Owning your own home

I'm in a similar boat. Our offer was accepted at the beginning of September and the vendor's solicitor is only just now responding to enquiries that were raised in October. Our own solicitor is also rubbish, which is compounding things - why did we only just find out that their enquiries from Oct. hadn't been responded to?!

Our next step is going to be to imply that we're thinking about pulling out from the deal if they delay any longer, and hopefully that will hurry them along as they are part of an onward chain.

No advice other than it seems conveyancers have taken on way more work than they can process.

One of my friends had arranged a 4 property chain to exchange tomorrow and complete next friday last week, but their solicitors came back this morning (the day before) to say they have over 30 exchanges and completions tomorrow and cannot accommodate them.

We're set to exchange tomorrow and complete next thursday, had an email from the lender this morning saying completion date was set, and no chain so looks like it should go well..

now just need to sell our flat..

Our solicitor emailed me this week saying "I forgot to ask, did you want Joint Tenants or Tenants in Common?" Seems they are only now getting around to the land registry updates.

Our purchase just fell through due to failure of seller to get approved for mortgage. It has been the most frustrating process and I am appalled at the incompetency of seller, agent and solicitors! We put our offer in in July, were misled about sellers position, told they had mortgage approved when they didn’t and we were ready to exchange (having been threatened multiple times that they would pull out because we are asking too many questions and being to slow) only to find they haven’t got a mortgage and as a result the chain fell through and we are back at square one with a home survey on a property we cannot buy and a shed load of legal and mortgage fees to boot! What a load of fun that was...

Good question, it's probably worth asking but as ours is probate our solicitor has already made clear that there's no way the transaction can go through without evidence of probate. I suspect there are also other things the seller's solicitor just has to do - I imagine indemnity insurance will only take you so far but IANAL.

That's not good. But sounds like a plan.

We are lucky in that our solicitor is forum recommended, clearly very hard working and efficient. She can't understand why it's taking them so long, but I'm sure @rogan is right and other less good solicitors have taken on more than they can chew with the stamp duty deadline approaching.

It's particularly frustrating because we're the only link in the chain and we have a very 'motivated' buyer who is paying cash and offered £30k over asking, but her offer is conditional on March completion.

I'm not kidding myself that we'll find a buyer/offer like that again, and our sale is all going fine, so if it comes down to it we'll move out and put our stuff in storage. But I think if that happens our opening position should be 'your solicitors are shit so we're going to knock £15k off our offer for stamp duty and £Xk in storage and relocation costs'.

AIBU? The sellers aren't going to get an offer like ours now and they'd be back to square one too. Plus they'll have an inheritance tax bill to pay.

Frozen sausages?

When did you have your offer accepted again? I feel like you've totally leapfrogged me!

this is the same place we got our offer accepted on in august, but then chain fell through in november because our buyer pulled out.

we 'lost' the house for about 6 weeks to another bidder from august, but that fell through and we began to look into going chain free, which is where we are now!

Ah right, not really then!

Wow, that's mad.

That's shit, sorry to hear that.

It has been the most frustrating process and I am appalled at the incompetency of seller, agent and solicitors!

It frustrates me so much how slack people are. I've been on it like a car bonnet since we had our offer accepted, if I get asked for anything I basically drop the work I'm doing if possible and get it over within the hour if I can. Was feeling quite vindicated last night because my solicitor said this to our vendor's agent:

It is disappointing as my client has done everything required of them very quickly.

:)

We have an aging handheld Dyson but the battery keeps dying and it's just a bit temperamental.

We have a 'main' bagged Miele C3 which is great but would like a handheld secondary vacuum for little job and the stairs.

We have wooden floors through (though some rugs) and we have two house cats that leave a fair amount of fur around.

I saw the shark which looks great, but I do not have £400 to spend on a vacuum cleaner right now.

Snake oil or are they a thing?

My folks have one. Super hard London water. I don't really believe it has made a difference, my mum does.

But then they're inexpensive, so it puts them in the may as well category.

On the solicitors chat...

If you're selling, I wonder if there is a practical way to ensure your buyers don't have shit solicitors.

Replace the dyson battery?
We have the exact same setup but our Dyson is still up to the job rn

Random, but do you know what the primary schools are like around there?

Viessmann have a good rep - they went on a big push last 2-3 years to gain market share in UK. I think a lot of this is convincing installers to fit them (eg they give them favourable prices etc).

Pitshanger? Yes they are good, and the parents are generally really happy with them. One of if the not the main reason why we moved here.

I've already replaced it 2 or 3 times.

Ours is 6 years old now IIRC

My solicitor sent this in an email to me:

Please do note that your level of communication far exceeds the quote that you have been furnished with.

If only there was a practical way to know if you don't have a shit solicitor.

Wow, awkward. Had you really been communicating with them that much?!

Thank you for your offer. We are happy to accept it, but please note that our acceptance is conditional on you appointing a conveyancing solicitor who has received at least three recommendations on London's Famous London Fixed Gear and Single Speed fixie forum (lfgss.com).

cheers