Owning your own home

The more parties involved, the more they can pass the parcel with responsibility.

This ^

Go to the top i.e. Ombudsman https://www.tpos.co.uk/

I agree but it’s the between a rock and a hard place.

Just sell move on.

I’m saying this sarcastically but really is a fuckin shit mare

When did you put it on the market? We're just about to list ours but we're still undicided as to whether we will sell or rent it out. We're fucking off to France in August no matter what as my wife's job contract is changing to a French one but just curious to see how quick it could be?

It went on the market in early March but we had a buyer after the first viewing and they're a cash buyer, which has sped up the process somewhat.

Similarly, the place we're aiming to buy is from a chain-free seller and six weeks has been mooted as a possible timeframe.

We're renting when we first move so essentially chain free, good to know things can move quickly with the right buyer.

Finally, finally exchanged. Can I count some chickens now?

Thanks for this

Turned out that my bank offered the best deal so it's all with them, but the broker agreed it didn't make any difference. Should make looking at all the accounts easier when (🤞) it gets approved .

I'd make your buyer wait

I bent over backwards to try and help the bloke who purchased my house and all be did was try and fuck me over time and time again.

If they pull out we're really fucked though - we probably wouldn't get the same price again, and we'd probably lose our purchase too.

It's an institution buying our place rather than a family with their heart set on it - that definitely comes with pros (cash buyers, efficiency) but I think the con is that they're probably not too fussed either way.

Will they walk away for the sake of a few short weeks? What is their plan B if they threaten to do so?

I get how you're thinking because I was in your position 18 months ago. You worry that they are doing you a favour by buying your place for the money agreed but you need to remember: you have what they want. If they'd shown indifference throughout I'd agree there is an outside chance they'll walk but keen buyers are keen buyers. They're just trying to get their way because everyone is running their own race.

Weird, is this the start of a us-style blackrock-fund buying up all the houses and renting them out, making the property market even worse/more polarised?

That is a massive issue when that starts becoming big over here

Just ask your solicitors to try and negotiate. "Ideally we'd exchange now but complete later because xyz, thoughts" if the response is complete now then you have a decision.

If it's a commercial institution do they really need to push for a fast deal? Maybe there's a couple of grand renegotiation or you rent it off them for 2 months?

I'd sell. You're on Odessa road aren't you? Stow brothers have agreed a sale this week on Chichester rd fully done and extended but no side return and I'm told it's very close to the 750 sticker price. Seems nuts to me. I sold mine for 702 18 months ago when the market was red hot.

Ideally we'd rather sell, we've got stow brothers coming round tomorrow, not sure if our lack of scandi aesthetic will work against us though.

The solicitors tried and got a hard no which contained the word "unacceptable" and said that it was us who'd been pushing for the quick sale (definitely not the case).

The estate agent tried with the buyer and they got a two-week extension which I think we're supposed to be grateful for.

Their story is legitimate, they have someone they want to move in in August and there's work they want (need?) to do first. We knew all of that at the start (apart from when they wanted someone to move in, which we would have said was going to be tight). But their argument - they'd have to find rental accommodation for this person in the meantime - is the same as ours, but we're a young family of key workers trying to relocate, and they're an organisation which owns 400+ properties, including some they let out, so it should be easier for them to compromise than us.

Will they walk away for the sake of a few short weeks?

I hope not but our estate agent is not keen to find out the hard way.

What is their plan B if they threaten to do so?

I'm not sure - presumably buy somewhere cheaper that would negate the cost of renting until ours is ready, even if it takes a bit longer? They know they're attractive buyers and I don't think they'd struggle to find somewhere else.

But their argument - they'd have to find rental accommodation for this person in the meantime

.....

they're an organisation which owns 400+ properties, including some they let out

Please do not allow yourself to be bullied by these people. They have 400 properties - their incoming tenant will be ok I suspect.

They want to buy your house and don't want to start from scratch with another. That stands to reason.

I'd say you need a week or so to try and see what arrangements can be made and then say oh sorry it's not possible but we will keep vigorously trying to either complete on our purchase or find a rental in the meantime. The longer it takes the more committed they are and the more likely you are to get their way.

I'm intrigued who they are tbh.

Enforce the lease, the freeholder would be in its right to pass all costs to them, sollicitors included which would turn out to be huge. direct contact from fH's sollicitors should scare them enough that they put carpet and underlay.
It happened in our block of flats

Thinking about borrowing some money to build a garden office and sort out the garden in general which would mean not moving or loft conversion, both a plus to me and seems the most cost effective way to make the house work for us.

Anyway, current lender seems willing to lend us more but dropped in to convo that if we take out an additional loan with them, say, in the next few months, that when we renew the main mortgage in Feb '24 we'd be liable to early repayment charges on the additional lending (eh?) I guess one can't exist without the other.

So assuming we can wait until remortgage time to do the work, do I just go to market asking for X for [old lender] and send 20k extra to me please?

I know tbc asked similar recently but still feel like I don't really understand how the process works.

Also are there any other financing options (short of selling myself/drugs/stolen property) I should be looking at?

We did that with Nationwide on a previous policy and they set it up as a separate but parallel policy, so the term and the interest rate periods were the same (as were the billing dates), but it had a separate ERC amount.

It's been annoying in some ways (we ended up with three mortgages on one property from the same lender) but it avoided the issue you're describing. Perhaps float the possibility of a separate product tacked on - it's clearly possible in theory if Nationwide can do it - but they seem to be the whole ones who regularly do.

I've also got three concurrent mortgages with Nationwide, one of which was arranged recently to help pay for a loft conversion. They all finish within 3 months of each other (5yr, 3yr and 2yr) so that when it comes to remortgage there are no early repayment fees.

@Polygon could you go for tracker rather than fixed term for the additional amount? They often don't have early repayment terms.
Or just wait and increase your borrowing by 20k.
I couldn't find a more affordable way to get the kind of money I needed. Home improvement loans weren't too far off in terms of interest rates but had to be paid off in a much shorter time and so the monthly outlay would have been killer!

That's the odd thing, she was saying it would be a separate product, with it's own payments, but that if we moved the main mortgage to another provider it would trigger the ERC. I'm going to call them back and check they had that right as why would we pay an early repayment charge on the 20k unless we were... repaying (remortgaging) which obviously I don't want to have to do 9 months in to the loan

If you switched to another provider then it’s less straightforward as providers often won’t share / lend on just some of the house - complications if you default for example.
So I’d guess they meant if you moved to another provider then they wouldn’t be happy to keep just lending the smaller amount, so you’d have to repay, so you’d trigger the ERC…

Sure that makes sense. Doubt we can get our plans/ a builder lined up and the site prepped before next winter anyway so I think it'll all have to wait until Feb to start.