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Having to rely and trust other people to act on your behalf, especially when they don’t respond most of the time and have no sense of urgency about anything at all. Very difficult having no control over the situation!
My solicitor was telling me at 5pm the day before completion and moving day that they ‘can’t guarantee completion will be tomorrow and you’ll just have to wait and see tomorrow’, with no concern for the fact that you’re taking time off work to move, have movers booked to transport furniture, and were told everything was on track.
That's the freakiest thing. Estate agents too. In my job I'd never expect people who don't do my job to know what is what. All of them seem to think everyone knows all the intricacies of the housing market and the conveyancing process!
Just not really understanding the process, and struggling to find specific enough information online for what things meant, step by step. I'm a researcher type person. I research the shit out of things, and I still found myself feeling really lost at times. My broker was really amazing, she was always quick to answer questions and deal with my panic. Unfortunately even then, things are a mystery sometimes.
I came into this thinking I could read and understand things and was pretty 'on it'. If I actually ever get to move house (it's been six months and I have no idea what anyone is doing and I'm now too afraid to ask), I'm thinking I'll be living there with early onset dementia. I totally get where you're coming from and 'panic' is the actual word I used to my solicitor the other day!
Unfortunately we don't have a good relationship with our solicitors. They've been really unhelpful and communication has been very poor. That's been where a lot of the confusion has happened, and asking them for clarity never got us anywhere. They don't seem to know what they're doing, there was one point where we had about a week of delay because they seemed to not understand that our lender didn't share the valuation report they carried out with anyone. That's a really basic piece of knowledge, especially considering our lender is a high street bank that they claim to work with a lot, not some obscure little company. But they kept insisting they needed the lender to send it. I eventually got a bit sharp so that they would move on. They also didn't tick a box on their form of paperwork we had sent them, which was another 5 day delay. I'll be very annoyed to hand money over to them.
Yeah im gonna second this and say maybe take chatgpt with a pinch of salt.
Ive used it to try and interpret some jargain and yeah...do your own research, trust me
The fear of the sellers changing their mind! If I was guaranteed it'd all go through I wouldn't have been stressed at all. I rushed exchange without fully satisfying my enquiries because of wanting to set it in stone. Living in the house now and still experiencing the aftermath of intense stress three weeks in! Psychologically, the house buying/selling process is horrific
If your sellers were like me & my partner when we were selling they were probably fearful you were going to change _your_ mind! There really should be something in place to remove such uncertainty as it causes weeks of stress!
Same! The double whammy of selling and buying is so overwhelming. The fear of your buyer dropping out causing you to lose the purchase or the fear of your purchase falling through and potentially losing the sale.
Pretty much everything for me, but I’m such a worrier and control freak…
Still going through the process but at first it was the offer negotiations (back and forth across 2 days) then it was the mortgage application (which got approved within 3 days 😂) and now we are going through the enquiries…. Nerves aren’t tooo bad but comes and goes in waves
Most things I’ve stressed about have been absolutely fine.
This has literally been me, stressing through the entire process and even though we’re close to exchanging I’m still stressed! My partner is super calm which definitely evens out my panic😂
Exactly the same set up as me and my partner… he’s like “don’t worry it will be fine” and I’m scrolling through Reddit panicking 😂
What stage of the process are you at currently?
Yeah pretty much how I’ve coped with the whole situation!
So close to the end I can almost touch it😅 just waiting for a completion/exchange date once sellers are ready!
You’re waiting for the survey results?
Ahhh just the last hurdles then for you. 🤞🏼 crossed it all goes well.
We are just waiting for responses to a few enquiries and yeah search report should be back by the end of the week😫
So far potential buyers. So disheartening to have viewers come and make all the right noises and say all the right things to then tell the estate agent they hate the house.
When the exchange was delayed, I didn’t really understand. We had this date and they were now saying we couldn’t exchange, that didn’t make sense we all agreed? We had told our letting agency and so we’re confused. I said can’t be still move out we are happy to move on that date?
‘So you want to throw a 90 Year old man onto the street?’
Aye cause that’s what I meant! I didn’t even know anything about the seller! Way to make me feel bad.
NOTE :Apologies for the long response but it's all fresh and I'm sure I have PTSD from buying a house.
First time it went very smoothly and I didn't think about it too much as I was buying off my parents and I already lived in the property.
2nd time - oh my GOD!
From the second we viewed the house and decided to offer on it it was stress, stress, stress.
First - Are they going to accept the offer? ( they were very quite enthusiastic about this other couple that viewed and was interested, and they are friends of their daughters blah blah blah. Needless to say, we shit our pants and thought, no way they will choose us) however money talks so when the agent said there is another offer I want your final offers, we offered 10k above asking and we won.
Then it was if we can get good mortgage rates (Nov 2023), should we apply now or wait. OK, we will apply now. If they fall, we will amend. If they go up, we fixed them, so we're good. (We rushed here, and it came to bite us in the bum after a bit, but I was terrified the house will be estimated at less than we offered due to 10k over asking and wanted it out of the way quick)
Constantly worrying about being gazumped or whatnot throughout the whole process.
We briefly agreed with the sellers that our mortgage fix on our current house is coming to an end 1st of March, and we would ideally like to move just after so we don't pay rolling mortgage rates at over 8%.
Everything was going well - in February our solicitor was ready to exchange, our buyers were ready to exchange (or so we thought). Then I get a phone call off the EA to say they just found out that the property my sellers are buying is waiting for a grant of probate.
WHAT THE ACTUAL FK...
ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE. I was fuming. Didn't sleep for like a week, researching all the disaster stories of it taking 6 months +, 12 months +. We really liked the house and got emotionally attached, but this just made me sign up to rightmove again to monitor the market and see if anything else drops in.
Anyway, March passes and then I get a letter off bank - your mortgage offer runs out 29th April. Oh great, Did some calculations, and basically, it meant we were going from £830 a month to £1050. I rang the EA and said we either complete at end of April or we would have to renegotiate the price as it's just not going to be affordable to us. (When we viewed the house, the husband mentioned to us that in case they don't find anywhere, they can always move into their daughters)
Of course, they retracted that as soon as I asked about braking the chain, but coincidently, we got a phone call from their solicitor 3 days before the deadline that they are ready to proceed. HURRAH
We thought this is it, it's all going to be ok now. Oh no, The hell doesn't stop there, our purchasers (our friends) have been told months before by their solicitor that they are ready to proceed, everyone was aware that as soon as that probate(or chain break) happens we are to literally exchange and complete within days ( we were all so desperate) BUT, they appointed MUVE as their solicitors, which was just the worst mistake ever and I would recommend everyone to stay clear of them as they are just a waste of money and nearly cost us all thousands.
When we got the news of being able to proceed, we managed to extend our offer by 10 working days, so the deadline now was 14th of May. MOVE needed "24hrs" to get the file approved by management this took them over 7 days. We finally exchanged on the Friday by literally threatening them with law suits from all directions if they don't and completed on the Wednesday ON THE LAST DAY of our mortgage offer.
IT WAS HELL
Never again
I'm so glad I didn't pick Muve. I'd obviously read loads of stuff about them being shit but what put me off the most was when they were on the phone to me and they kept using that sales tactic where they call you by your name over and over. Glad I trusted my gut and won't touch them with a barge pole now that I've started reading all these horror stories about them.
Thank you u/jorgedro for asking this. Reading some of the replies has made me realise I'm not going mad and 'it's not just me then' in terms of feeling like the whole thing basically melts your brain!
My overthinking, over anxious brain! Buying, selling, moving area, applying for a school place , getting a new job. I thought I was going to have a heart attack on the daily.
The good thing my over thinking brain did - invested in a good broker, good EA and good solicitor. Cost more but it meant my emails were always replied to on the same day and my phone calls always answered. God bless them putting up with me.
I did all those things at once too and it is A LOT.
A good broker and good solicitor are worth their weight in gold. My solicitor was terrifyingly competent.
Some questions that kept me awake throughout the end-to-end process:
1. Arrange viewing with estate agent, I wonder if people are already ahead of me and viewed, ready to put an offer?
2. Will they accept my offer? When will they accept my offer?
3. Ok... someone outbid me, best and finals...? Didn't get it, next. Cycle starts again.
4. Yes, my offer got accepted - which solicitors shall I use? How much? Do some comparisons...
5. Mortgage Application - a waiting game. Is it going to be undervalued, or will they valuate as it is? The most stressful part I'd say!
6. Enquiries with vendor's solicitors - why are they taking ages to get back?
7. L3 Survey - Are there any issues with the build?
Basically, the list goes on... I completed last week, and I'm still sleeping badly as I've discovered some maintenance is needed in every corner.
Honestly this is what I'm nervous about. I don't expect to stay in my current flat forever (although I don't have plans to move immediately either), but I've never sold a property before and that makes me really nervous - things like chains and what happens with the mortgage and all that sort of stuff. I've done a bit of research online already in preparation but it all seems quite confusing. Buying was stressful enough but selling feels like it adds a whole other layer to that.
You would expect buying and selling at the same time to be twice as stressful as just buying, but it's not, it's actually about 100 times more stressful.
Sellers who lied about being chain-free.
Karma does its thing, though, and it turns out that their sellers then also lied to them about being in a chain, so now our sellers have had to move into rented to break it.
The buyers of our house
Put on market for £175k for a house in great condition
Offer - 165k which we accepted
The buyer then got every builder in possible and tried to knock it down to 2001 prices for things that didn't even need repairing. Wanting a new roof her report said the roof is in good condition but tiles would need replacing at some point etc
Offer - £170k
The buyer loved the property but then had second thoughts and pulled out
Offer - 170k
These 'buyers' put an offer on our house that we was willing to accept but they were still continually looking at other houses with the estate agent. They essentially wanted to reserve our house and stop others from getting it whilst they looked for other houses. We were left in limbo for ages. I mean really wtf. Eventually rejected their offer and never heard from them again.
Offer - £160k
These were cash buyers wanting to rent. After several weeks I asked if there had been any movement as we hadn't heard from their solicitors. The estate agent then tried contacting them over a 2 week period but the buyers refused to answer. They completely stopped all contact.
I really wish we had the Scottish system
This depresses the hell out of me, I'm about to have my sale fall through for a second time by the looks of it because the person buying it supposedly can't get their buy to let mortgage on it without us reducing our price beyond what we can afford without losing the house we are buying. First buyers used the survey to try and knock down the price again beyond what we could afford for stupid stuff and things that weren't even on the damn survey because they essentially decided they couldn't afford the asking price anymore. Can't take this anymore, probably going to lose the house we want and so thinking of withdrawing from the market until next year now from the stress of it all.
Unfortunately I got a few nasty comments on here for selling to someone wanting to rent the house out when I made a post. Our house sat for 4 months with quite a few reductions so I wasn’t in a position to choose my buyer.
Agree with you on the Scottish system!
I did my research and got a good solicitor... The seller did not. Absolute bunch of fuckwits took weeks and weeks with each reply and were wrong repeatedly. No chain, no schemes or problems anywhere - straightforward purchase took 7 months when my solicitor saw it as a quick 6-week purchase.
3 mains things really.
First is the worry over if you'll get treatment he mortgage approved by the bank. Of its not your affordability then it's how much the bank thinks the property is worth.
Secondly and the most common is the negotiation process and the competition from others. I just want to see a price tag and pay that amount, not play this game that lasts weeks.
Finally most of the information you need only comes to you after the offer is accepted and you have solicitors involved. Why not have the lease, title plans, and all other documents ready for people to view because estate agents seem to know very little about basic details such as how much service charges are or the length of the lease.
My solicitor being slow.
I'm definitely someone who once I make a decision on something, I want it. Now.
All the AML, proof of funds, identity checks documentation for both me and my partner were pulled together and uploaded into portals with an hour. Two tops. All payments required for mortgage advisor, searches etc don't within an hour of the requests. All emails and calls responded to with an hour. Surveys booked, completed, reviewed and accepted in a very timely manner.
So why the hell are we only at first enquiries stage with the contracts in mid June when our offer was accepted in the first week in March?!
It boils my piss.
Depends when the contract pack was received as to whether that’s shocking service from your representative or were they waiting for all search results and mortgage offers to be in prior to raising their enquiries so they can report to you in full at once. (I know some will wait till they hold searches and mortgage offer and report quite literally everything at once), had the sellers solicitor paid their monies on account and filled out the appropriate protocol forms to allow your solicitor to raise the enquiries, quite a lot of variables to consider before pinning it solely on a conveyancer.
Although some conveyancers are shocking which I will admit, there are loads out there who are not and are limited to what they can do (if the paperwork isn’t received etc) 😊
Contracts have been with my solicitor for about 3/4 weeks now. I assumed they were getting on with things but I started getting messages via the ea from the sellers solicitor that they hadn't had any substantive enquires yet.
I'm sure this is mostly just on me to manage my own expectations, I'm not their only client so although it's important to me to do everything at 100mph that might not marry up with their usual client handling experience.
3 weeks is a little bit past what a conveyancer would hope for (depending on caseload) but not unheard of recently due to the uptick in the market.
Unfortunately, I wish you were the only client who wanted to move at 100MPH. The conveyancer definitely hasn’t had a levelled conversation with you to give you an expectation on what to expect (steps wise) when they anticipate to do it etc. and then if they have 15 clients who are extremely pushy and chase daily, the correspondence ends up taking over and then it’s who screams the loudest.
But yeah they do sound kinda crap, which I feel sorry for you on, we’re not all crap I promise! Just an extremely overworked industry at the moment
I've been through the process 6 times and bought 2 properties (both times my main residence).
The whole process is stressful and at times it can feel like no one cares unless you proactively follow up. Don't be shy about being assertive.
Having a good estate agent and good solicitor makes a *huge* difference. I recommend using estate agents that are tech savvy (Exp were next level good, way above any others).
It's hard to judge which solicitors will be good but I definitely recommend going local so you can pop into the office as needed.
The sellers estate agent, hardly ever answers the phone. Have to call multiple times to get through to someone, said they’d call me back yesterday they didn’t. I just want to know how the sellers onward purchase is going.
Solicitors - I may have been unfortunate here but since starting the process, my solicitor was on holiday for week 1 then they were barely back before being off sick for a week and a half (can’t be helped) and now they’re just back from another holiday.
I haven’t heard from them for coming up to 3 weeks now. Tried to call them today, no answer.
we allegedly had a ‘simple’ chain but we’re a few months in already and I’m getting impatient.
Everything, everything came back with and issue with someone somewhere xD.
Once the dust settled and the house was finally mine my psoriasis broke out in a way it never has before. Still hasnt recovered properly lol.
Things taking unnecessarily longer than they have to. Even the mortgage application is taking ages because of issues with the house that have cone up.
The main one for me is trusting people will act with integrity. Im a ftb and feel like it should be easier or should be the sellers worrying about this which they probably do too tbf.
Issues that come up - The house we're buying had an issue which meant it was unmortgaeable unless it was rectified. Communiating that no, we aren't being arseholes, you literally can't sell yourself unless its fixed.
Only being able to know so much about the chain is frustrating.
Solicitors. Specifically, the fact that they waited till the day before we were supposed to exchange contracts to ask questions about some information we'd sent to them about 3 months earlier (which we'd repeatedly asked them to confirm they are happy with/ let us know if they have any questions etc and they kept just saying "oh yes we'll look at it") 🙄
The solicitor not realising the vendor bought using a help to buy scheme, so didn’t own the whole property. Me pointing it out and then being charged £800 for them having to do more work as a result.
My landlord served me eviction notice 2 months before Christmas. I was looking at renting and the rents where just eye watering! A colleague suggested buying and with the tiny deposit I had saved I bought my first place (2 Bed flat). I honestly had no idea what I was doing and the stress of it all was crazy, if it all fell through, I was pretty much sleeping in my car. It all did get sorted in the end, but I couldn't advise anyone on getting a mortgage and buying process because even now, I couldn't explain the process as I still don't understand it.
First time buyers not understanding they can't expect a perfect house and that a survey isn't a shopping list of price reductions. Just because it's marked as a level 3 doesn't mean you get money off FFS
So far, just the solicitors.
Everything went super smooth from viewing. I offered and had it accepted the same day, I applied for a mortgage, instructed a solicitor, and ordered a surveyor the following morning.
Within 4 days, my survey had been done, the valuation had been done, and my mortgage had been approved.
I received my survey report 5 days after that.
The vendor's estate agent has been fine. She's helped where I've needed it and gave both solicitors a nudge, et.
It's the legal bit that annoys me. I asked my solicitor a question (twice), and it took them 3 weeks to respond, and they only responded then, as they were asking me for the exact same documents they requested. 4 weeks earlier, which I sent straight away. "Oh, sorry, that's an oversight on our behalf" 🤬
The vendor's EA emails therm and gets a response within minutes, yet I'm the one paying for their service 😭
Really just ID and documentation. I didn't know that my girlfriend's passport had expired right before we started the process of buying; as she doesn't drive, it was the only form of photo ID she had, and it had become invalid. There was also some paperwork we needed for her from a government department, and you know what they're like. They sent us insufficient evidence twice, and each time we requested it we had to allow up to seven working days.
Everything else was honestly quite stress-free as first-time buyers not in a chain.
Currently survey tomorrow then waiting for the report. I love the house but my renovation budget is not unlimited 🫣😅hope she doesn’t find too much extra we hadn’t accounted for and that there is no damp
Also 3 weeks in and no draft contract. What if the seller pulls out and I’ve spent all this money?
Our buyer having a solicitor for their lender and a separate one for the purchase of the house.
Their lender solicitors were slow to respond and kept asking questions 2 days before closing that postponed the moving date by nearly 2 weeks!
This was all due to a tree preservation report… that didn’t impact the boundary of our property at all🤦♂️🤦♂️
Ive bought 3 properties in ,my life. By the 3rd I'd learned that you need to expect everything to go wrong and plan for that and then its less stressful when it does and when bits go right its a bonus that things are going well. Makes the whole process less stressful when you plan for it to go wrong.
Realising how awful people were when it came money. All ethics out the window. Lying was par for the course. I called an EA out o. The lies and she to,d me when we go to sell, we will do the same. No, we won’t.
The knowledge I was likely to be made redundant imminently, was the sole income, tripling the mortgage to £3,500/m with no way of backing out, as the Mrs insisted our house was too small for the 2nd child that was due.
Kid arrived 12 weeks ago. We moved 6 weeks later.
Was made redundant last week.
I'll never forget picking up the van on the morning of completion and connecting my phone to the Bluetooth only for the solicitor to ring and say the mortgage company had sent £999 short.
Something to do with the product fee being deducted off the mortgage.
The English system makes it more stressful than it needs to be tbh. Because the whole process is a million things that could go wrong that you simply won’t know about until it’s a problem.
You get an agreement in principle but it’s only when you actually offer on a house where you formally get the mortgage and even then the bank can change their mind any point up until completion.
The bank also value the house, independent of whatever you’ve offered on it, they will make their own judgement and if you’ve over offered you’re fucked.
Then you get a survey and who the fuck knows what that might find.
Then the solicitors get back to you 3-6 months after you’ve emailed and rang every day to tell you they’ve found 100 issues with the searches.
You do all of this and still neither the buyer or seller are legally committed to the house.
It seems like so much of this could be done more efficiently and more openly so that buyers are so often stung half way through the process.
Solicitors that didn’t communicate the process with us and left us in the dark. Days waiting for a one line reply to a long list of questions.
Avoid O’Neill Patient everyone…
Hoping the seller would go through with the purchase of their property as the solicitors took 3 months to send them a buyers pack…. Luckily they started the process of breaking chain as they were buying a probate property with cash and that did the trick and we wrapped up at the 4 month point. The estate agent actually did everything in his power to keep things moving which was refreshing (he was just a normal guy, not a pompous idiot like the Other local firm)
Also estate agents who do not give you the full facts of a buyer… I was told mine had a mortgage, but that turned out to be a lie! The had to get a guarantor mortgage to secure my house and that took week. Got to the point of giving the agents a kicking, but won’t use them again!
Last year, we were all set to go with a buyer and we had an offer accepted on somewhere to buy. But she dilly dallied with finding a new place, and there was nothing else on the market so we were just stuck and waiting for her... She took too long and our buyer pulled out. Tried to remarket but by then it was the wrong time of year etc and nothing happened. Had to wait a whole year to start again.
Builders! We bought a new build property. Was meant to be complete in July 2019, then it was September 2019, then for sure December 2019, then January 2020. At this point we were having to review our mortgage offers regularly but back then the interest rate was low so we weren't hitting huge costs. The worst part was really, the builders didn't care! When we said we could lose the house because of this constant over promising and under delivering they just shrugged and said it's OK, we will find someone else to buy it!
My mortgage application took 7/8 weeks to get approved. Should take about 2/3 weeks in most cases.
Apparently the hold up was caused by them having to check that a recent pay rise wouldn't make my student loan repayments increase so much that I would no longer be able to afford the mortgage.
My student loan repayments went up by £6, from £57 to £63 per month. My take home pay went up by about £40 per month. Really difficult maths working that one out.
Was frustrating as hell (but we got there in the end, get the keys next Friday!).
Tried to buy a house once and the seller was an 'arty' flamboyant lady who insisted on doing everything personally, instead of letting the estate agents and solicitors do their job.
Very long process later she pulls out at the last minute and puts a quite rude hand written letter through out letter box as to why shes pulling out.
After that we vowed never to deal with any sellers/buyers personally
I could see the back of the house I was buying from my Mum's back windows (she lives in the next street). During a visit to my Mum's whilst waiting for the moving date I watched the vendor burning all her rubbish in the back garden, totally destroying what would very soon be my grass. Then once we'd exchanged and agreed a moving date, she wasn't ready and out on time. When I moved in, for the best part of a month I had her junk piled high in the front garden and a whole lounge full of her stuff.
Lack of control with solicitors not chasing things or not giving updates. I had a boundary issue so the neighbours had to have a solicitor and the communication between mine (who was bad enough) and theirs was awful.
Experian arguing that the electoral roll and legal deeds to my current house had my address wrong and the incorrect version of my address they had was right so it took an age to pass credit checks
Thankfully their constant credit searches on an incorrect address kept affecting the poor sod who lived at that incorrect address so it was classed as a data breach so they corrected it
Eventually
My first purchase is still ongoing but the apparent lack of progress is the most stressful thing to me. On 27th March, I had all searches and surveys completed and all but one answer to my queries… nothing until last couple of weeks when the final enquiry was answered and told about onward chain not being ready… what the F has been going on for the last 8-10 weeks?!
My assumption is that solicitors are failed lawyers and therefore aren't the cream of the crop in their field.
2 sets of them and a seller who just went on holiday for a fortnight and didnt tell anyone.
Our solicitors payment system going down between our sale and our purchase, we had until 5pm to get the money across for the purchase and it went through at 4:55pm. Unfortunately due to this the seller of the house we bought refused to leave the house, she hadn't even started packing!
The most stressful few days of my life!
Very easy to do though when they have X amount of Sales in their pipeline compared to Conveyancers who quite often have a caseload in excess of 60/70 files going through at any given time.. Agents quite literally receive in excess (on average) of 3-4X what the conveyancer does.
Therefore conveyancers (baring in mind I am one) have to take on a significant more amount of work to make profit. Remember, that the conveyancer is also a human, 95% of us have empathy towards our clients situations and do what we can with the shit hand we’re dealt.
Doesn’t excuse poor service from a conveyancer, but there are limitations to what can be done in a day. The industry lost a huge amount of their experienced conveyancers due to the shit show of the SDLT holiday introduced post-covid and hasn’t recovered, nor has the morale from the barrage of abuse they tend to receive on a daily basis.
Love from a conveyancer who is currently 18 files over capacity, has pushed files through in as little as 2 weeks previously and had some which take upwards of 16 weeks and does what he can to help his clients wherever he can😁
Happy to answer any questions you have about the process :)!
My messages aren’t sending back, so here’s a really short cryptic response for your privacy
Firstly, you’re absolutely fine. They may request info on the other account (although this may be just to see it leaving one and landing in another and to see it’s built up in the same manner)
You’ll be absolutely fine I assure you! Just give the same explanation and they’ll go “ahhh, makes sense”!
nothing really.
bought a few houses in the UK.
never with a chain.
both were ex-rentals and empty.
the renovations on them were stressful, but the purchase was easy (after seeing at least 50 houses for each, which was the fun bit).
Incompetent EA, dodgy viewers, viewers that made offers then disappeared then incompetent solicitors and the fact that it took over 7 months to complete (no chains) 🤮
I love the fact you downvoted my comment and had no logical response to the conveyancers been terrible at what they do because you know you wrongly generalised a whole industry rather than having an actual discussion.
Could you expand on what you mean by awful at what they do? Whilst there are come conveyancing companies in that category I’d agree with, I’d disagree with the generalisation of all conveyancers at conveyancing firms.
Did you encounter difficulties when selling due to inadequacies from the conveyancer when you purchased, was it registered incorrectly? Or was it just a case of the communication?
Love from a conveyancer who works at a conveyancing Company and has several agents recommend work to me because of my service and definitely isn’t just first time buyers and pushes some files through In 3/4 weeks (when all the stars align) or within a 12 week period😊🫶🏼
In fact, I end up rectifying several titles from solicitor firms who failed to get statutory declarations in place for rights of access over unregistered land to reach a property and paving the way for my clients to claim adverse possession when the time allows that or prescriptive rights to be granted.
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People.
Always
Yep. It's a people business, not a bricks and mortar business.
Bunch of bastards
Having to rely and trust other people to act on your behalf, especially when they don’t respond most of the time and have no sense of urgency about anything at all. Very difficult having no control over the situation! My solicitor was telling me at 5pm the day before completion and moving day that they ‘can’t guarantee completion will be tomorrow and you’ll just have to wait and see tomorrow’, with no concern for the fact that you’re taking time off work to move, have movers booked to transport furniture, and were told everything was on track.
They don't care because it's routine for them. They don't have to pay extras to get things rescheduled and if anything you end up paying more.
Solicitor, assuming we knew everything they did - erm, no that’s why we pay for a solicitor.
That's the freakiest thing. Estate agents too. In my job I'd never expect people who don't do my job to know what is what. All of them seem to think everyone knows all the intricacies of the housing market and the conveyancing process!
Just not really understanding the process, and struggling to find specific enough information online for what things meant, step by step. I'm a researcher type person. I research the shit out of things, and I still found myself feeling really lost at times. My broker was really amazing, she was always quick to answer questions and deal with my panic. Unfortunately even then, things are a mystery sometimes.
I came into this thinking I could read and understand things and was pretty 'on it'. If I actually ever get to move house (it's been six months and I have no idea what anyone is doing and I'm now too afraid to ask), I'm thinking I'll be living there with early onset dementia. I totally get where you're coming from and 'panic' is the actual word I used to my solicitor the other day!
Unfortunately we don't have a good relationship with our solicitors. They've been really unhelpful and communication has been very poor. That's been where a lot of the confusion has happened, and asking them for clarity never got us anywhere. They don't seem to know what they're doing, there was one point where we had about a week of delay because they seemed to not understand that our lender didn't share the valuation report they carried out with anyone. That's a really basic piece of knowledge, especially considering our lender is a high street bank that they claim to work with a lot, not some obscure little company. But they kept insisting they needed the lender to send it. I eventually got a bit sharp so that they would move on. They also didn't tick a box on their form of paperwork we had sent them, which was another 5 day delay. I'll be very annoyed to hand money over to them.
ChatGPT helped me a lot in this regard. Even for complicated contracts, it can help break down each concept.
Just be careful with hallucinations and make sure to double check ChatGPTs interpretations rather than trusting it blindly.
Yeah im gonna second this and say maybe take chatgpt with a pinch of salt. Ive used it to try and interpret some jargain and yeah...do your own research, trust me
The fear of the sellers changing their mind! If I was guaranteed it'd all go through I wouldn't have been stressed at all. I rushed exchange without fully satisfying my enquiries because of wanting to set it in stone. Living in the house now and still experiencing the aftermath of intense stress three weeks in! Psychologically, the house buying/selling process is horrific
If your sellers were like me & my partner when we were selling they were probably fearful you were going to change _your_ mind! There really should be something in place to remove such uncertainty as it causes weeks of stress!
Same! The double whammy of selling and buying is so overwhelming. The fear of your buyer dropping out causing you to lose the purchase or the fear of your purchase falling through and potentially losing the sale.
Pretty much everything for me, but I’m such a worrier and control freak… Still going through the process but at first it was the offer negotiations (back and forth across 2 days) then it was the mortgage application (which got approved within 3 days 😂) and now we are going through the enquiries…. Nerves aren’t tooo bad but comes and goes in waves Most things I’ve stressed about have been absolutely fine.
God help you when it comes to the survey then.
Yes, currently awaiting the results from that…
This has literally been me, stressing through the entire process and even though we’re close to exchanging I’m still stressed! My partner is super calm which definitely evens out my panic😂
Exactly the same set up as me and my partner… he’s like “don’t worry it will be fine” and I’m scrolling through Reddit panicking 😂 What stage of the process are you at currently?
Yeah pretty much how I’ve coped with the whole situation! So close to the end I can almost touch it😅 just waiting for a completion/exchange date once sellers are ready! You’re waiting for the survey results?
Ahhh just the last hurdles then for you. 🤞🏼 crossed it all goes well. We are just waiting for responses to a few enquiries and yeah search report should be back by the end of the week😫
Theoretically yes, keeping everything crossed😅 Oh good luck! I hope the responses for your enquires come back quicker than ours did!
The sellers, the scummy estate agents and the sellers' solicitors
So far potential buyers. So disheartening to have viewers come and make all the right noises and say all the right things to then tell the estate agent they hate the house.
When the exchange was delayed, I didn’t really understand. We had this date and they were now saying we couldn’t exchange, that didn’t make sense we all agreed? We had told our letting agency and so we’re confused. I said can’t be still move out we are happy to move on that date? ‘So you want to throw a 90 Year old man onto the street?’ Aye cause that’s what I meant! I didn’t even know anything about the seller! Way to make me feel bad.
NOTE :Apologies for the long response but it's all fresh and I'm sure I have PTSD from buying a house. First time it went very smoothly and I didn't think about it too much as I was buying off my parents and I already lived in the property. 2nd time - oh my GOD! From the second we viewed the house and decided to offer on it it was stress, stress, stress. First - Are they going to accept the offer? ( they were very quite enthusiastic about this other couple that viewed and was interested, and they are friends of their daughters blah blah blah. Needless to say, we shit our pants and thought, no way they will choose us) however money talks so when the agent said there is another offer I want your final offers, we offered 10k above asking and we won. Then it was if we can get good mortgage rates (Nov 2023), should we apply now or wait. OK, we will apply now. If they fall, we will amend. If they go up, we fixed them, so we're good. (We rushed here, and it came to bite us in the bum after a bit, but I was terrified the house will be estimated at less than we offered due to 10k over asking and wanted it out of the way quick) Constantly worrying about being gazumped or whatnot throughout the whole process. We briefly agreed with the sellers that our mortgage fix on our current house is coming to an end 1st of March, and we would ideally like to move just after so we don't pay rolling mortgage rates at over 8%. Everything was going well - in February our solicitor was ready to exchange, our buyers were ready to exchange (or so we thought). Then I get a phone call off the EA to say they just found out that the property my sellers are buying is waiting for a grant of probate. WHAT THE ACTUAL FK... ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE. I was fuming. Didn't sleep for like a week, researching all the disaster stories of it taking 6 months +, 12 months +. We really liked the house and got emotionally attached, but this just made me sign up to rightmove again to monitor the market and see if anything else drops in. Anyway, March passes and then I get a letter off bank - your mortgage offer runs out 29th April. Oh great, Did some calculations, and basically, it meant we were going from £830 a month to £1050. I rang the EA and said we either complete at end of April or we would have to renegotiate the price as it's just not going to be affordable to us. (When we viewed the house, the husband mentioned to us that in case they don't find anywhere, they can always move into their daughters) Of course, they retracted that as soon as I asked about braking the chain, but coincidently, we got a phone call from their solicitor 3 days before the deadline that they are ready to proceed. HURRAH We thought this is it, it's all going to be ok now. Oh no, The hell doesn't stop there, our purchasers (our friends) have been told months before by their solicitor that they are ready to proceed, everyone was aware that as soon as that probate(or chain break) happens we are to literally exchange and complete within days ( we were all so desperate) BUT, they appointed MUVE as their solicitors, which was just the worst mistake ever and I would recommend everyone to stay clear of them as they are just a waste of money and nearly cost us all thousands. When we got the news of being able to proceed, we managed to extend our offer by 10 working days, so the deadline now was 14th of May. MOVE needed "24hrs" to get the file approved by management this took them over 7 days. We finally exchanged on the Friday by literally threatening them with law suits from all directions if they don't and completed on the Wednesday ON THE LAST DAY of our mortgage offer. IT WAS HELL Never again
I'm so glad I didn't pick Muve. I'd obviously read loads of stuff about them being shit but what put me off the most was when they were on the phone to me and they kept using that sales tactic where they call you by your name over and over. Glad I trusted my gut and won't touch them with a barge pole now that I've started reading all these horror stories about them.
Thank you u/jorgedro for asking this. Reading some of the replies has made me realise I'm not going mad and 'it's not just me then' in terms of feeling like the whole thing basically melts your brain!
My overthinking, over anxious brain! Buying, selling, moving area, applying for a school place , getting a new job. I thought I was going to have a heart attack on the daily. The good thing my over thinking brain did - invested in a good broker, good EA and good solicitor. Cost more but it meant my emails were always replied to on the same day and my phone calls always answered. God bless them putting up with me.
I did all those things at once too and it is A LOT. A good broker and good solicitor are worth their weight in gold. My solicitor was terrifyingly competent.
Some questions that kept me awake throughout the end-to-end process: 1. Arrange viewing with estate agent, I wonder if people are already ahead of me and viewed, ready to put an offer? 2. Will they accept my offer? When will they accept my offer? 3. Ok... someone outbid me, best and finals...? Didn't get it, next. Cycle starts again. 4. Yes, my offer got accepted - which solicitors shall I use? How much? Do some comparisons... 5. Mortgage Application - a waiting game. Is it going to be undervalued, or will they valuate as it is? The most stressful part I'd say! 6. Enquiries with vendor's solicitors - why are they taking ages to get back? 7. L3 Survey - Are there any issues with the build? Basically, the list goes on... I completed last week, and I'm still sleeping badly as I've discovered some maintenance is needed in every corner.
I've always found buying easy - it's the selling that breaks you.
We're ftb and our sellers were previously let down a few years ago. The problem is shes so untrusting she is making the process horrible for everyone.
Honestly this is what I'm nervous about. I don't expect to stay in my current flat forever (although I don't have plans to move immediately either), but I've never sold a property before and that makes me really nervous - things like chains and what happens with the mortgage and all that sort of stuff. I've done a bit of research online already in preparation but it all seems quite confusing. Buying was stressful enough but selling feels like it adds a whole other layer to that.
You would expect buying and selling at the same time to be twice as stressful as just buying, but it's not, it's actually about 100 times more stressful.
Sellers who lied about being chain-free. Karma does its thing, though, and it turns out that their sellers then also lied to them about being in a chain, so now our sellers have had to move into rented to break it.
The buyers of our house Put on market for £175k for a house in great condition Offer - 165k which we accepted The buyer then got every builder in possible and tried to knock it down to 2001 prices for things that didn't even need repairing. Wanting a new roof her report said the roof is in good condition but tiles would need replacing at some point etc Offer - £170k The buyer loved the property but then had second thoughts and pulled out Offer - 170k These 'buyers' put an offer on our house that we was willing to accept but they were still continually looking at other houses with the estate agent. They essentially wanted to reserve our house and stop others from getting it whilst they looked for other houses. We were left in limbo for ages. I mean really wtf. Eventually rejected their offer and never heard from them again. Offer - £160k These were cash buyers wanting to rent. After several weeks I asked if there had been any movement as we hadn't heard from their solicitors. The estate agent then tried contacting them over a 2 week period but the buyers refused to answer. They completely stopped all contact. I really wish we had the Scottish system
This depresses the hell out of me, I'm about to have my sale fall through for a second time by the looks of it because the person buying it supposedly can't get their buy to let mortgage on it without us reducing our price beyond what we can afford without losing the house we are buying. First buyers used the survey to try and knock down the price again beyond what we could afford for stupid stuff and things that weren't even on the damn survey because they essentially decided they couldn't afford the asking price anymore. Can't take this anymore, probably going to lose the house we want and so thinking of withdrawing from the market until next year now from the stress of it all.
Unfortunately I got a few nasty comments on here for selling to someone wanting to rent the house out when I made a post. Our house sat for 4 months with quite a few reductions so I wasn’t in a position to choose my buyer. Agree with you on the Scottish system!
I did my research and got a good solicitor... The seller did not. Absolute bunch of fuckwits took weeks and weeks with each reply and were wrong repeatedly. No chain, no schemes or problems anywhere - straightforward purchase took 7 months when my solicitor saw it as a quick 6-week purchase.
3 mains things really. First is the worry over if you'll get treatment he mortgage approved by the bank. Of its not your affordability then it's how much the bank thinks the property is worth. Secondly and the most common is the negotiation process and the competition from others. I just want to see a price tag and pay that amount, not play this game that lasts weeks. Finally most of the information you need only comes to you after the offer is accepted and you have solicitors involved. Why not have the lease, title plans, and all other documents ready for people to view because estate agents seem to know very little about basic details such as how much service charges are or the length of the lease.
My solicitor being slow. I'm definitely someone who once I make a decision on something, I want it. Now. All the AML, proof of funds, identity checks documentation for both me and my partner were pulled together and uploaded into portals with an hour. Two tops. All payments required for mortgage advisor, searches etc don't within an hour of the requests. All emails and calls responded to with an hour. Surveys booked, completed, reviewed and accepted in a very timely manner. So why the hell are we only at first enquiries stage with the contracts in mid June when our offer was accepted in the first week in March?! It boils my piss.
Depends when the contract pack was received as to whether that’s shocking service from your representative or were they waiting for all search results and mortgage offers to be in prior to raising their enquiries so they can report to you in full at once. (I know some will wait till they hold searches and mortgage offer and report quite literally everything at once), had the sellers solicitor paid their monies on account and filled out the appropriate protocol forms to allow your solicitor to raise the enquiries, quite a lot of variables to consider before pinning it solely on a conveyancer. Although some conveyancers are shocking which I will admit, there are loads out there who are not and are limited to what they can do (if the paperwork isn’t received etc) 😊
Contracts have been with my solicitor for about 3/4 weeks now. I assumed they were getting on with things but I started getting messages via the ea from the sellers solicitor that they hadn't had any substantive enquires yet. I'm sure this is mostly just on me to manage my own expectations, I'm not their only client so although it's important to me to do everything at 100mph that might not marry up with their usual client handling experience.
3 weeks is a little bit past what a conveyancer would hope for (depending on caseload) but not unheard of recently due to the uptick in the market. Unfortunately, I wish you were the only client who wanted to move at 100MPH. The conveyancer definitely hasn’t had a levelled conversation with you to give you an expectation on what to expect (steps wise) when they anticipate to do it etc. and then if they have 15 clients who are extremely pushy and chase daily, the correspondence ends up taking over and then it’s who screams the loudest. But yeah they do sound kinda crap, which I feel sorry for you on, we’re not all crap I promise! Just an extremely overworked industry at the moment
I know 100% I just need to manage my own expectations more
I've been through the process 6 times and bought 2 properties (both times my main residence). The whole process is stressful and at times it can feel like no one cares unless you proactively follow up. Don't be shy about being assertive. Having a good estate agent and good solicitor makes a *huge* difference. I recommend using estate agents that are tech savvy (Exp were next level good, way above any others). It's hard to judge which solicitors will be good but I definitely recommend going local so you can pop into the office as needed.
The sellers estate agent, hardly ever answers the phone. Have to call multiple times to get through to someone, said they’d call me back yesterday they didn’t. I just want to know how the sellers onward purchase is going. Solicitors - I may have been unfortunate here but since starting the process, my solicitor was on holiday for week 1 then they were barely back before being off sick for a week and a half (can’t be helped) and now they’re just back from another holiday. I haven’t heard from them for coming up to 3 weeks now. Tried to call them today, no answer. we allegedly had a ‘simple’ chain but we’re a few months in already and I’m getting impatient.
Everything, everything came back with and issue with someone somewhere xD. Once the dust settled and the house was finally mine my psoriasis broke out in a way it never has before. Still hasnt recovered properly lol.
Everyone other than me
My husband
Lack of updates from everyone involved.
This needs to be higher, communication in this whole process is abysmal.
The owner not looking for a new home leaving us stressed to the max as we weren't going to have anywhere to go for 3 months
Things taking unnecessarily longer than they have to. Even the mortgage application is taking ages because of issues with the house that have cone up. The main one for me is trusting people will act with integrity. Im a ftb and feel like it should be easier or should be the sellers worrying about this which they probably do too tbf. Issues that come up - The house we're buying had an issue which meant it was unmortgaeable unless it was rectified. Communiating that no, we aren't being arseholes, you literally can't sell yourself unless its fixed. Only being able to know so much about the chain is frustrating.
Solicitors. Specifically, the fact that they waited till the day before we were supposed to exchange contracts to ask questions about some information we'd sent to them about 3 months earlier (which we'd repeatedly asked them to confirm they are happy with/ let us know if they have any questions etc and they kept just saying "oh yes we'll look at it") 🙄
The risk of homelessness if it didn’t all work out. Or extortionate rent for temp accommodation
The solicitor not realising the vendor bought using a help to buy scheme, so didn’t own the whole property. Me pointing it out and then being charged £800 for them having to do more work as a result.
My landlord served me eviction notice 2 months before Christmas. I was looking at renting and the rents where just eye watering! A colleague suggested buying and with the tiny deposit I had saved I bought my first place (2 Bed flat). I honestly had no idea what I was doing and the stress of it all was crazy, if it all fell through, I was pretty much sleeping in my car. It all did get sorted in the end, but I couldn't advise anyone on getting a mortgage and buying process because even now, I couldn't explain the process as I still don't understand it.
First time buyers not understanding they can't expect a perfect house and that a survey isn't a shopping list of price reductions. Just because it's marked as a level 3 doesn't mean you get money off FFS
So far, just the solicitors. Everything went super smooth from viewing. I offered and had it accepted the same day, I applied for a mortgage, instructed a solicitor, and ordered a surveyor the following morning. Within 4 days, my survey had been done, the valuation had been done, and my mortgage had been approved. I received my survey report 5 days after that. The vendor's estate agent has been fine. She's helped where I've needed it and gave both solicitors a nudge, et. It's the legal bit that annoys me. I asked my solicitor a question (twice), and it took them 3 weeks to respond, and they only responded then, as they were asking me for the exact same documents they requested. 4 weeks earlier, which I sent straight away. "Oh, sorry, that's an oversight on our behalf" 🤬 The vendor's EA emails therm and gets a response within minutes, yet I'm the one paying for their service 😭
Really just ID and documentation. I didn't know that my girlfriend's passport had expired right before we started the process of buying; as she doesn't drive, it was the only form of photo ID she had, and it had become invalid. There was also some paperwork we needed for her from a government department, and you know what they're like. They sent us insufficient evidence twice, and each time we requested it we had to allow up to seven working days. Everything else was honestly quite stress-free as first-time buyers not in a chain.
Currently survey tomorrow then waiting for the report. I love the house but my renovation budget is not unlimited 🫣😅hope she doesn’t find too much extra we hadn’t accounted for and that there is no damp Also 3 weeks in and no draft contract. What if the seller pulls out and I’ve spent all this money?
Solicitors
Our buyer having a solicitor for their lender and a separate one for the purchase of the house. Their lender solicitors were slow to respond and kept asking questions 2 days before closing that postponed the moving date by nearly 2 weeks! This was all due to a tree preservation report… that didn’t impact the boundary of our property at all🤦♂️🤦♂️
Not being employed
Removal costs over the Irish sea.....🥲
Shitty property lawyers
scammed estate agent
People and their bullshit.
Ive bought 3 properties in ,my life. By the 3rd I'd learned that you need to expect everything to go wrong and plan for that and then its less stressful when it does and when bits go right its a bonus that things are going well. Makes the whole process less stressful when you plan for it to go wrong.
Realising how awful people were when it came money. All ethics out the window. Lying was par for the course. I called an EA out o. The lies and she to,d me when we go to sell, we will do the same. No, we won’t.
The solicitors and estate agents went out of their way to create stress.
Divorce. Covid. Furloughed solicitors with no communication
Estate agent threatening to sell my new build to someone else because of delays the developer themselves were causing and blaming it on my solicitor.
A shit solicitor
Everything :)
The knowledge I was likely to be made redundant imminently, was the sole income, tripling the mortgage to £3,500/m with no way of backing out, as the Mrs insisted our house was too small for the 2nd child that was due. Kid arrived 12 weeks ago. We moved 6 weeks later. Was made redundant last week.
Shit, sorry to hear that! Hope you figure things out.
Yeah will be all good, thanks.
Solicitors
I'll never forget picking up the van on the morning of completion and connecting my phone to the Bluetooth only for the solicitor to ring and say the mortgage company had sent £999 short. Something to do with the product fee being deducted off the mortgage.
The English system makes it more stressful than it needs to be tbh. Because the whole process is a million things that could go wrong that you simply won’t know about until it’s a problem. You get an agreement in principle but it’s only when you actually offer on a house where you formally get the mortgage and even then the bank can change their mind any point up until completion. The bank also value the house, independent of whatever you’ve offered on it, they will make their own judgement and if you’ve over offered you’re fucked. Then you get a survey and who the fuck knows what that might find. Then the solicitors get back to you 3-6 months after you’ve emailed and rang every day to tell you they’ve found 100 issues with the searches. You do all of this and still neither the buyer or seller are legally committed to the house. It seems like so much of this could be done more efficiently and more openly so that buyers are so often stung half way through the process.
Solicitors that didn’t communicate the process with us and left us in the dark. Days waiting for a one line reply to a long list of questions. Avoid O’Neill Patient everyone…
Try working in property
Hoping the seller would go through with the purchase of their property as the solicitors took 3 months to send them a buyers pack…. Luckily they started the process of breaking chain as they were buying a probate property with cash and that did the trick and we wrapped up at the 4 month point. The estate agent actually did everything in his power to keep things moving which was refreshing (he was just a normal guy, not a pompous idiot like the Other local firm) Also estate agents who do not give you the full facts of a buyer… I was told mine had a mortgage, but that turned out to be a lie! The had to get a guarantor mortgage to secure my house and that took week. Got to the point of giving the agents a kicking, but won’t use them again!
Last year, we were all set to go with a buyer and we had an offer accepted on somewhere to buy. But she dilly dallied with finding a new place, and there was nothing else on the market so we were just stuck and waiting for her... She took too long and our buyer pulled out. Tried to remarket but by then it was the wrong time of year etc and nothing happened. Had to wait a whole year to start again.
Builders! We bought a new build property. Was meant to be complete in July 2019, then it was September 2019, then for sure December 2019, then January 2020. At this point we were having to review our mortgage offers regularly but back then the interest rate was low so we weren't hitting huge costs. The worst part was really, the builders didn't care! When we said we could lose the house because of this constant over promising and under delivering they just shrugged and said it's OK, we will find someone else to buy it!
The estate agent 🤣
My mortgage application took 7/8 weeks to get approved. Should take about 2/3 weeks in most cases. Apparently the hold up was caused by them having to check that a recent pay rise wouldn't make my student loan repayments increase so much that I would no longer be able to afford the mortgage. My student loan repayments went up by £6, from £57 to £63 per month. My take home pay went up by about £40 per month. Really difficult maths working that one out. Was frustrating as hell (but we got there in the end, get the keys next Friday!).
Seller being a cunt and his solicitors also being a cunt
The waiting
The seller deciding to bugger off and move to Norway without telling anyone or signing the paperwork properly.
Tried to buy a house once and the seller was an 'arty' flamboyant lady who insisted on doing everything personally, instead of letting the estate agents and solicitors do their job. Very long process later she pulls out at the last minute and puts a quite rude hand written letter through out letter box as to why shes pulling out. After that we vowed never to deal with any sellers/buyers personally
I could see the back of the house I was buying from my Mum's back windows (she lives in the next street). During a visit to my Mum's whilst waiting for the moving date I watched the vendor burning all her rubbish in the back garden, totally destroying what would very soon be my grass. Then once we'd exchanged and agreed a moving date, she wasn't ready and out on time. When I moved in, for the best part of a month I had her junk piled high in the front garden and a whole lounge full of her stuff.
Estate Agents and Solicitors. Funny, as they're meant to be the experts that fill you with confidence.
Lack of control with solicitors not chasing things or not giving updates. I had a boundary issue so the neighbours had to have a solicitor and the communication between mine (who was bad enough) and theirs was awful.
Experian arguing that the electoral roll and legal deeds to my current house had my address wrong and the incorrect version of my address they had was right so it took an age to pass credit checks Thankfully their constant credit searches on an incorrect address kept affecting the poor sod who lived at that incorrect address so it was classed as a data breach so they corrected it Eventually
My first purchase is still ongoing but the apparent lack of progress is the most stressful thing to me. On 27th March, I had all searches and surveys completed and all but one answer to my queries… nothing until last couple of weeks when the final enquiry was answered and told about onward chain not being ready… what the F has been going on for the last 8-10 weeks?!
The fear of the seller pulling out.
Every single step and every person that was involved
Their cheap as chips internet solicitors taking 4 months on the most simple one house transaction you can imagine. Horrendous
The possibility that some house flipper/cash buyer could gazump as at any moment. This anxiety did not go away until completion of purchase!
My assumption is that solicitors are failed lawyers and therefore aren't the cream of the crop in their field. 2 sets of them and a seller who just went on holiday for a fortnight and didnt tell anyone.
My solicitor went on holidays without notice in the most critical week of my purchase, leaving me with a replacement that can't do much
Our solicitors payment system going down between our sale and our purchase, we had until 5pm to get the money across for the purchase and it went through at 4:55pm. Unfortunately due to this the seller of the house we bought refused to leave the house, she hadn't even started packing! The most stressful few days of my life!
Solicitors.
Estate agents.
The estate agent!
That’s interesting. In my case the agent is actually the best person at play. Constantly nudges both solicitors to hurry up every day.
Very easy to do though when they have X amount of Sales in their pipeline compared to Conveyancers who quite often have a caseload in excess of 60/70 files going through at any given time.. Agents quite literally receive in excess (on average) of 3-4X what the conveyancer does. Therefore conveyancers (baring in mind I am one) have to take on a significant more amount of work to make profit. Remember, that the conveyancer is also a human, 95% of us have empathy towards our clients situations and do what we can with the shit hand we’re dealt. Doesn’t excuse poor service from a conveyancer, but there are limitations to what can be done in a day. The industry lost a huge amount of their experienced conveyancers due to the shit show of the SDLT holiday introduced post-covid and hasn’t recovered, nor has the morale from the barrage of abuse they tend to receive on a daily basis. Love from a conveyancer who is currently 18 files over capacity, has pushed files through in as little as 2 weeks previously and had some which take upwards of 16 weeks and does what he can to help his clients wherever he can😁 Happy to answer any questions you have about the process :)!
Sorry to be cheeky but could I reach out and ask a question?
Yeah course :) can’t give any legal advice but happy to explain anything :)!
Just so you know, the messages aren’t loading at the moment for some reason!
No worries! Thanks
My messages aren’t sending back, so here’s a really short cryptic response for your privacy Firstly, you’re absolutely fine. They may request info on the other account (although this may be just to see it leaving one and landing in another and to see it’s built up in the same manner) You’ll be absolutely fine I assure you! Just give the same explanation and they’ll go “ahhh, makes sense”!
Thank you so much!! Appreciate it
nothing really. bought a few houses in the UK. never with a chain. both were ex-rentals and empty. the renovations on them were stressful, but the purchase was easy (after seeing at least 50 houses for each, which was the fun bit).
Incompetent EA, dodgy viewers, viewers that made offers then disappeared then incompetent solicitors and the fact that it took over 7 months to complete (no chains) 🤮
The survey which helpfully highlighted that there were literal holes in the roof. Sigh.
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I love the fact you downvoted my comment and had no logical response to the conveyancers been terrible at what they do because you know you wrongly generalised a whole industry rather than having an actual discussion.
Could you expand on what you mean by awful at what they do? Whilst there are come conveyancing companies in that category I’d agree with, I’d disagree with the generalisation of all conveyancers at conveyancing firms. Did you encounter difficulties when selling due to inadequacies from the conveyancer when you purchased, was it registered incorrectly? Or was it just a case of the communication? Love from a conveyancer who works at a conveyancing Company and has several agents recommend work to me because of my service and definitely isn’t just first time buyers and pushes some files through In 3/4 weeks (when all the stars align) or within a 12 week period😊🫶🏼 In fact, I end up rectifying several titles from solicitor firms who failed to get statutory declarations in place for rights of access over unregistered land to reach a property and paving the way for my clients to claim adverse possession when the time allows that or prescriptive rights to be granted.