House Buying Is More Stressful Than Divorce, Death or Bankruptcy

[Ella77]

Hurrah, Starry!

[Starry]

I’m not sure - once the offer is accepted we pay a booking deposit and the solicitors start getting to work. We don’t sign anything until the bank confirms the mortgage and if something goes wrong we can pull out before contracts are signed, with the deposit fully refunded.

The whole process takes about two months to close.

[emma_p]

Two months seems pretty fast. Congratulations Starry!

[Rosa]

Congratulations! I hope everything goes smoothly.

[Jupiter]

Congratulations@

[rosy]

Congratulations Starry!

[Tsu]

Well done, Starry.

[bramblerose]

Great news Starry!

[Duophonic]

Great news Starry.

[cluefree]

Yay, Starry!

[Starry]

Thanks! I’m already looking forward to the extra space.

[nineseven]

My solicitor has just passed on the bill for the deep cleaning and the rubbish clearance to my sellers. I caught myself feeling bad, but for fucks sake, they were in breach of contract, the cheeky sods.

[Ella77]

Don't feel remotely bad. Maybe they'll learn.

[nineseven]

They were so lovely throughout but then totally dumped me in it. I've had £1,500 of unexpected expenses since I moved in due to them and my dopey surveyor. Stuff like fixing the shower I can accept, but not this.

[ParisGal]

Don't feel bad, that's just fair.
Hang on, £1,5k ?! What else had they lied about?

[nineseven]

That was my surveyor's fault. There was a large crack at the join of the little roof thing above the bay window/porch that caused a huge damp patch in the main bedroom. Some of the joists in the roof had become rotten so the roofer has had to replace them, re-lay some of the tiles and add lead flashing. She (the surveyor) says the crack must have happened between her survey in January and me moving in February (!) which all three roofers I got to quote said was utter bollocks. The damp patch inside is quite large but was hidden by furniture, but the crack was clearly visible from street level without binoculars if you were looking for it, as she should have been, and the roof was warped. Surveyor has since said it would be a very minor repair, but fixing it has cost £1,150 - another roofer quoted £1,600. I've escalated my complaint to the company director.

[ParisGal]

Argh. That just fuels my suspicion that surveys are really just a mechanism for mortgage companies to do what they want rather than being of any use to actual home owners.

[nineseven]

This was a homebuyer's survey, separate from the mortgage company. Total waste of time and money.

[Chicky]

Bloody hell nine. I hope you get your money back. Sounds like you are well within your rights to send all the bills to the previous owners or your surveyors.

We went to the solicitors today to sign the contracts. There are still a few searches and queries to sort but nothing deal breaking. Our solicitor seemed hopeful we could exchange next week which would be brilliant (it would be 3 weeks before completion) - I’m getting nervous about the U.K. shutting down and having to reschedule moving but if we’ve exchanged then I could cope much better with a delay.

[smalex]

That infuriating Nine.
I had one of those surveys on my first flat. They highlighted several things which turned out not to be a problem and didn't mention several things which did, but brushed off my complaint afterwards. I hope you get somewhere with it.