House buying and selling - WTF!?

[Ari]

I bought my first house back in the Nineties and have lived here ever since so I've been blissfully unaware of what an utter clusterfk English law is around house buying and selling, up until now because I'm looking to buy a larger one which means selling the current one.

I'm genuinely shocked that the biggest financial transaction most people will ever make is conducted almost all the way through on a hope and a whim.

I found a house, put my house up for sale (at which point the house I wanted went under offer!), had a few viewings, found another house to buy, agreed an offer on mine, agreed an offer on the one I wanted to buy, no problem so far.

Ah, but I need to get searches. That takes about two months - first WTF!? So, off we go with the process, organised a survey on the one I was buying, that checked out, just a waiting game.

Except that about a month in, my buyer changed his mind, so that was that. Back on the market, found another buyer quickly, phew! Off we go again. Three weeks later, buyers changed their mind because they'd decided buying a house was 'too stressful' (they were living with one of their parents).

So now we're off again trying to find a buyer and fingers crossed that the chap I'm buying from doesn't get fed up of waiting, or just change his mind of course.

I just don't get this 'wing and a prayer' nonsense. I've bought and sold boats through brokers (nautical estate agents) before and once a deal is agreed you put a deposit down and both parties sign a contract to buy and sell, so everyone knows where they are. It's done (if required) subject to survey so if the survey is bad you can get your deposit back. Otherwise you're buying the boat or losing the deposit.

I'm utterly mystified that the whole house buying/selling structure is so utterly crap and open to abuse. People seem to look at a house for 10 minutes, decide to buy it then renege without a second's thought or any penalty if something they like more comes up or they just change their mind.

[Crafty_]

Your thread is over here https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

[Nickbrapp]

It’s a complete and utter fk up that’s so backward and behind the times and needs completely upgrading

I wanted to buy a new build house, so of course it needed searches doing, but what I didn’t get was, the developer did searches on the land, and then the other 200 houses being built all had the same searches done too, why the hell is it not one search per development?? It’s all the same findings anyway!

Mortage valuation on a new build? £200 for what? Luckily I changed providers and mine was “included” or “free”

Solicitors are all completely useless, mine on completion day sent the completion funds to the wrong bank account, then promptly stopped answering my phone calls. WTAF.

why is there no online portal where the solicitor logs in. And all the crap they “need” from the council is just there, the council obviously have access to it as they just drag their feet and then send it out 6 weeks later

It’s all a utter shambles.

[Type R Tom]

Nickbrapp said:

Mortage valuation on a new build? £200 for what? Luckily I changed providers and mine was “included” or “free”

why is there no online portal where the solicitor logs in. And all the crap they “need” from the council is just there, the council obviously have access to it as they just drag their feet and then send it out 6 weeks later

I had the same with my new build, they insisted a survey would need to be done and I had to pay. Off the bloke went to "survey" a house that was 3ft tall at the time.

Solicitors are a bit lazy too. I used to regularly get emails from them in a completely different part of a highway department at a local council asking me to do searches for them along with "if this isn't the right person please forward it to the correct one" instead of just going to google and typing xyz council highway search.

Nothing annoys me more than people who can't be bothered to even attempt to find the correct contact and expect someone else to do the work for them when they are being paid to do it.

Another thing that annoyed me was postage costs being added to bills when everything can be done by scans and emails now.

[Chilly for June]

This is one time England needs to accept Scotland has a much much better process and change to something similar.

I honestly don't know how you guys put up / cope with it.

[dingg]

Sold my house in tbe uk and it was a ball ache process, even though it was a cash buyer, their conveyancing solicitor was a pain in the arse.

Bought a house in Portugal, viewed it, started bargaining with the agent and vendor, 7 days later promissory contract drawn up, 2 weeks later handed over the rest of the cash with the vendor and the agent in my lawyers office and received the deeds and the keys.

(if I pulled out after signing promissory, vendor got to keep the promissory deposit 25k, if vendor pulled out he would be liable to pay me double)

Easy simple and virtually stress free, although the french bds stiffed me on some items that were listed in the promissory and went missing or were damaged, fking french

[bristolracer]

Last time I moved I used a reputable firm of licenced conveyancers
Not that much cheaper than a solicitor, but they just got it done with no drama

It is an antiquated system, and something needs to be done about all the gazumping and gazundering that goes on.

[bennno]

It’s why our last two places purchased were probate, bad enough with just a chain below.

[Sheepshanks]

Chilly for June said:

This is one time England needs to accept Scotland has a much much better process and change to something similar.

I honestly don't know how you guys put up / cope with it.

The system in Scotland has plenty of issues too.

[Spare tyre]

Worked with an Indian fella a few years back, he was a newbie to the U.K.

He thought I was joking when I told him I had a quick purchase of 3 months, he told me in India you all go into a big room, solicitors, agents, bank manager, builder cat dog etc and negotiate until done, date agreed and it then just happens
How true this is I dunno

I’d imagine some envelopes change hands

[TwigtheWonderkid]

Bought and sold a few properties in my life, and it seems to me that you spend an awful lot of time on the phone telling people to get a bloody move on and actually do the job that you are paying them an eyewatering amount of money to do.

[Sheepshanks]

TwigtheWonderkid said:

Bought and sold a few properties in my life, and it seems to me that you spend an awful lot of time on the phone telling people to get a bloody move on and actually do the job that you are paying them an eyewatering amount of money to do.

I'm sure plenty just happen without any great drama.

[Rostfritt]

Chilly for June said:

This is one time England needs to accept Scotland has a much much better process and change to something similar.

I honestly don't know how you guys put up / cope with it.

Agreed. Is the Scottish system basically that the seller does all the searches and the valuation before it is put on the market, so the buyer can go put an offer in with their eyes wide open? Because that makes a lot of sense. In England and Wales, you put in an offer and then have to wait several weeks before they discover that the place was on a lease until some point, then there might be damp somewhere and the roof is about to fall down. So then you are in a position of having to work out if that will delay your purchase, involve a lot more expenses and work you weren't planning to do, require you to try and get more money off the asking price or mean you pull out entirely. Then your buyer might be thinking the same about your place.

It sounds like in Scotland the seller is responsible for a lot more and has to get all their ducks in a row before the house even appears on the market, whereas down here I could ring the agent on the Monday and the advert could be up by Wednesday morning without the agent even being sure that I even own it. I looked at a place before lockdown that I was keen to put an offer in on. It went off the market but wasn't sold so I called the agent to ask what happened and it turned out that there was a probate issue and the seller had no right to sell it. Thankfully because of the lockdown I wasn't several weeks into the sale before that became apparent.

What are the problems with the Scottish system?

[Chilly for June]

Yes the home report is done prior to the home going on the market so the defects (not fully detailed admittedly) and value are able to be viewed prior to even going to see the property. In addition to that but when you conclude missives in Scotland you can't "just change your mind" about buying and pull out. You are effectively legally bound to buying. As far as I'm aware it also rules out gazumping or buyers hitting you with a lower purchase price the week you are due to exchange.

Not sure what the negatives are compared to the English system as someone mentioned above.

[ApexCult]

Only issues I've 'dealt' with under the Scottish system is the popularity of Offers Over where the advertised price is below what is even the Home Report value and properties often change hands for 10-20% over that Home Report value.

Perhaps it would helpful if Home Report value was actually in-line with the current market value, but maybe I'm missing something...

[Pit Pony]

This is why my son and his fiancee, are planning to convert her flat to a BTL mortgage, and rent it out, when they buy their first house in the next few months. I think. Possibly.

[Sheepshanks]

ApexCult said:

Only issues I've 'dealt' with under the Scottish system is the popularity of Offers Over where the advertised price is below what is even the Home Report value and properties often change hands for 10-20% over that Home Report value.

Perhaps it would helpful if Home Report value was actually in-line with the current market value, but maybe I'm missing something...

Particularly in a rising market it drives up prices as you can keep missing out.

Getting the timing right with chains is very tricky - once past a fairly early point you can’t back out of your sale if there are issues with your onward purchase.

[NuckyThompson]

Rostfritt said:

Agreed. Is the Scottish system basically that the seller does all the searches and the valuation before it is put on the market, so the buyer can go put an offer in with their eyes wide open? Because that makes a lot of sense. In England and Wales, you put in an offer and then have to wait several weeks before they discover that the place was on a lease until some point, then there might be damp somewhere and the roof is about to fall down. So then you are in a position of having to work out if that will delay your purchase, involve a lot more expenses and work you weren't planning to do, require you to try and get more money off the asking price or mean you pull out entirely. Then your buyer might be thinking the same about your place.

It sounds like in Scotland the seller is responsible for a lot more and has to get all their ducks in a row before the house even appears on the market, whereas down here I could ring the agent on the Monday and the advert could be up by Wednesday morning without the agent even being sure that I even own it. I looked at a place before lockdown that I was keen to put an offer in on. It went off the market but wasn't sold so I called the agent to ask what happened and it turned out that there was a probate issue and the seller had no right to sell it. Thankfully because of the lockdown I wasn't several weeks into the sale before that became apparent.

What are the problems with the Scottish system?

I’m guessing south of the border a seller couldn’t just do the same as the Scottish system to aid a quicker sale then?

I.e. pay for the searches and survey prior to placing home on the market.

I only ask as we purchased our home just over a year ago and it’s about to go in the market again, we still have the previous survey (very few issues and all minor) so surely that would help a buyer in making decisions and give them the option of saving money on survey?

I know it probably wouldn’t work like that but sounds like the Scottish system does make more sense.

[campionissimo]

Is there any reason why the rules shouldn't be changed, so that a seller is required to have all the searches and a basic survey done on the house that they are selling before the house can be put on the market?

[Venom]

They had a half-arsed go at changing the system here a few years back, with the invention of home buyers reports, or whatever they were called. Problem with those, from vague memory, was that mortgage lenders paid no heed to them whatsoever, so they just became an added time and cost burden.

It really needs something doing over here, the english system seems to be one of the worst in the world, talking to friends elsewhere in the world who all seem to have more certainty much earlier in the process.