House Buying Is More Stressful Than Divorce, Death or Bankruptcy

[nineseven]

You need a survey for your mortgage, surely?

The mortgage company do their own "survey" - they didn't ask to see my Homebuyers survey.

[sally maclennane]

Oh actually in Scotland, you have the home report, which the seller has to organise and make available to buyers. I totally forgot about that

[Beena]

:woteva:

Our mortgage lender is currently a month behind processing correspondence and won't so much as look at our solicitor's request to release funds until it reaches the top of the pile.

It wouldn't be so annoying, if she hadn't originally contacted them at the end of Sept about timescales, only to discover they had recorded the wrong details on their records (but sent the right details to us) and needed to reissue the offer.

I swear this purchase is doomed.

[speedy gonzalez]

Oh no Beena.
I'm dreading getting stuck in a circuit breaker which turns out to be months rather than just a couple of weeks. I've got no idea about what our delay is now and haven't heard back from from our solicitors about the last e-mail I sent them.

[Beena]

Yes. That's my worry too. Numbers are low down here, but all the talk of a half-term circuit breaker did panic me a little.

It didn't help that I know of 2 (unrelated) people, who were tested yesterday - which given how few people I do know here, is a fairly significant proportion.

[speedy gonzalez]

I feel like having a massive childish sulk if we do go into a circuit breaker. We'd be expected to carry on going into work and we're not one of the popular key workers and then I can't move house!
Our area has now turned out to have the highest in the county but that was including the March figures which were really high. At the moment our area going by postcode is still lowish.

[Beena]

No exchange today as we're still not at the top of the pile. I didn't dare ask which day's post they are opening at the moment.

It is so cold in the house, I'm working from bed and my finger nails are blue.

[speedy gonzalez]

So they made the error but aren't going to move yours to the top of the pile - grrrrr.

[Beena]

I suspect we'd still be delayed regardless, Speedy. The mistake was spotted and resolved in a day or so by a different team, so we're maybe 2-3 days lower in the pile than we would have been. Not that it matters when the team handling the release of funds are a month behind due to staffing shortages. Thankfully our solicitor submitted weeks ahead of the proposed exchange date so fingers crossed we hear soon. If it's not through by the completion date, it sounds like she'll need to resubmit the request - is that right??

There really isn't much to be done other than wait. Our solicitor has notified the vendors solicitor and the EA. J had an answerphone message on his mobile from the seller, demanding we keep to timescales. Not quite sure what he expects us to do. Also very interested where he got J's number as we haven't shared it.

[speedy gonzalez]

Ours seems to ground to a halt and no idea why so I'll join you in the waiting corner! Haven't heard anything back from the solicitors from my e-mails.

[Marth]

I suspect we'd still be delayed regardless, Speedy. The mistake was spotted and resolved in a day or so by a different team, so we're maybe 2-3 days lower in the pile than we would have been. Not that it matters when the team handling the release of funds are a month behind due to staffing shortages. Thankfully our solicitor submitted weeks ahead of the proposed exchange date so fingers crossed we hear soon. If it's not through by the completion date, it sounds like she'll need to resubmit the request - is that right??

There really isn't much to be done other than wait. Our solicitor has notified the vendors solicitor and the EA. J had an answerphone message on his mobile from the seller, demanding we keep to timescales. Not quite sure what he expects us to do. Also very interested where he got J's number as we haven't shared it.

I do hope you hear very soon, Beena. What a process! I too would be wondering how that number was shared.

[Marth]

Ours seems to ground to a halt and no idea why so I'll join you in the waiting corner! Haven't heard anything back from the solicitors from my e-mails.

I've sat on my hands for a week and will be chasing by telephone today. I have emailed my nice solicitor this morning and just asked if he feels things are progressing as they should.

I hope you too hear something positive today.

[Beena]

I get the impression the whole system is grinding to a stop, Marth. Hardly surprising if you ramp up demand during a pandemic. Our solicitor was complaining weeks ago that their office simply can't keep up with the volume of queries they've had since the Stamp Duty freeze. Coupled with socially distanced offices and it's a World of Fun. Our lender only has 2 people in at any point, releasing funds, hence the huge backlog there.

[speedy gonzalez]

:I've got visions of the houses near us all moving in/out at the same time Removal van chaos. There's a house three doors away which sold a few weeks after ours and then there's a house across the road which has just been let.

[Chicky]

Blimey Beena. I hope you get some movement soon. And you too speedy and Marth.

Some good news here today. During the whole move saga us and our sellers agreed to share the rental costs of the people at the top of the chain (their new build wasn’t going to be ready when the rest of the chain wanted to move and they initially refused to move out until we agreed to pay £5k between us to cover their rent). Anyway it turns out they are now not needing to move into rented and our sellers have got their solicitor to get the £5k back from them. I think they thought they were going to get to keep it so HA.

[Beena]

£5k! Cheeky buggers! People are so great, aren't they?

We have exchanged. Complete at the end of the week. I'm borderline hysterical at the amount of debt we're going to be in.

[Marth]

£5k! Cheeky buggers! People are so great, aren't they?

We have exchanged. Complete at the end of the week. I'm borderline hysterical at the amount of debt we're going to be in.

Oh congratulations though!

[Beena]

Thanks (I think!) The garden is about 3/4 acre of 6ft high bramble. J tells me it'll be an adventure. :woteva:

[Rosa]

An adventure sounds good! Congratulations.

[Skips]

Congratulations!

We are waiting to see if we will be granted additional borrowing, if we get it I'm paying people to finish the renovation work as I've had enough of living like this. I spoke to them earlier and it's with the underwriters (I received a confusing message and wanted clarity otherwise I would have waited).