Marilyn

My husband and I recently had the misfortune of being second from the top in a chain of four.

The week of exchange dawned with a two week completion to follow (in fact we should have moved two days ago). Yes, as you guessed, the bottom of the chain pulled out. (Or as I call him “the bottom of the food chain!”)

So all hell breaks loose, mainly from me, and it turns out that although my vendor and I were aware of the dates no-one else was!

Oh, my buyer knew when the completion date was and was happy about that, but didn’t have a clue about exchange. Can you believe that? He was happy to complete in two weeks but never even asked his solicitor what should happen and more to the point, his solicitor never told him. It’s not like he hadn’t done this before, after all he must have bought the property he was selling.

Anyway, although this is a nightmare in itself there are also other implications which some people fail to realise. Some being:

My husband had given notice to the agency he works for and now has no job. Yet we still have a mortgage to pay and the usual living expenses in the meantime.

The house we were buying has been put back on the market and is a case of first come first served, even though we have spent at least 1000 on two surveys, searches etc. This money we have borrowed and so still have to find it to pay back.

Although our buyer still wants to buy our house, he still has to find another buyer for his. When he first put his offer in on our house we were aware that he had a property to sell but we shook hands and waited for him to sell.

We have played this straight and fair all the way down the line.

We are left with a buyer who is not in a position to proceed and are now having to go through the process of showing our house again.

We have had to drop the price of our house in order to attract a quick sale.

We may not now get our dream house which, in my mind, I have furnished, decorated etc.

We have no income at the moment and so are in debt.

In a situation like this we know there is no comeback on anyone, even if you know that some of the so-called professionals are, at least in part, to blame for not keeping a close eye on the proceedings and not advising their clients accordingly.

This only happened two weeks ago and I am still in shock. I have had to see the doctor because I am suffering from an asthema attack which was probably brought on by stress and I am taking medication just so I can breathe!

Still, I am the eternal optimist, although goodness knows why, and every day I hope someone will want my house (or my buyers house) and we can get on track again before we lose our dream home.

At the moment I feel that nothing will ever change if no-one takes a stand. This house-buying, chain encouraging, life ruining system has got to be addressed. If all eventually goes to plan and I get my situation sorted out, I feel that I want to try to do something towards changing the system in England and Wales and maybe bring it more in line with Scottish law.

If enough people lobby their MPs and take up the cause maybe one day house buying will be a dream and not a nightmare!

By the way, our house was on the market for 4 months when we got our buyer. He then took 3 weeks to get a buyer and we then put our offer in on our dream house.
With all buyers and vendors in place and apparently happy it took 3 months to fall through. Did you know that personal searches can be turned round in 24 hours!?

It seems that the only thing that needs to take a little more time (but certainly not 3 months!) are the mortgage lenders, but once they are happy with the valuation survey it should be a breeze!

Regards
Marilyn

You are talking bollocks – again. I was also under the mistaken opinion that our system is better than their’s. Having been through the process north and aouth o’ the border, i’m not so sure.

It was more nail biting this time around thats for sure.

By the way – looking forward to seeing you soon, good luck wiv da haas…

Byee

On the subject of U.K. house prices, turns out I should have bought a house 40 years ago.

I’m 29.

I was buying from someone who was moving into an new house – the developer who was building the new house threatened to put up the price by 5K if dates were not met…. needless to say the slow legal process screwed up, I cancelled my survey to save a potential 300 if the sale fell through.

Turns out it was all a bluff on the developper’s part and it went ok in the end – but his off the cuff remark filtered through via Chinese Whispers and delayed things another few weeks.

It’s a crap system and for once Scotland have something better than us. Well their hills are better – but that’s nothing to do with the Scotts but geology.