I am hopping mad, farting sparks, blowing steam and absolutely scunnered. In a couple of recent blogs I have mentioned that I am moving house very soon. Well, I was (and hopefully still am).
At the start of last week I received phone calls from both the agent I am selling through and the one I am buying from making hopeful noises about the sale of my flat nearing completion, to the point where the buyer’s solicitor was preparing his final report so contracts could be exchanged. I didn’t hear any more by the end of the week so I contacted my solicitor, and she forwarded me an email from the buyer’s stating that he had just had an ‘interesting’ (the last word you want see a lawyer use) conversation with my buyer and asking for some further details from me.
The exact nature of the details is unimportant, but today it has resulted in the buyer withdrawing from the sale. He blames his solicitor for not raising concerns he had months ago, his solicitor blames him for not making him aware. Or so I’ve heard, I haven’t spoken to either directly which is probably just as well for all of us.
The plan was to combine the proceeds from my flat, which is mortgage free, with The Light’s inheritance from her late father to be cash buyers of what we still hope is our new home. As it stands now we could still pay most of the sum in cash, but I will have to apply for a loan of some kind for the difference. That loan would be paid off and leave us with a nice lump sum when my flat is sold. Selling it shouldn’t be a problem; the market is hot round here and I already have a viewing booked for tomorrow. Should the loan not be feasible for any reason we would have to pull out, the chain will collapse and all the emotional investment we have made in our future will have been for nothing as we start over again.
Has anyone been in a similar situation and have any advice to offer? There must be a better way to run the housing market in England than this.
Oh crikey, you have my sympathies. We’ve only moved twice in nearly 30 years and I find it hugely stressful.
Not as bad as you, but this was our last experiemce, which might explain why we’re still here after 14 years. I’d inherited some cash when my stepdad died the year before, plus the near asking price of ours, gave us enough to potentially buy for cash, albeit with a very short chain (our buyers were coming back home after working in the US).
1. September: put house on market on Friday. Sold on the weekend, offer accepted by Monday. Our buyers were moving in, direct from the USA, in March.
2. A couple of weeks later: find ideal house in next village. Seller is retiring and moving in with his fiancee… in Budapest.
3. Two months of packing and planning. We’d even measured up his house for carpets and curtains, booked removal vans, etc.
4. Seller goes to Hungary for Christmas, comes back after the New Year, and breaks off with fiancee.
5. Two weeks of house-hunting evey lunchtime and evening.
6. Friday lunchtime: view house. More than we can really afford, but they’d only been in it for 18 months, and were asking over the top (it had been a showhouse before and they’d bought it cheap).
7. Sit in car after viewing, agree we like it and can empty our piggy-banks to make an offer, but we can’t afford to decorate, so our offer will have to include for carpets & curtains. Knock on door and tell them the news. “We’re going to make an offer but it is take it or leave it, we can’t afford any more, we won’t negotiate, and we need the carpets & curtains.”
8. Our offer accepted.
9. Full-steam ahead, but only 6 weeks left before March, removal vans rebooked, etc.
10. Two days before we were due to move in, get a call from the sellers. “We’ve decided we can’t leave the curtains and carpets (which we didn’t buy because they were left behind by the builders).
11. Ring agent. Tell them we’re pulling out of the whole thing. Cancel our sale, cancel our purchase. We’ve had enough of the whole shitbag experience. F*** them all.
12. Two hours later: call from agent. Sellers decide that they will leave the carpets and curtains after all. They spill ribena, red wine, yoghurt, over the carpets as a momento.
And we had it lucky, apparently.
What a couple of arseholes your home’s last owners sound. Nothing like the housing market to bring out our most charitable attitudes towards our fellow man.
And then the Estate Agent who had sold our previous house, who was based in the office down the village, turned up a couple of days after we moved in to congratulate us on our purchase (after he’d pocketed several grand for doing close to bugger all).
Mrs F, not known for being outspoken, told him to “**** off” and slammed the door in his face.
@fentonsteve I assume these are rugs not the carpets nailed to the floorboards and cut to measure?
Sadly, not rugs, but fitted (quality – woollen) carpets. All cream-coloured, all with various dark stains. Why do we have that chunky oak unit in front of the sofa? Covers a red wine stain, that’s why. Etc.
We’ve been here 14 years and it still pisses me off.
I find the whole idea of taking fitted carpets bizarre. When in Zimbabwe I became awarethat moving house included removing lightbulbs and having fitted ovens unwired and removed – but that was a hangover from the embargoe in Rhodesian times.
What’s England’s excuse?
As to the damage ,down here we have a final inspection and that would be identified and either a price adjustment or you could have walked away.
Our sellers were the proverbial Man (and Woman) in the Street. I’m with Sid Vicious on them.
I have a friend in Glasgow who bought a house and the previous owners took the doorknobs with them. Doesn’t quite trump light bulbs but gives it a go.
Doorknobs; I can understand people wanting to keep nice ones they’ve bought, for their new place. But if you’re gonna take them you should replace them with something, at least.
A friend of a friend had a similar situation last year; got into a bit of a haggle with the sellers late in the process.
When she eventually moved in, the first time she took a shower she discovered that they’d written her a message on the bathroom mirror using soap, calling her all the names under the sun and making liberal use of the C bomb. She almost had a heart attack when it appeared.
There are some very unpleasant people out there.
When I moved into my flat (which was a real fixer-upper to say the least) the only thing we insisted on was that the ancient boiler (which I was going to replace asap) didn’t kill me. The surveyor had noticed it wasn’t compliant and needed a small rubber gromit, cost about £50, to stop it leaking something carginogenic. I insisted this be remedied right up to the deadline when the sellers eventually said they would do this, by fax.
When I moved in, they’d left the place without any light bulbs, and most of the door handles.
I was required to fill in a questionnaire about what I plan to take/leave/sell for an agreed price. I don’t remember door handles being on the list but light fittings were. I remember that one specifically because there was an instruction that if light fittings were to be removed a safe replacement must be made.
An electrical contractor I used to work for had a deal with a local Estate Agent, to do the electrical testing and certification on properties they were marketing.
It was surprisingly common for vacating sellers to take all of the light bulbs with them when they left.
Offensive , but I give them points for ingenuity.
Have you seen the price of lightbulbs these days, the low energy ones that last forever*?
(*a little, if you are lucky, longer than the old ones.)
That was not in “these days” but in “those days” of the very early ’90s, when those old-style incandescent lightbulbs cost only pence.
That’s it! When I bought the place (2003) they were all old-fashioned bulbs. It’s the pettiness that gets me.
LED has really revolutionised light bulb use. We moved in over six years ago and I haven’t had to replace a single one of them yet.
The fact that they’re so much more reliable is a factor in why they’re so much more expensive.
Can’t help, but over here these things are mostly avoided. If an offer is accepted then buyer must pay a non refundable deposit, say around 10 grand. That normally means much less pissing about and all offers are made in writing to begin with so you are sort of locked in.
We’re in a similar situation actually. We had a buyer for our old place and were well advanced when our own purchase fell through. We took a deep breath and decided not to break the chain, and moved into a short let while we arranged a new purchase… which has just fallen through.
We’ve got another six weeks here then will have find another rental until we complete on a new home, so currently our best case scenario is moving three times in six months. Happy days.
I’ve been trying to sell my bachelor pad since March ’23. Our financial circumstances are dire for the last 6 years (2 tracker mortgages and a massive inheritance tax bill that should never have happened) and we have three young children. Living month to month and having the extended family helping us through emergencies.
Because our tenants have been really sound for the last 5 years, I told them I would try to sell it to the local authority so they could stay. After a few months I was contacted by a housing charity to say they were interested in buying it with tenants in situ. This is part of current government policy here in Ireland. They were very efficient and business like and within less than 2 months had made an offer for the amount I requested which I accepted. This was August ’23. I appointed a solicitor and awaited financial solvency.
A few months later the solicitor for the housing charity sent four pages of queries at the point where I expected the exchange of contracts to happen. Then my solicitor said that the title deeds could not be found. I contacted the solicitor who helped me buy it who, in a roundabout way, told me they weren’t there when I bought it. A document from the seller’s solicitor confirmed this. My original solicitor, also a cousin of mine, pointed out that as I was not a client he would not enter into further communication on the subject.
Months went by with no solution and our current solicitor making no progress. In the meantime property prices have soared and an identical property sold for 30 thousand more than we had agreed last year. We advised the housing charity of this and they’ve come back with 20 thousand more which we’ve accepted. Our solicitor also obtained a copy of the title deeds for the identical property which, fingers crossed, should address the outstanding queries. We’re now awaiting the approval for the additional funds to go through the council. All going well the end may be in sight but I find it impossible to allow hope to rise after so many false dawns.
May this be the last property transaction I am ever involved in because it has all but broken us. Our debts will be cleared and we’ll be more than comfortable when it happens – an absolute game changer but I just expect more kicks in the teeth at this stage.
My tenants divorced this year so ironically my remaining tenant may well be moved by the charity when they buy it because she’ll be on her own in a 2 bed apartment during a housing crisis. It feels like our attempt to do the right thing will ultimately be somewhat pointless.
“There must be a better way to run the housing market in England than this.”
Seemingly not …
My first house after divorce – piece of p*ss: no chain, owner going back to New Zealand, happy to move whenever was convenient, left much of the contents behind (including a Scalextric in the loft).
When it came time to sell … different story. Estate Agents full of bluster “yes, these terraced houses are easy to shift, got buyers coming out of our ears”.
6 months later, a couple of interesting nibbles but no sale.
Did find a house to move into, and fortunately the vendors were moving to a new build, so no time pressures there, but we couldn’t make an offer until our place was under offer too.
Finally an offer … and then 3 months later they pulled out (decided they didn’t want to do the “Buy To Let” thing, but the Estate Agent let slip they couldn’t actually get a mortgage).
House contents packed up and in storage, still no sale. Dropped the price of the house (also managed to get a reduction on Agent Commission, so it was all net zero in the end), but the sal rumbled on (it seems solicitors don’t talk to each other unless you ask them to, or in my case go and sit in reception asking questions).
From putting it on the market to eventually moving was about 15 months
Is this any way to run a ballroom?
This is why I’m staying put in the house I’ve lived in for the last 30 years. Despite it being up a stair and me becoming less and less mobile. Installing a lift seemed like a bargain in comparison.
Move to Scotland. Can’t bid for a house unless you can prove you have the cash or the guaranteed mortgage. Bid accepted, it’s yours. No backing away, no gazumping, it’s yours. Move in, live happily ever after.
Just started down this route, we’ve been in our house 23 years, love it but it’s too big for us now. I also need less stairs, a stair lift wouldn’t work and we’d need a two storey lift. Had two viewings today our first visits, the first didn’t turn up and one person from the second visit recognised me from when I’d worked at her old school.
We’ll see how it goes.
These stories of people walking away from contracts seem strange. Here in Australia a hefty deposit is required when the contract is signed, and it takes something pretty important to break the contract without losing the deposit. Some contracts are subject to building and pest inspection (termites) but canny buyers have usually secured these before an offer is made.
We recently purchased another property and the settlement period was quite long (6 months-ish from initial offer to settlement). We were slightly nervous as house prices had roared ahead in that six months and they could probably have gained another hundred grand or so, so we were half expecting them to try to crash the contract. Fortunately they didn’t.
The strength and weakness of the English system is that an offer is often made the day after a single viewing, and the owner is likely to take the property off the market. Great if everything goes smoothly, and a complete pain in the arse if it the buyer changes their mind (after 3 months and within a week or so of presumed exchange in our case). There is no binding contract until contracts between the buyer and seller are completed, the very final stage of the transaction.
Nothing to add except sympathy for you, Gatz. Mrs thep and I lead a peripatetic life, and have bought/sold five times in the past 12 years in UK and Australia, and each one went remarkably well with no hiccups or arseholery to speak of except the occasional flaky solicitor.
My favourite moment was last time when Mrs thep was talking to the ANZ mortgage adviser about applying for a larger loan to cover renovations etc, and she said, “Time to put your big girl pants on, darl.”
@Gatz what was the matter that caused them to withdraw their offer?
Last sale here in Oz I went overs in disclosures even to point of ignition on gas stove not working. Wanted no “ out” on basis of undisclosed fault.
There was no issue of non-disclosure. Although every flat in my block is plumbed for gas a previous owner at mine had the supply capped, and all gas appliances and the meter removed. As a result the flat does not have central heating. I assumed when I moved in here that I would have the gas restored and heating installed, but over 25 years I have found that I don’t need it. An enormous floor length south facing window warms the whole flat if there is any sun at all, and a couple of free standing electric heaters do the job in the rare occasions, perhaps ten times a year, that a boost is needed. As an aside, a result is that my electricity, and hence entire energy, charge is £40 a month.
The ex-buyer was made fully aware of this on his two viewings, in the EPC certificate, a valuation report and a level 2 survey, as well as any other correspondence he might have received. The lack of central heating, plus a rather tired kitchen, is the reason I priced my flat well below others which have recently sold in the same block. As I understand it he asked his solicitor several times to ask for heating to be installed. I would have refused on the grounds that the asking price reflected the current condition of the flat, but it would at least have allowed us to make new plans months ago.
Capped-off gas supply.
A near neighbour of a former employer of mine came home from being away on a few weeks holiday.
He opened his front door, flipped the hall light switch on and was blasted out to his front gate by a gas explosion, which pretty much demolished his house and severely damaged those of his neighbours either side. Windows were broken in a few other houses nearby. Part of my ex-boss’s living room ceiling collapsed from the effect of the shockwave.
The interesting factor was that the house that exploded had no gas supply.
Previous to the owner moving in, the supply had been removed and capped off where the meter had been, which in common with most older British houses had been in the cupboard under the stairs.
The subsequent investigation discovered that the supply pipe had fractured somewhere outside the house and a large quantity of gas had entered the house around the outside of the fractured pipe.
The house owner was fortunate that his hall light switch was the one he flipped, that it was close to the front door and that the front door was open when the explosion occurred. If he or any of his family members had been further inside they probably would have been killed. He was just bruised from being flung several feet backwards.
Bloody Hell!
Aren’t people bloody awful things at times?
What possesses people to be so unreasonable, when it’s surely far easier to be decent?
You assume, as ever, it’s triggered by the large amount of money involved, and the thought that they could possibly get a tiny bit more “value”…
Houses and wills. Guaranteed to bring out the worst in people.
Both involve, at times, quite large amounts of money.
I don’t think the 2 things are unconnected.
The more I think about it, the more I think it’s about people wanting to be “winning” the transaction.
We moved in 5 years ago to a “renovated” property, which on the face of it was nicely done. But that was just it, the face of it.
Over the last 5 years we’ve dealt with poor detail painting, a boiler that isn’t up to a 4 bedroom house, joinery that I’d be ashamed to put my name to (and I’ve not done a day’s joinery in my life), tiling of a similar standard, gutters where the highest point is where the downpipe connects, windows that leak when the rain is in a certain direction, downpipes that just empty onto slabs, aco drains that don’t empty at all, rubbish in the attic, a concave bit of decking (so any rainwater actively pools on it), and a “feature bannister” that is made from wood that has dried out so much that it’s in danger of falling a apart now, with the verticals seemingly screwed in from 50 yards away by a 4 year old . All pretty tricky to divine from a first look round…
Mind you, the people we bought it off (who now live across the road) are the kind who SORN a work van and leave it (with a flat tyre) parked on the street because they can’t be arsed to move it. One of the other neighbours dobbed them in for that, cue some rather pithy messages on the street WhatsApp…
SORN – had to look that up.
Every house we have lived in has been a “project” to some degree, our current house was the biggest. On the one hand, I don’t want to deal with builders again for kitchens, bathrooms etc. On the other, I don’t want to have to deal with what other people’s builders have done, or worse, cheapskate builders that “renovate” and run away.. I’ll be putting off downsizing for as long as possible. Although dealing with a move and possible building work after I’m 70 doesn’t sound great either.
My previous house was a 1930s ex-council and I ended up rewiring it all as the previous owners had “improved” the rubber wiring with 3A two-core flex buried in the walls. We lived for years with floorboards up in one room at a time, and extension leads everywhere.
New houses aren’t always in much better shape. We had to rip out and replace our ensuite shower because a pipe connector hidden in the wall wasn’t done up properly, and eventually a puddle appeared on the ceiling below. Of course, because it had been a showhouse for three years, then occupied for 18 months, we only had a few months of guarantee left, so we were not covered.
I’m never moving again!
Well done your other neighbour.
People like that ……
And … I’m just off the phone to my bank who explained that a loan isn’t possible secured only on a dwelling, so our only option would be a mortgage which we wouldn’t want. Looks like the chain is going to collapse, we’ll get a lot of hate from further up the line even though it’s not our fault and we start again. sigh
Oh, jeez. You have my sympathies.
Thanks. No one died, and all that will happen is that it will take us longer to be in the ridiculously fortunate position to buy a house we want for cash and have some left over. It’s the emotional investment we had put into what we thought of as ‘our’ house, and the fact we thought we were so, so close to achieving it, that stings right now.
I know, first-world problem and all that, but horrid all the same.
When we were moving here, after a while, I had to instruct the various agents and solicitors to deal only with me as Mrs F was bursting into tears at work. It was hugely stressful and I was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease (i.e. guts ulcers, which can be triggered by stress) about 18 months later. Coincidence? I dunno.
My other half has just called to say she’s on her way home from work because she’s just thrown up 3 times. Through all the wasted time and expense the thing I’ll find hardest to forgive is the trauma it has caused her.
The hidden cost of moving home.
We have an offset mortgage with a zero balance, long story but the short version is we were able to use money from elsewhere for most of the year. At some point the money in the offset account exceeded the amount owed and it got “paid off” accidentally but we’ve kept it going, just in case we need to draw down funds in a hurry. But we make no monthly payments as we owe nothing except the redemption fee in a few years. Maybe this could work for you if you’ll have surplus funds after your flat is sold as it would mean your payments are zero or you would only have to make a few months payments before “repaying”. Could be better than a collapsed chain?
Indeed. See if anyone similarly clever involved in it has any bright ideas. There must be a better answer than it all going Pete Tong?
Thanks DBP. In the event, because my flat sold (again) in less than a day, and to the sister of the woman who has just moved in to the one directly below mine so we’re are sure as we can be of actual completion this time, we’re pressing ahead. I’ve got a personal loan for the difference between our liquid assets and the purchase price.
The chain hasn’t collapsed, despite the best intentions of the twat who pulled out, we get the place we have set our hearts on, and when mine sells and we pay off the the loan we’ll be rich – rich I tell you! – rich beyond our wildest dreams!! mwah-hah-hah!!!
Sorry about that. It’s been a rollercoaster of a couple of days, and wine may have been taken.
Good news, fingers crossed for you.
A long time ago now, but when we were moving into our current house, the removal men asked where we wanted the cooker (this dates it…a free standing cooker!), and we pointed to the obvious gap for it. ‘Can’t put it there mate, there’s a hole in the floor’. Turned out that the kitchen was riddled with dry rot, and we subsequently found out there was even more in the hallway. Had to have the whole kitchen ripped out and the floor replaced, treated etc., all this with two small children and cooking on a camping stove for weeks on end. Turned out that the surveyors hadn’t picked it up (they admitted they missed it by simply assuming a property of that age wouldn’t have a problem with dry rot) – at least we were able to recoup all the costs from them because of their incompetence, but it was a complete nightmare.
When my sister and I sold our parents’ flat after their death, we thought it would be a doddle. We obviously had no chain our side, and we quickly had a cash buyer, so no onward chain there either. How hard can it be..? It was also a newish property with no major issues. It took over 6 months for it to happen and all because of lazy solicitors who never did anything unless you badgered them.
The solicitors don’t get paid until the deal concludes, so it’s odd that they don’t get work through as efficiently as possible to keep the funds coming in. I have to say that ours, and the estate agents at both ends, have been perfectly helpful. The problems all stem from the little tit who was meant to be buying mine.
Thanks for the sympathetic words, everyone. On a more positive note I showed the first new set of viewers around last night and accepted their offer before 9 o’clock this morning. Fingers crossed.
My fingers are crossed for you, too. Makes typing this hard work, mind.
I’m so sorry to hear about this. You don’t deserve all this.
My wife and I are contemplating upping sticks from the South East up to the North East, from our odd and tiny 3 bedroom semi to a big 2 bedroom flat. Once, of course, dear daughter is settled and content at University perhaps next year.
We don’t think it’ll be smooth but our loins are girded.
A happy postscript.
Today was a big day as we transferred the funds ahead of completion on our new home. We shall complete tomorrow and pick up the keys on Saturday. We also confirmed the booking for the removal van.
We won’t actually move in for a few weeks as work commitments mean The Light can’t take time off in October, I’ve had to take out a loan until the sale on my own place completes (which also means we’ll be hammered on Stamp Duty, though we can claim most of it back), but … but … it looks like everything will work out and sooner rather than later.
Hurrah, and today we’ve just started as we’ve accepted an offer on our house.
Excellent news! Fingers crossed you have a more straightforward time of it than us.
Fury levels subsiding – all the very best sir, and hope the final knockings go smoothly
Thanks RD!
Funnily enough, I was wondering earlier!
Orange?