My feed
Premium

Please
or
to access all these features

Join our Property forum for renovation, DIY, and house selling advice.

Property/DIY

Just accepted an offer on our house & had an offer accepted on another house. Anyone want to join me in a hoping it all goes OK/preparing to move thread?

93 replies

jenduck · 26/02/2013 16:24

We have just accepted an offer on our house of 183k, not too bad as it was on for 189k. The buyers say they are cash buyers with money in the bank (although my dad, our conveyancer, says always to be wary of people claiming this until you've seen the evidence Wink). We have also had an offer accepted on another house of 223k (was on for 239k). The vendors are 2 brothers who have rented it out & have to give a 2-month notice period.

From our side, there shouldn't be any problem with the legal side of things as my dad is our solicitor, plus I work there 1 day a week! Our mortgage has also been agreed in principle, have to go in at the weekend to sign some more forms.

We would like to be in the new place in time for the first May bank holiday, as there is a lot of work to do. Ddad says this is entirely realistic, given the chain-free nature of things.

I am, however, panicking about packing everything up in such a short time! We have tons of junk stuff & I don't know where to start! I also am mainly SAHM to DSes 4.2 & 22m for 4 days a week & can't really do anything with them around - DS2, in particular, will just unpack anything I pack! Thinking of asking Dgrandparents to come round for an hour once a week, to take boys for a walk or just sit with them while I go up in the loft of doom

Think I will start tomorrow by taking a few black bags of clothes to the cash for clothes place nearby whilst DS1 is in pre-school. We are putting any cash we get from selling things into a tin you can only open with a tin-opener & will then use it for furniture for the new house (Ebay!)

Is there anybody in a similar situation who wants to join me???

OP posts:
Report
lisad123everybodydancenow · 26/02/2013 16:37

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

specialsubject · 26/02/2013 17:05

not answering the direct question, but - it should be easy to confirm if your cash buyers have the money, they just have to produce a statement of account. You also need to confirm that proper notice has been given to those tenants, and have a plan b if they don't leave. (really, really hope not!!)

cash for clothes pays peanuts, but does save a lot of hassle. Start looking on freecycle for packing boxes, and concentrate now on serious, ruthless decluttering. Tell yourself that you have to carry every single object, that will help you decide what is worth it.

Report
jenduck · 26/02/2013 17:16

Waves to lisa & specialsubject

I am at work today & my dad has just had a fax from the purchaser's solicitors confirming their cash buyer status Grin My dad was advising caution as he has, over the 30 years or so he's been in the business, seen the situation many times where people claim to be cash buyers but have actually had to get mortgages & been unable to, thus causing the whole thing to go belly-up...

Good point re: tenants, will get Ddad to check.

Lisa well done on getting such a good price for your property. Fingers crossed for the new place! Do you have a timescale in mind?

OP posts:
Report
Notyetthere · 26/02/2013 17:22

We are going to conduct a 2nd viewing on the house we liked. We viewed on Saturday and it was fresh on the market that estate agent had not even taken pics yet for advertising. Just as we left the viewing another family was arriving to also view it but fingers crossed if they like it they will be in nasty long chain! We are 1st time buyers so ready to move whenever hopefully it puts us in a better position. It's on for £225k.

Report
lisad123everybodydancenow · 26/02/2013 17:27

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

LadyKooKoo · 26/02/2013 17:29

We had an offer accepted on the new house on January 16th which was also the day we went on holiday for a week. We have the mortgage offer and have had the home buyers report done. I spoke to our solicitor yesterday and she was hoping that the rest of the searches would be back today. At the moment we have March 15th in as completion date so will hopefully be exchanging contracts next Wednesday. I was hoping it would have been tomorrow but clearly won?t be.
Our house went on the market on February 8th and we accepted an offer £2k under asking price on the 11th. Buyer is also a first time cash buyer. Was going swimmingly until we realised that our never opened, never used cellar was full of (what appears to be) ground water so that is delaying things a bit. Buyer is coming back with a builder on Saturday to confirm that it is not damaging the house structurally (has been standing since the 1800s). All being well we will complete on our house on March 26th.
Am sending out the positive vibes to all of you so am hoping that some come back to me :)

Report
MrsJamin · 26/02/2013 22:10

This is the thread for me right now! FTBs buying our house, our vendors are going into rented and we are hopefully going to try to complete by end of Easter school holidays! So very excited. DH wants to start packing but I don't think we should, we have kept our belongings to a minimum as we have a small space. We have been trying to clear out the loft though, and I should try to chuck out things from the garden but its so cold I don't want to! Are you all paying for movers or going to try to do it yourself? At the moment we need to work out what furniture we want to sell to our buyers and what furniture we could buy from our sellers. It's tricky working out a fair price for things- what have any of you done about this?

Report
jaynebxl · 26/02/2013 23:58

Oo great thread. We had an asking price offer accepted on a house we really liked on 4th Jan, got our house on the market 9th Jan, ended up with a mini bidding battle and accepted an offer 5k over the asking price on 14th Jan. And since then nothing has happened! The people in the chain above the people we are buying from haven't found anywhere to move to so all has ground to a halt.

But I have had a removal company round to give us a quote for packing and moving all our junk so I think we will go for that.

Report
Goodwordguide · 27/02/2013 08:24

Can I join? We also have a loft of doom!

Offer accepted on the house we want on November 26th. We're renting our house out so we're not in a chain but had to organise a remortgage as well as the purchase mortgage. House we're buying os old so we had a full survey plus structural engineer's report and countless other tradesmen all quoting and we renegotiated the price - though despite all this, we've been the ones pushing to exchange, the vendors have been dragging their feet a bit as they're in a chain on the property they're buying. However, finally, we should exchange by the end of this week and complete by end of March.

So, we've painted/tidied up current house and it's now on the market for rentals (went on Monday, 4 viewers yesterday, EA taking photos tpday).

Removals coming to quote Friday and I need to do the mid-year transfer for the children's new school as we're moving out of London, plus a 1000 other things argghhh so feeling a bit fraught at the moment!

Report
lisad123everybodydancenow · 27/02/2013 11:08

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

jenduck · 27/02/2013 11:17

Welcome to all the newbies! Kookoo I hope your cellar gets sorted out, it all seems to be within your grasp otherwise!

MrsJamin am so with you on trying to clear stuff out! We are moving ourselves, will ask family (3 x Dsis, 2 x parents, 1 x grandparents) to help in whatever way they can - babysitting or transporting a few boxes for us. We are only moving about 3 miles, to my parents' villages, so hoping they might let us use a room for storage for a while. We are probably leaving a lot of stuff (fridge, freezer, dishwasher) but won't ask loads for it as it's mostly old and/or secondhand anyway.

Jayne well done on getting over asking price Shock Hope the chain moves quickly, chains can be a pain (have had our sale fall through once due to chain issues & once as buyer couldn't get mortgage).

Goodword yay to lofts of doom! Exchange sounds very close, hopefully things will feel a little less fraught once it's done.

I have had a mixed start today. Took masses of clothes to cashforclothes place, only to find it shut (real pain as getting there involved parking in v tight space, getting pushchair out, clothes on pushchair & muddy walk there). But had to pop to shops so did that too, got some boxes from Tesco & found £10 on the floor there Grin. Plan this afternoon is to pack up sideboard bits so we can put it on Gumtree, ideally someone would collect it this weekend!

Sending everyone good moving vibes!

OP posts:
Report
jenduck · 27/02/2013 11:18

lisa what a pain! We have also had a few potential purchases fall through because of sales falling through, so I know how you feel. Hopefully it means your perfect house is just around the corner Smile

OP posts:
Report
MrsJollyPostman · 27/02/2013 11:36

Can I join? We are first time buyers and had offer accrpted 2 weeks ago! Due to complete in 3 weeks! Seller is getting a new build so then we just need to wait for that to be ready! Good luck everyone.

Report
kid · 27/02/2013 15:02

Can I join?
I put in an offer on a house a few weeks ago which was accepted. (Little did they know we were willing to go much higher than they accepted which is great news for us!)

The situation at the moment is that the building survey was carried out yesterday and we're told to expect to hear the results within 48 hours. Our solicitor has ordered the necessary searches, no idea how long they will take.

We are first time buyers and the seller has a property to move in to so the chain is complete.
Our mortgage has been approved and stamped (whatever that means but I'm assuming its good!)
I've got some quotes from removal companies but haven't made any decisions yet.

How long am I looking at until we get a moving date or are actually in our new home? We are bored of waiting already!
Fingers crossed it all goes as planned as I don't want to go back to square one.

Report
Eve · 27/02/2013 16:30

us to.

We have a new build picked, our house was on the market for a grand total of 5 days before it sold.

Just been to builders to pick electric sockets and light positions, kitchens on friday.

Chain got to hold up though.

Report
LadyKooKoo · 27/02/2013 16:45

Just had a phone call from our solicitor confirming we are good to go on the new house (a 1930s with lots of room to extend and massive garden) and we are exchanging next Wednesday with completion on the following Friday. I will have the keys to our new house in just over two weeks.

I have just had an email from the EA saying our buyer wants us to do a full test of the electrics and gas as they are currently potential health hazards (house completely rewired and new central heating installed in 2007). I have replied saying if he wants it then he can do it or he can pay full price and then I will get it done. I understand he is a cautious FTB but I have bought lots of properties and NEVER expected the vendor to pay for these things.

Report
Goodwordguide · 27/02/2013 18:18

Yeay, we have our completion date confirmed for the end of March. Exchange should happen on Friday, funds are in place and the solcitors are ready.

Had to tell school that we are definitely leaving Sad - we love our school! Ut also spoke to the new one and they always sound so nice and friendly. Now I need to order the new uniform etc - just going to wait until exchange has definitely happened, don't want to jinx it!

Report
kid · 27/02/2013 22:17

At what stage do you get a definite move date? Do you have to wait for solicitor searches? How long do they usually take?

I'm jealous of all these people getting their keys so soon.

goodword I haven't mentioned anything to dd's school yet. I'm also expecting an offer for DS's secondary school this week so I'm hoping to be able to apply for y7 place in our new area (kent)

lady sounds like buyers are pushing their luck trying to make you foot to bill to get tests done. Surely that would come under the survey type of work which they are responsible for. Hope you get it sorted soon.

Report
maxmissie · 27/02/2013 22:21

Can I join in too please? We had an offer accepted on house last Friday. We rent from DH's parents so no pressure to move out of our current house and vendors are hoping to buy a house that has no chain.

So fingers crossed all well go smoothly.

Report
Goodwordguide · 27/02/2013 22:51

We got the move date when we got the exchange date - how long that takes dependson lots of things, mainly the length of the chain, how efficient the solicotrs etc are, if the survey goes smoothly. Last time we moved it took six weeks. This time it'll be more like 4 months!

Report
kid · 28/02/2013 21:25

The latest update on our house is that the survey came back fine so mortgage funds are ready to be released. Our solicitor has the draft pages from us and the sellers solicitor and will order the searches by tomorrow (if they haven't done so already). Afaik, our next contact will be to exchange contracts, pay the 10% deposit and to agree a completion date (is that the same as an actual moving date? I'm easily confused Grin)

Report
jenduck · 01/03/2013 10:03

More newbies Grin Welcome to you all waves Hope everything goes smoothly for everyone.

I see a couple of people are grappling with telling schools. We don't have to do that, as DS1 is only in pre-school (but one attached to a school), but I am nervously awaiting the results of our school application. It had to be sent back in January, so we put down the school in our new village, with a note explaining that we were in the process of selling & have lots of links with the village (grew up there, parents live there, got married there etc). So we are just hoping he get s a place there, particularly as the next school is a car drive away (& not in a very nice area).

Was hoping to hear from our bank re: mortgage application this week, so that we could go in tomorrow & sign, but not heard anything. This means we'll have to wait till next weekend at least, as DH works all day Mon-Fri, too far away to get back in a lunchtime or similar.

Managed to get most of the sideboard cleared out on Wednesday whilst DS2 napped & DS1 played. Should finish it today & maybe sort through some more of my clothes, too.

Hope we all make good progress today!

OP posts:
Report

Don’t want to miss threads like this?

Weekly

Sign up to our weekly round up and get all the best threads sent straight to your inbox!

Log in to update your newsletter preferences.

You've subscribed!

Goodwordguide · 01/03/2013 10:15

We had to do the same with our schoolmapplication for DC3 jen - as soon as we've exchanged, I'm going to ring them to update them.

The really good news this week is that - finger crossed - we've found tenants for our current house, which we're renting out. There was a bit of wrangling with the letting agents over fees but they were pretty flexible somI can't fault the, really. The tenans want to move in two days after we leave, which is great in terms of not losing rent, but will be a real scramble for getting it ready as they want it furnished.

I have all three children off school today with vomiting bug so very glad there are no more tenants to show round!

Still waiting to hear from the solicitor re. supposed exchange today....

Report
LadyKooKoo · 01/03/2013 13:27

Well EA went back to buyer on Wednesday about additional checks and have heard nothing back so fingers crossed he is satisfied. We will know if he is happy with the cellar tomorrow so within 24 hours I should know if he wants to proceed or that it needs to go back on the market. Good news is that my solicitor called yesterday to say that buyers solicitor has had all the searches back and they are pushing for exchange next week too. I am hoping that all of these are positive things mean that tomorrow is just a technicality!

Report
Goodwordguide · 01/03/2013 14:04

How long does actual exchane take?, we are exchanging today, I gave my authority this morning, confirmed completion ates etc and now... Nothing. Don't want to nag the solicitor but also don't want it slipping til Monday!

Sounds good ladykoo

Report
Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.