The tale of the sale of our old house

[Jeremy Harris]

Finally completed today, although not without a predictable bit of difficulty.  For some reason completion was delayed, and our solicitor didn't confirm the funds transfer until 13:20.  I did manage to speak to the buyer yesterday (at long last) and was told that their solicitor has had the entire completion monies for over two weeks now.  Quite why completion was delayed today I don't know.  I managed to arrange to hand the keys over, but our buyer didn't seem to be in any rush for them.

 

So, we are finally shot of the old house, after a pretty stressful sale process.  I can't be arsed to do a post mortem on why things took so long, other than to say that it wasn't anything related to Purple Bricks in any way, and didn't seem to be caused by our solicitors, although I can't be 100% sure that they were always being completely truthful with us about the reasons for some of the delays.

 

It seems our buyer is entering the "buy to let" market, and intends letting the house.  I only found this out today, and it explains why they were so obsessed with having a gas safety certificate, electrical installation condition report and then making a fuss over really trivial stuff, like a 1986 built house not complying with 2017 wiring regulations.  From what I've seen, I think they are in for a rough time, as the electrician they used to repeat the EICR (two were done within the space of a fortnight) charged well over £300 for a 4 hour EICR job, and has quoted over £700 to replace the 6 way fuse board and meter tails (around £80 for parts plus maybe 4 hours labour - I costed it up as I was thinking of getting it done just to keep the buyer on side).

 

Anyway, it's all over now, all we have to do is wait for the money to be transferred to our account.  No idea how long that will take, but I can guess that our solicitor will try and hold on to it as long as possible.

[ProDave]

Congratulations, Enjoy the new house and that long planned holiday.

 

I get the feeling your old house is probably not the best rental prospect in terms of yield but that is not your concern.

[Jeremy Harris]

Thanks, @ProDave, I agree, I doubt it's that good a rental prospect.  We did look at renting it out, and were told (around three years ago) that it would probably rent out unfurnished at between £700 and £800 per month.  However, it seems that our buyers are looking to rent it out furnished, as they wanted all our old furniture, microwave etc. that we were just going to throw out.

 

My limited experience of being a landlord and renting property out was not a happy one, and it's not something I'd ever do again.  I found the hassle just too great for the return, but perhaps things look better now, with low interest rates giving a much lower return on any cash investment (and our buyer has paid cash).

[ToughButterCup]

The money will be nice. But having  peace of mind nicer....

[Jeremy Harris]

You're spot on, Ian, I feel as if a massive weight has been lifted off my back.

[Barney12]

3 hours ago, JSHarris said:

Anyway, it's all over now, all we have to do is wait for the money to be transferred to our account.  No idea how long that will take, but I can guess that our solicitor will try and hold on to it as long as possible.

 

Ah, that takes me back. My first career was with Barclays Bank and I climbed the heights to 'securities officer' in my early career. One of the key jobs was to place solicitors 'clients accounts' money on overnight treasury deposit. Remember this was in the 90's where base rates were in double digits. Solicitors were making a fortune by overnighting clients monies!! 

[Barney12]

P.S. Congrats on completing! 

[vivienz]

Congratulations! Time to settle in properly at the new house.

[Tennentslager]

New thread time @JSHarris 

I'm for the Carolina's as a destination.

I'll tell you how it looks on Saturday, three months in, its time to visit my middle girl loving Duke University if feeling a little homesick and keen to hear another Glasgow accent ???

Dunno if they have caves, guitar pros, self flying types or storytellers but you might just fit in Sir.

[newhome]

Glad the old house has finally gone. Always a weight off your mind once completion day is over, and in your case without the stress of moving out of one home and into another all on the same day. 

 

[Jeremy Harris]

Referring back to our ongoing bank problems from earlier in this thread, it seems that ALL banks are going to have to switch to using mobile phone verification for every online transaction over €30, due to a bit of EU legislation that we've already accepted: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-46399707 

 

First Direct have already started the change: "One bank that has started sending passwords to mobiles is First Direct. It advised anyone having difficulties to get in touch with them."

 

So, that rules out First Direct for us, and leaves us with no viable banking option in terms of being able to make online payments.  Looks like it's going to have to be PayPal or nothing from now on, which is a right PITA.

 

Still, it might highlight the plight of those who live in areas with no mobile phone signal.  Perhaps someone might start looking at how to make the damned awful rural mobile network a bit better.  We can cope with not getting radio or TV reception, thanks to Freesat and internet radio (although the latter units aren't cheap), but if we lose the ability to be able to use online banking and payments that will be a real nuisance.

[TerryE]

11 minutes ago, JSHarris said:

that rules out First Direct for us

 

I thought that FD had a banking app that used fingerprint for 2FA (2 factor authentication).  This would work fine over WiFi as well as 4G. 

 

There are a lot of other 2FA schemes available that don't require SMS.  Nationwide uses a card reader which works with your bank card (chip).

Edited December 1, 2018 by TerryE

[ProDave]

19 minutes ago, JSHarris said:

 

Still, it might highlight the plight of those who live in areas with no mobile phone signal.  Perhaps someone might start looking at how to make the damned awful rural mobile network a bit better.  We can cope with not getting radio or TV reception, thanks to Freesat and internet radio (although the latter units aren't cheap), but if we lose the ability to be able to use online banking and payments that will be a real nuisance.

We use satellite for radio as well. I fitted a second low power old sky mini box dedicated to feeding audio to the hifi.

 

Did you not manage to get a basic 2g signal with your repeater that would do to receive a text message?

 

I agree something needs to be done about the poor rural mobile situation. The ongoing frustration is the shiny new EE mobile mast here  that should give us a fantastic signal, is for the emergency services network service only.  One has to ask why?  Would it really cost them any more to let paying customers use it?

[lizzie]

Cant you get a signal booster? I had one in temp house as mobile signal was almost nil most of the time.  At new house I am not using the booster as signal is better but I do use wifi calling when at home anyway so dont need a mobile signal.  Think you can get simple texts on the wifi system, most mobile providers have the option of wifi now.

[Jeremy Harris]

 

47 minutes ago, TerryE said:

 

I thought that FD had a banking app that used fingerprint for 2FA (2 factor authentication).  This would work fine over WiFi as well as 4G. 

 

There are a lot of other 2FA schemes available that don't require SMS.  Nationwide uses a card reader which works with your bank card (chip).

 

I'm not sure whether or not all existing 2FA systems are going to be allowable under the new Directive.  It seems that the focus is on using OTPs sent by text (which is a really crap system - it's what I have to live with as the only available option from my bank) and it seems as if First Direct are switching their verification system from using the code generator device, that @jack mentioned earlier in this thread, to an OTP sent by text.

 

The problem seems to be the requirement to verify personal identity, although quite how robust using a text sent to a mobile is I don't know; I'd have said it's a pretty poor way of getting ID confirmation.  Fingerprint reading is fine if you have a smartphone, but frankly I can't see any possible use for one for us, so we would be buying them solely to use as a payment verification device, which seems daft.  As it is I very rarely turn my phone on, I think it's been turned on once since we met in Bristol, and then only because I was in the car expecting a call from our conveyancer earlier this week.  My phone often sits in a drawer for weeks without being turned on.

 

I've grown to really like not having an always on mobile phone since I retired.  When working I had to carry a Blackberry all the time, and relished getting home and losing the signal, as the damned thing was like being leashed to my employer 24/7.  Everyone I knows I don't use a mobile, and to call me on the landline if they really need to get in touch urgently, and that suits me perfectly.

 

 

35 minutes ago, ProDave said:

We use satellite for radio as well. I fitted a second low power old sky mini box dedicated to feeding audio to the hifi.

 

Did you not manage to get a basic 2g signal with your repeater that would do to receive a text message?

 

I agree something needs to be done about the poor rural mobile situation. The ongoing frustration is the shiny new EE mobile mast here  that should give us a fantastic signal, is for the emergency services network service only.  One has to ask why?  Would it really cost them any more to let paying customers use it?

 

I can sometimes get a 2G signal via the booster/repeater, but not in bad weather.  The best I get on the repeater is 1 bar of signal in nice weather, which drops out in rain etc.

 

The advantage of internet radio is that it's portable, so doesn't need a connection to the dish, which is handy.  We have a Roberts one that seems to work well enough.  I'm probably going to have a go at building one with a Pi Zero W sometime, too, as it's cheap and relatively easy to do.

[Jeremy Harris]

Had a very comprehensive reply from First Direct.  It seems that they are retaining all their present options for authenticating online banking transactions, which is good news.  However, they have said that Visa are introducing mandatory SMS authorisation with a OTP for their "Secured by Visa" authentication system and there will be no alternative available - Visa are opting to only use mobile text messages for authorisation.  This means that some debit or credit card payments made online may only work if you can get a mobile signal to receive the OTP text message.

 

From this, I think it seems likely that the BBC story was driven by the actions of Visa, rather than anything else.  At the moment, I seem to get a "secured by Visa" pop-up for about 20% of online card transactions, but the verification method is by fixed password.  This will change soon so that the only way of verifying a Visa payment online will be via a OTP sent by text to a mobile phone.  Apparently Visa are not yet offering any alternative verification system, according to First Direct.

 

 

 

 

[joe90]

Yes, when I buy anything on line using Visa I have to go to the spare bedroom to make sure I have a mobile signal!.

[Declan52]

I bought stuff from  aliexpress last week and got the  text notification from Visa.   Took a few mins to come through.