Owning your own home

I admire your bravery and I seriously hope that you get some compensation, however my experience of the London market tells me that people are usually very very reluctant to let go of any £££ that they have already accounted for and that they will try to get away with blaming the process and say ‘these things are normal in a chain’. Even if that happens, and it is difficult to swallow, think that it could have been much worse that a week delay. I know it doesn’t help now but once you are in the house it will all hopefully be worth it

I have never been this angry about anything in my life (that I can recall).

I genuinely think everyone else probably thinks I'm bluffing. I'm not and I have already emailed my solicitor to tell her she should down tools for now until she heard further from me.

Pull the plug. Or not.

It is such a stupid process.

All of this could have been avoided if people acted with decency and communicated with each other.

I wonder if the 3 different sets of sellers and buyers are all sitting at home tonight and saying to each other "na he won't do it, will he?".

how I long to reach the zen state of house buying that I have the temerity to just fuck it off when someone is being a cunt instead of eating their shit and throwing money at it

It's a bewildering place to be.

As I said to one of the estate agent today when they were trying to convince me driving about Essex with a cat pissing on my car seat was absolutely normal and to be expected, I would rather live in a tent without a penny to my name but still be able to look myself in the mirror and say I've done the right thing and behaved properly rather than act appallingly and expect everyone else to suck it up.

Principles are expensive things and I guess we will find the cost tomorrow.

I've told them my solicitor is not authorised to exchange unless I get some compensation for the absolute fuckwittery that took place last Friday

I think you are only angering yourself by doing this - what is the motivation? To punish the guys that fucked you around? To feel like you have won?

If you want the house... exchange and forget about all of this.

I wish I could see things as black and white as that.

It was probably one of the saddest things I heard last Friday when my wife was hysterical on the phone.

I s'pose that whilst I am a very very nice bloke, I am also fairly vindictive. And I want the stupid twat that caused all this to be punished for it.

Who are you expecting to compensate you? Why 5k?

As @NickCJ says, take the emotion out of it and just exchange and move on it with it.

Like others have said just move on and give yourself no hassle as no one will give you money. Worst happens they pull out and then your fucked.

And I want the stupid twat that caused all this to be punished for it

I know it's hard, I really do, but the only thing prolonging the agony right now is you.

I'm not fucked, I have a 4 bedroom house and can stay where I am.

The whole thing has left a very bitter taste in my mouth and I am finding it very difficult to forgive the utterly retarded chunt that has unnecessarily caused all this chaos and heartache.

The good thing is, you would probably be able to sell your house for £100k more now.

What did they do?

Can you shit on their car bonnet instead?

At 10am my agent calls the last agent who confirms the top of the chain is ready, there was a small issue with a septic tank how've they've agreed a 10k retention and everyone is happy.

Between 10am and about 3 the last solicitor doesn't answer her phone and won't release the contract for exchange. At 4pm they eventually say that no they won't be exchanging today as they want specialist reports on the septic tank and they might need to renegotiate the retention

Not trying to make excuses, but the 'small issue' may have always been a much larger issue than you've been led to believe. The agents all through the process will have been tasked with keeping their buyers/sellers moving along, and in my limited experience solicitors are not much help either.

For all you know there's a bloke on a bike forum ranting "for fuck's sake, I made perfectly clear this tank shit needed sorting before we exchanged, and now some twat further down the chain is threatening to pull the plug on the whole thing. Christ, I wish everyone would just communicate better"

Essentially, the phrase 'Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity' springs to mind.

If you would prefer to be in the house you're looking at buying then suck it up and buy the place, because you're never going to see anyone in the chain again and you've no idea if it's the buyers, the agents or the solicitors that've fucked up, so the 5k compensation you want may seem entirely unreasonable to the people that would have to stump up

As many above have said you unfortunately won’t have a full picture and it seems you are just making your your life harder…if you get the money great, if not, a cold beer in your new house will make you forget all about it soon enough

While I appreciate the levels of anger and annoyance the buying/selling process can generate, from an outside view your stance seems to be an overreaction and you are cutting off your nose to spite your face. It's a complicated process (and very emotional for those in it) with many weak points where things can get fucked up.
If everyone is now ready to go 3 days later, I would get it done, have a drink and move on to enjoying your new home.
I'm not entirely clear who you are expecting to give you this £5k and why - is it just because exchange has been delayed by 3 days? As it stands, IMO, you're the one who's jeopardising everyone's moves and causing the stress.

what is 5k as a percentage of the purchase?

@princeperch Also, I'm not intentionally ignoring your plight with the post ^^^^. I've gone through similar

Planned to sell my place at end of 2019. Split buy/sell. Crash at girlfriend's for a few weeks in between.
Sold my place without a hitch, 7 weeks from beginning to end. Sold Nov 2019
Top of the chain was going through a separation and umm'd and ahh'd about whether they wanted to buy or rent somewhere after selling.
They changed their mind at the last minute and everything got held up.
December exchange date became Jan, Feb.
Covid arrived. Everything went on hold. Middle of the chain collapses because a seller is in her 80s and obv doesn't fancy inviting strangers into her house and moving to a new area during a lockdown.
All my stuff still in storage.
Relationship also shaky, so that's less than ideal when a few weeks has become months.
May/June, eventually things start happening again.
All my mortgage offers need refreshing because they're past 6 months.
Then my seller (different one) loses her place and needs to find somewhere else.
My 6 month porting gap expires and I need to chase the bank and beg them to be nice so that it doesn't cost me 4k in early redemption fees.
Then my solicitor neglects to tell me that half my searches have expired. And my bank is one of the few that doesn't accept insurance against that, so have to get that done extremely quickly or the 1 month extension with the bank will expire and then I'm the cunt holding everything up.
But the council are now taking up to 35 days rather than 10 to get things done, because Covid. So I just have to hope for the best and spent the last few weeks doing a lot of chasing everyone up to make sure things happened.
Council came through. Moved in August 2020.

/CSB

I moved. I forgot all the shit above fairly quickly. The guy at the top that triggered the initial 2 month lag that ended up becoming a 9 month gap... meh, doesn't even register anymore, was just a thing that happened once.

(The fact that it took so long did at least mean we completed during the stamp duty holiday, so I'm sure the 15k saved there helped. But fuck me it took a long time.)

Well stay in the house and sell it to someone else then, instead of giving it they better give me some money off which we both know right now isnt happening and people dont give a fuck.

Pull the plug and stay where you are.

retarded

Don't say that Dickhead. Its very insensitive.

Dickhead

Don't say that. Its very insensitive.

Stroud specifically, but it's a little dependent on what jobs come up.

Our plan was to sell and then rent for a while to get to know the area and the market but @6pt saying how glad hr is he didn't do that is giving me pause for thought.

It's probably inevitable though - if I know in Feb-April that I'm definitely starting a new job in September I doubt we could sell and buy in that window.

You’ll regret being so stubborn, and that’s from someone known locally as Stubborn McStubbornface.

That £5k isn’t coming from anywhere - this is all part of home buying “fun”.

Wow, now that IS stressful!