! Agreed that solicitors do seem to work at an entirely different pace to the rest of us...

optimisticbiker

madtam wrote:

...
We had a last minute delay in that the soliciters didn't move the money around quick enough on the day we should have handed over the keys, and having the new owners removal van outside our old house from first thing without letting them in could have been a bit of an issue...

This happened to us, Northern Rock transferred the bridging loan but not the main mortgage so we were stuck not being able to move in, on a Friday (dont ever move on a Friday). We'd had the money for the house we were selling and had handed the keys over so couldn't go back there. All our stuff was on the lorry so all we had were the clothes we we wearing! Had to put the 5 of us up in a local hotel for the weekend hoping we'd get reimbursed and go shopping for some clothes. We eventually moved in on the Tuesday. Took a month for NR to reimburse us on the hotel and clothes and another 2 months to cover the replacement of the contents of the freezer and having it professionally cleaned plus the extra storage/removal costs and £500 good will.... cost them over £4k plus a bunch of flowers and a bottle of champers in the end. And then the people we were buying from tried to claim off us for their 'losses' after NR rejected their claim. Not surprisingly, they went to stay with friends and took 8 of them out for a meal twice during the weekend. It then transpired that they weren't moving in to their new property anyway because they were having it gutted so their stuff was in storage and their clothes were at the friend's place where they were planning to stay for 6 weeks. They tried to claim £6k at first, then reduced the claim to £2,500 with no receipts or justification. 3 mo later they were still claiming but the husband (who was massively overweight) had a fatal heart attack in his bath. So then she tried claiming 50k compensation saying it was due to the stress of our rejecting their claim and was threatening to take us to court! Anyway, after a stiff letter from my solicitors threatening to take her to court for harrassment she eventually gave up and went away.

Koncordski

OptimisticBiker wrote:

madtam wrote:

...
We had a last minute delay in that the soliciters didn't move the money around quick enough on the day we should have handed over the keys, and having the new owners removal van outside our old house from first thing without letting them in could have been a bit of an issue...

This happened to us, Northern Rock transferred the bridging loan but not the main mortgage so we were stuck not being able to move in, on a Friday (dont ever move on a Friday). We'd had the money for the house we were selling and had handed the keys over so couldn't go back there. All our stuff was on the lorry so all we had were the clothes we we wearing! Had to put the 5 of us up in a local hotel for the weekend hoping we'd get reimbursed and go shopping for some clothes. We eventually moved in on the Tuesday. Took a month for NR to reimburse us on the hotel and clothes and another 2 months to cover the replacement of the contents of the freezer and having it professionally cleaned plus the extra storage/removal costs and £500 good will.... cost them over £4k plus a bunch of flowers and a bottle of champers in the end. And then the people we were buying from tried to claim off us for their 'losses' after NR rejected their claim. Not surprisingly, they went to stay with friends and took 8 of them out for a meal twice during the weekend. It then transpired that they weren't moving in to their new property anyway because they were having it gutted so their stuff was in storage and their clothes were at the friend's place where they were planning to stay for 6 weeks. They tried to claim £6k at first, then reduced the claim to £2,500 with no receipts or justification. 3 mo later they were still claiming but the husband (who was massively overweight) had a fatal heart attack in his bath. So then she tried claiming 50k compensation saying it was due to the stress of our rejecting their claim and was threatening to take us to court! Anyway, after a stiff letter from my solicitors threatening to take her to court for harrassment she eventually gave up and went away.

That is almost unbelievable!

jedster

We have bought four times, sold three and the winning strategy is move out to rent. You break the chain and position yourself as a cash buyer ready to move quickly when the right house comes up. It's a bit more moving cost but if you manage with a smaller rental place and leave stuff in storage its not painful and you can typically get a bit of a better price as a cash buyer.

asprilla

Surely positioning yourself as a cash buyer only works if you have the cash, which you would have anyway if you were buying a house for less than your current equity.

Anyway, after two years looking a house we wanted came on the market last month. Viewed on the Friday and the Saturday and arranged for ours to go on the market on the Thursday. The house we want has already been sold once but the buyer had to replace the roof on their house following their survey so that fell through.

First viewers came to ours on Friday and returned on Saturday. On Tuesday they offered and we offered on the one we want. All tied up by the end of the day. Our buyers are in rented and our vendors are going into rented so that makes life easy.

Just waiting on surveys now. Valuations are ok, it's just a question of what issues, if any, come up.

optimisticbiker

Koncordski wrote:

OptimisticBiker wrote:

madtam wrote:

...
We had a last minute delay in that the soliciters didn't move the money around quick enough on the day we should have handed over the keys, and having the new owners removal van outside our old house from first thing without letting them in could have been a bit of an issue...

This happened to us, Northern Rock transferred the bridging loan but not the main mortgage so we were stuck not being able to move in, on a Friday (dont ever move on a Friday). We'd had the money for the house we were selling and had handed the keys over so couldn't go back there. All our stuff was on the lorry so all we had were the clothes we we wearing! Had to put the 5 of us up in a local hotel for the weekend hoping we'd get reimbursed and go shopping for some clothes. We eventually moved in on the Tuesday. Took a month for NR to reimburse us on the hotel and clothes and another 2 months to cover the replacement of the contents of the freezer and having it professionally cleaned plus the extra storage/removal costs and £500 good will.... cost them over £4k plus a bunch of flowers and a bottle of champers in the end. And then the people we were buying from tried to claim off us for their 'losses' after NR rejected their claim. Not surprisingly, they went to stay with friends and took 8 of them out for a meal twice during the weekend. It then transpired that they weren't moving in to their new property anyway because they were having it gutted so their stuff was in storage and their clothes were at the friend's place where they were planning to stay for 6 weeks. They tried to claim £6k at first, then reduced the claim to £2,500 with no receipts or justification. 3 mo later they were still claiming but the husband (who was massively overweight) had a fatal heart attack in his bath. So then she tried claiming 50k compensation saying it was due to the stress of our rejecting their claim and was threatening to take us to court! Anyway, after a stiff letter from my solicitors threatening to take her to court for harrassment she eventually gave up and went away.

That is almost unbelievable!

Looking back on it 12y later it does seem that way... but at the time it was horrendous.

jedster

Surely positioning yourself as a cash buyer only works if you have the cash, which you would have anyway if you were buying a house for less than your current equity.

Sloppy terminology but estate agents tend to use "cash buyer" as meaning anyone who is not encumbered by having to sell, i.e., you can be a "cash buyer" if you are chain free and sitting on a mortgage offer in principle

asprilla

Id just call that FTB, regardless of whether it is first time or not.

Friends of mine accepted a lower offer because it was 'cash' and then the mortgage company surveyor contacted for access. WTF.