The tale of the sale of our old house

[Jeremy Harris]

10 hours ago, NSS said:

Oh, okay, the way you speak about the performance of the house I’d assumed you’d been living in the new one for a while now. If you spend a fair bit of time there already I guess it won’t make a huge difference to the way it reacts, although we do, for example, find cooking (in particular) has quite an impact on he indoor temperature.

 

 

We've stayed the odd night there, cooked there, used the shower and toilets there, so the house has been pretty much lived in over the past year or so.  I'm usually there all day weekdays, as I've set up my main "office" over there, although do suffer a bit from the slow broadband. 

 

Showering pushes the bathroom temperature up, much as it does at the old house, but it cools a lot faster.  Same goes for cooking.  Using the hob isn't too bad, it's having the oven on for a fair time that tends to warm the kitchen up.  However, the extract rate from the kitchen is way higher than the regs stipulate (that was done mainly to try and help stop cooking smells get into the rest of the house) so cool air tends to flow in quickly through the kitchen door to bring the temperature back down.  I have (so far) always remembered to put the MVHR on boost when cooking - I do need to knock up a better way to do this.  I'm thinking along the lines of a simple remote control, so a portable remote can be used anywhere to switch on a timed boost.

[Ferdinand]

1 hour ago, JSHarris said:

Using the hob isn't too bad, it's having the oven on for a fair time that tends to warm the kitchen up. 

 

I find that with my Range Cooker, even in my 2010 regs house. I think my cooker hood us something like 250-300 cbm per hour. So OK, but not stonking.

[AliMcLeod]

On 04/08/2018 at 08:05, JSHarris said:

I have (so far) always remembered to put the MVHR on boost when cooking - I do need to knock up a better way to do this.  I'm thinking along the lines of a simple remote control, so a portable remote can be used anywhere to switch on a timed boost.

 

You could automate this with a home automation system. If you can monitor the increase in electrical usage when your oven is on (you can do this via wall plugs but I doubt your ovens are going via that but there are also things you can connect at the CU end) and assuming you can also remotely trigger the MVHR boost, you could do it that way. If there's no way to monitor the power usage, a bit more basic would be use motion sensors and trigger the boost when there is consistent movement in your kitchen area for x minutes (assuming its not an area people typically walk through at other times) and then have it turn off again when it stops for x minutes.

Edited August 6, 2018 by AliMcLeod

[Jeremy Harris]

Another update.  The Purple Bricks bit has been absolutely fine, no issues at all, and I'd strongly recommend them.  The way they work is as I mentioned earlier, you either pay their fee upfront (£895) or you can delay paying it until after completion if you choose to use their conveyancing firm.  On the face of it, this looks to be a good deal.  The conveyancing is a fixed price, £599, plus disbursements, building society deed fees, search fees etc, plus VAT. 

 

So far I have to say the conveyancing service is a bit like the curates egg, good in parts.  The good parts are their online system, that once you get the hang of, allows you to download, sign and upload scanned documents relatively easily (but it does rely on you being able to print, sign, scan, and use their upload system - which is a bit like the upload system on this forum).  Their electronic communication is generally OK, if not as fast at updating documents on your electronic file as it could be.  They are geared around a fixed 6 week to 8 week period from being contracted to exchange of contracts, and don't seem that flexible when faced with a much simpler transaction, where the client is selling to a cash buyer and has no house to buy.

 

Talking to them on the 'phone isn't great.  So far I've not actually been able to talk to the person doing the conveyance at all, even after booking a special call all I got was some clueless clerk asking me pre-scripted questions, who wasn't able to answer any of my off-script questions.  I have booked another call to speak directly with the conveyancer next Thursday.

 

On the positive side, contracts are signed, the Land Registry transfer is signed, all the fixtures and fittings stuff is agreed, the ID evidence has been submitted and cleared and the current status is awaiting the acceptance of terms by the vendor, the searches from the local authority plus the agreement of a completion date with the purchaser and ourselves.   I suspect I may be expecting a bit more - their system relies heavily on electronic document transfer and minimises the need for 'phone calls or letters.  I'm a bit old fashioned, in that I'd like to at least have a five minute chat with the actual person doing the conveyancing at the start of the process.

 

We are on track to exchange contracts in around three to four weeks, which is perhaps all we can hope for.  The period between exchange and completion will probably pretty short - around a week or two at most.  All told it's an OK service, but probably one that's rather different to that which I'd expected.

[Guest Alphonsox]

Any idea how their conveyancing fees compare with the general market ?

[Lesgrandepotato]

We paid 550 for a sale recently. 21 days end to end (inc weekends) local solicitor 

[Jeremy Harris]

Cheapest local solicitors around here are over £800, plus search fees, mortgage fees, disbursements, VAT etc.  Last one I used charged more that that (well over £1300 all told) and was bloody useless - I ended up doing all the donkey work and the process took months.  I selected a more expensive solicitor on the basis of reputation and a hope that they might be faster and easier to deal with - they were neither.  So far, the lawyers that are sub-contracted to PB are a million times better, but do operate in a very different way - fine if your used to doing app based business, bit weird if you're used to personal interaction.

[Jeremy Harris]

Well, despite my comments above, and notwithstanding that 99% of all communication with the conveyancing company is via their online app, I've just logged on and see that they are now estimating completion as being between 24th August and 7th September, a lot earlier than I expected. 

 

However, to find this out I did need to log in to the app, and I only did that to check to see if there were any issues, so had I not logged in I'd not have seen the completion date estimates.  The service, in terms of getting this done fairly quickly and very easily seems good, but I'm not wholly convinced that relying on clients regularly checking an app is the best way to communicate.  To be fair they do send and email alert when there is an action that you need to take on the app, but there was no alert to show that the completion date estimate had been put up on there.

 

[Moira Niedzwiecka]

17 hours ago, JSHarris said:

Cheapest local solicitors around here are over £800, plus search fees, mortgage fees, disbursements, VAT etc.  Last one I used charged more that that (well over £1300 all told) and was bloody useless - I ended up doing all the donkey work and the process took months.  I selected a more expensive solicitor on the basis of reputation and a hope that they might be faster and easier to deal with - they were neither.  So far, the lawyers that are sub-contracted to PB are a million times better, but do operate in a very different way - fine if your used to doing app based business, bit weird if you're used to personal interaction.

That would be a purchasers costs not a sellers.

[Triassic]

The whole business of selling and buying has become a long drawn out mess.

 

About 25 years ago I viewed an empty property and moved in 10 days later, having obtained a mortgage and done all the legals.

 

My brother has just purchased an empty property at it took 16 weeks to complete.

[lizzie]

 

Local searches are one of the main hold ups in some areas they are taking 8 weeks. Alternative is a much less comprehensive personal search at a greater cost.  If you are having a mortgage you have to have a local search. If you are buying cash you would be foolhardy to instruct your solicitor to proceed without one.

[HerbJ]

We,ve recently sold an apartment in Torquay, using a local solicitor. The fees were £635 +VAT plus disbursements etc.   They were very competitive and reasonably efficient.

[Jeremy Harris]

Years ago, when we sold our first house and purchased our next one, I did all the conveyancing myself (just to save money!).  It was a fair bit of running around, as solicitors trust each other, but don't trust anyone else, but one thing that I did find very informative was doing the searches myself.  I just drove over to the local council office, paid a small fee and was allowed access to all the information and to make copies (for another small fee) of any key documents.  Doing your own searches can be very beneficial.  For example, there was a main road to the rear of the house we were buying, and although there was nothing in the local plan about alterations to this, I did find lots of documents relating to longer term plans to change the route of this road so that it would remove a dangerous bend and move the road further away from the house we were buying.  That information wasn't in the register, so would never have surfaced has we opted to use a solicitor who just used the standard search forms.  Our building society had no problem with me doing any of the conveyancing work, searches etc, either, as the council stamped the search documents as verification.

[Ferdinand]

41 minutes ago, lizzie said:

 

Local searches are one of the main hold ups in some areas they are taking 8 weeks. Alternative is a much less comprehensive personal search at a greater cost.  If you are having a mortgage you have to have a local search. If you are buying cash you would be foolhardy to instruct your solicitor to proceed without one.

 

I have had some success in particular circs persuading the Local Authority to speed this up, which came down to talking to the right person nicely and supplying a good reason. Frankly I am surprised there is not a more expensive express service; I have had occasions when I would have paid £200 or £250 for a service in days not weeks.

 

F

Edited August 10, 2018 by Ferdinand

[Jeremy Harris]

1 minute ago, Ferdinand said:

 

I have had some success in particular circs persuading the Local Authority to speed this up, which came down to talking to them nicely and supplying a good reason - frankly I am surprised there is not a more expensive express service; I have had occasions when I would have paid £200 or £250 for a service in days not weeks.

 

F

 

 

There's nothing to stop you going to the LA and doing the searches the same day if you're in a hurry.  The fee is the same, but I found they were more than happy to let me do the work for them.  Took around an hour or so, and combined with the half hour each way drive to the council offices meant that I had the search results within two hours.  This could have been faster, as if I'd only stuck to answering the specific search questions I could have done the job in around half an hour at most.  One of the staff asked if I'd like to look at the list of all non-registered proposals for the area, and it was that which took the other half hour.

 

A former colleague, who was a bit of a property speculator, and used to buy and sell houses on a regular basis, once needed to go from offer to exchange of contracts within 24 hours.  I remember him telling me that it was worth paying his solicitor to drive around getting all the documents signed etc so he could be sure that he didn't get gazumped.  I have a strong feeling that he'd offered to purchase the property at well below the market value, probably by less than scrupulous means as it wasn't actually advertised for sale, as the bloke always seemed to me to be a bit of a wide boy.

[lizzie]

There is an express service its called a personal search it is not as comprehensive as a full search as some of the infomation in a full search takes more time to access - anyone can do a personal search if they so wish....local searches are just one element of course there are other searches such as title, drainage etc etc. but they are generally quicker to be processed.

 

The online conveyancers such as the purple bricks use teams of unqualified box tickers for 99% of the work and it is then reviewed at stages by a qualifed person.  That is why they cannot respond to queries or take phone calls they are not able to answer questions they just input info into a system and anything outside the box causes headaches.  They work to a pre planned timetable and are not geared to speed up a transaction. Its a tick box system and they can only go to the next stage when all boxes in previous stage are ticked.  Great if you have a standard job not so good if it needs any skill or expertise. Their fees are on a par with most High St solicitors. There is room for the factory tick box system for run of the mill transactions in a busy but not very profitable field of law. PP and their ilk make their profits from little or no client contact and unqualified staff. Your High St practice is not set up that way so the conveyancing is much less profitable. Its a very competitive market too.

 

 

Edited August 10, 2018 by lizzie

[Jeremy Harris]

Depends where you live.  I shopped around all the local solicitors and they were all charging a lot more than the firm that PB use, but that's probably down to solicitors around here generally being a LOT more expensive, for some reason.

 

There does seem to be a lot of variation in the prices charged for conveyancing, which is odd, as even solicitors will use minimally qualified staff for all the box-ticking stuff, in my experience.

 

It doesn't seem to me that the conveyancers we are using are working to a pre-planned timetable at all, but they are doing all the box ticking via their app, with minimal supervision by a qualified person.  Right now, if both ourselves and the purchasers accepted the earliest completion date, then the timescale would be 22 days from the date that we contracted with the conveyancing firm to completion, which seems pretty fast to me.

[Gone West]

17 hours ago, JSHarris said:

Years ago, when we sold our first house and purchased our next one, I did all the conveyancing myself (just to save money!).

I thought of doing the same thing when I bought my first house and bought a copy of Conveyancing Fraud by  Michael Joseph but after reading it I chickened out.

[Jeremy Harris]

I only did the conveyancing because we were hard up and I'd spotted a paperback book in Smiths called something like "Do your own conveyancing", and the book included copies of all the forms you might need in an envelope attached to the back.  Having read the book I decided that if I just followed the instructions in it then it should be fine.  I was lucky in that we had no problems at all.  A year or so later I did the conveyancing on the purchase of my youngest brother's first house, an old nurses home that he was buying from the NHS.  That went OK as well. 

 

Nowadays I value my time too much to DIY it, as I well remember how many hours of work it took.

[PeterW]

Having previously bought at auction I’ve seen the best method for this is to get the vendor to do the searches via their appointed solicitor and pass through as a pre-pack contract. Essentially you exchange at point of purchase at the auction - works well and it’s all up front. 

 

Downside is when the buyers solicitor won’t accept the searches and insists on doing their own... had this happen to friends who needed to move quickly and put their house up for auction. Had an offer of a decent amount 2 weeks before the auction and passed the pack to buyers solicitor as they had accepted the offer.  Week after the auction date and the solicitor decided he didn’t like the contract wording and wanted to restart the process and quoted 8-10 weeks to completion.... you can guess the rest !!

[Jeremy Harris]

Interestingly, it seems that the online conveyancers work on a Saturday, as I've just had three documents appear on the system, one of which is the mortgage redemption chit from the building society, who only seem to have posted it yesterday, so someone must be working to have opened the mail and scanned it in.

 

Interestingly, this redemption chit has highlighted a significant brain fart I must have had way back when we were rushing around to get a mortgage on our old house to partially fund the new build.  I had it in my head that we'd borrowed up to the max LtV at the time, which was 50%.  Back in 2013 our old house was valued at £260k, so all my financial calculations had assumed that our mortgage was for £130k.  It seems I was wrong, and that we only borrowed £110k. 

 

This has several interesting impacts:

 

1.  It seems that the new house cost £20k less to build than I thought, as I'd made the assumption that we'd spent all of the £130k mortgage I thought we had on it. 

 

2.  We will get back £20k more to help top up our depleted savings than I thought we were going to get.

 

3.  Our post-build, post-house move, holiday looks like it's now going to be even more expensive.  I noticed that SWMBO has this morning been looking at booking a suite at our favourite hotel (Burgh Island) for a couple of weeks - that'll make a BIG dent in the £20k, I'm sure, plus it means I'll have to buy more expensive new clothes to replace all the ones I've ruined (see this post in this thread:

 

 

[Jeremy Harris]

Bad news. 

 

The purchaser has just pulled out of the deal this morning, citing some restrictive covenant of which we were wholly unaware.  I'm trying to find out what on earth is in the covenant, as it doesn't show on our copy of the searches etc that were done when we bought the place in 2000.

 

Bit of a bugger, as we're back to square one now, but have incurred a fair bit of cost in wasted conveyancing costs accrued to date.

 

 

[ProDave]

That is a bugger.

 

This covenant thing annoys me.  Personally I think all the covenants on a property should be included in the sales particulars.  If I was buying a house and found out for instance a "no caravans or trailers" covenant I would probably pull out. A buyer really should know these things very early on.

 

When you find out, I would make a list of the covenants and make buyers aware of them when they view. Better they don't offer, than offer then withdraw later.

 

Hopefully all the work, searches etc can just be used next time.

 

I would still want to know what their concern is and see if it can be covered with an indemnity policy. (we broke a "no building" covenant on a previous house and an indemnity policy kept the buyer happy)

[PeterW]

@JSHarris we had that a few years ago. The solicitor found a covenant on the land that the houses had been built on from 1820 or something but had completely missed a load of amendments in a later document. We declined to proceed on the basis of the first only to be corrected a couple of weeks later - by letter - where he also sent his bill .....

 

Not surprisingly a bill that remains unpaid to this day ..!

[Moira Niedzwiecka]

10 minutes ago, JSHarris said:

The purchaser has just pulled out of the deal this morning, citing some restrictive covenant of which we were wholly unaware.  I'm trying to find out what on earth is in the covenant, as it doesn't show on our copy of the searches etc that were done when we bought the place in 2000.

I am so sorry Jeremy.

At least you have other buyers waiting in the wings.

Covenants are nothing to do with searches.

It will be something on the title.

Ask your conveyance to send you the office copy entries from the Land Registry.