House Buying Is More Stressful Than Divorce, Death or Bankruptcy

[Beena]

They're buying somewhere else, but I'm not sure what's happening above that.

I'm not too worried about it going smoothly, if I'm honest. I'm mindful that we might be out of jobs at the end of summer. We wouldn't be buying if the house hadn't ticked all the boxes. In 12 months of looking, it's the first one that has.

[Tsu]

That sounds very promising Beena. I would love a view.

After four months, we finally have flooring. They finished yesterday and I have two guys coming today to bring the furniture in that has been in the garage since November. I will finally be able to have a glass of wine in a proper wine glass rather than a tumbler. Assuming I can find the correct box to unpack. \o/

[Rosa]

The best of luck, Beena. The garden and views sound wonderful.

And yay, Tsu, at last!

[Starry]

Brilliant Tsu. Enjoy proper glasses.

That sound promising Beena, with a sledgehammer.

[emma_p]

Hurrah Tsu! Hope your furniture is all unscathed and you find the wine glasses. We'd been using tumblers for everything for about 2 years and the day the wine glasses were unpacked was a good one.

[rosy]

Hurrah for flooring, Tsu!

Good luck with the purchase. Beena. It sounds lovely.

[Chicky]

Good news Tsu! And Beena, how exciting, large garden sounds awesome.

Still no moving date here. HURRY UP.

[Chicky]

I got a call from the EA on Friday to say there is a hold up at the top of the chain. The house our sellers are buying is next to a strip of land and there is a nominal lease of the land so that the owners can access their bins. The solicitor has been trying to contact the owner of the land to check the lease can be transferred but hasn’t got anywhere. It turns out that the owner of the land is actually my employer, so the EA asked me to try and follow it up with the people I know at work. Fortunately I do sort of know the person in charge of this sort of thing so dropped him an email on Friday to see if he could help (making it clear this was in a personal capacity). So we’ll see. I don’t know why this has only surfaced now when they’ve had 3 months of lockdown to sort it out

[smalex]

Fucking infuriating, Chicky! I feel bad slagging off conveyancers sometimes, but it's really EVERY. SINGLE. SALE. they manage to fuck up.

[emma_p]

What a PITA, Chicky but how lucky you have a connection which might help resolve the problem. I hope that's the last thing they need to resolve

[Tsu]

I thought my conveyancer was alright but with hindsight she wasn't all that.

We have a (hopefully) minor problem with the solar panels on our roof. They were installed as part of the build by Barratt Homes and I just assumed that they were mine now as the house is freehold and there was no mention of them on the Fixtures and Fittings form as being extra to the fabric of the house. However, eon (who pay a Feed In Tariff) won't take my word for it that they are now mine and are continuing to pay our vendor the money for the electricity that we are generating. It's not masses of money, a few hundred pounds a year, but it isn't his, it's ours.

When I first called eon after we moved in they said they would send a transfer of ownership for to our vendor (I gave them his address) and then lockdown happened and I haven't been able to get hold of eon because they aren't taking phone calls unless it's an emergency and you have to communicate via your online account but of course, I don't have an account with eon.

I finally woke my our conveyancer last week and asked her to contact the vendor's solicitor and ask him to fill in the form.

Of course, his completed form may be sitting on someone at eon's in tray but I have no way of finding out.

[speedy gonzalez]

Hope that gets sorted for you Tsu.
We saw a potential house yesterday but because our house isn't on the market they wouldn't let us view it. I get it because they've just had a sale fall though and I'm not too concerned because it was missing one of our wants. There's been no houses appear of the type of house we want so don't want to put it on the market until at least one appears.
Ours is a two bed about 10 minutes walk from the hospital so always go quickly.

[speedy gonzalez]

Yes. We also shouldn't need a mortgage. We paid ours off last year and Mr Speedy's aunt left us some money in her will. Nothing against putting it on the market but we'd like to see one house that was a possibility for us.

[Mayday]

Bloody EAs and their ridiculous gatekeeper ways. Who do they think they are? While I'm all for avoiding timewasters if I were a vendor I'd be furious that they were stopping potential buyers viewing.

In your situation speedy, I'd be telling them you don't need to sell, while being as vague as possible (because if you don't need a mortgage you don't need to sell). Or just lie, it's not like that's an alien concept to them .

[speedy gonzalez]

Wasn't the estate agents but the sellers that told the estate agents that. Not too bothered because it was missing a cloakroom or an en-suite which is towards the top of my list of wants. I keep thinking I'm being too fussy but looking at previous years there's plenty of houses that are in the area with we want, with everything we want and well within our price range. We just need someone to sell one!

[Chicky]

Maybe you should put notes through the doors of houses that you are interested in. It works in Location Location Location people may be put off by all the coronavirus implications but you might give them food for thought if they know there are buyers out there. The other option is to put yours on the market and go into rented. It’s a total pain but if you get your dream house that way then it might be worth it. We lost a house we loved a few years ago because we couldn’t sell ours so we did something different this time (saved like hell so we didn’t have to sell ours) and it’s hopefully worked out!

Having said that I can’t get an answer from the bloke dealing with the lease at my place so I went over his head to his boss (who I know vaguely) earlier. She said she’ll prod him this afternoon. In the meantime our buyers solicitors want to set a date

[sally maclennane]

I was going to suggest the same as Chicky. My aunt actually sold her house after getting such a note. Also, in the current climate, people might think that their house wouldn't sell if they put it on the market but getting an indication of interest might be different for them.

[Mayday]

I'd also put a note through. I'm very suspicious that the EA is blaming the vendors and I'd put a tenner on them having no idea and the EA trying it on.

[speedy gonzalez]

I think it's just a case of being patient! I think anyone thinking of selling their house are waiting for someone else to make the first move.
My sister knows someone who lives in one of the areas we are interested in so he's promised to keep an ear/eye out for us.

[Chicky]

Yes I think there is a lot of waiting for someone else to make the first move, which is why some notes might be an idea? It's such a weird environment at the moment, I think people don't quite know what they want to do, or what the market is doing.