Help, calm me. House buying and selling stress

We were selling my dad's house after he had passed away - accepted an offer, went through solicitors and after they had done some work we had a letter from the estate agents saying the buyer had "looked through the windows" (this was after viewing a few times) and decided it wasn't worth what the accepted offer was, offered about £7k less - they were very surprised when it was refused!

The house did go in the end but still less than the original offer (not to the same people)

The answers pack is completely ready for my solicitor on monday, all the docs that I have plus 2 sets of typed answers as she is going through them one at a time with me

I had another rotten sleep last night, I think my genes are programmed from hundreds of years ago, to have the 2 sleeps with a long gap in between. Anyway a different day today including a cycle ride in the sun and not much stress but hard to stop thoughts

I am still prepping to move, while waiting. 3 large multi coloured polypropylene rugs from the kitchen all fully dry cleaned with sebo duo-p. Was hard work but they have come up smashing. Now rolled and fastened with the new elastic bands. They were lovely in the kitchen, a real splash of colour and are destined for the new kitchen

So now I am tired but trying not to nap and also to eat properly, maybe I get hungry during the night. Every time I come downstairs, I bring something for removals. I have an archway so am limited to a van, lwb and not tall. They want photos if possible and a list of what They will be quoting for. I am stacking as much as possible for a similar area together eg upstairs bedrooms 2 and 3, crafts for upstairs etc. I know it will be easier in the long run

teacheranne, those two buyers! morality seems to have gone out of the window. Similar here but with viewings, I live in an usual and attractive house in a holiday county, escape to the country county. People would call if they fancied a trip out. The cleaning took me a long time tbh, it had to sparkle, to give that wow first impression. My EA was/is brilliant, all viewings were escorted and I went out

Greciangirl if you love your house and where it is and if it is close enough to amenities and people, then don`t move. I wouldn`t, I would rather just close rooms if it were too big. I need to be near facilities, nothing here apart from lovely village people

Goodness me!!! I have been thinking about downsizing, but after reading all these comments, am having second thoughts.
It’s nearly thirty eight years since I moved to my present property. Now it seems an overly complicated process.
I don’t think I could stand the stress.

My house is quite old, but modernised to a reasonable standard. A surveyor would definitely find fault.

Both my last moves involved going into storage - one for just 2 weeks so we went on holiday, but the next for three months when we rented from friends whose house was on the market after they moved overseas. I've been wanting to downsize since my divorce in 2014 but can't face the de-cluttering etc as well as working, so decided to wait until retirement in 18 months when I'll be able to sort stuff at my leisure. It may take a while but until I get my retirement lump sums I don't have the means to get the house into a suitable state for marketing it anyway. Meanwhile I have to decide where to move to as my ideas keep changing. I dread the stress of coordinating a purchase and a sale together. Reading this has made me realise that putting everything in storage then buying could be an option if one or both of my adult children would put up with me for the interim. Both have spare rooms so maybe I should consider that. I've only ever managed a move alone once and that was my 1st purchase so I didn't have very much. 40 years down the track the amount of stuff has multiplied many times. Those of you going through this I feel your pain! Good luck everyone! I hope you all achieve your dreams.

I moved from the Midlands to Manchester six years ago and had some interesting experiences with buyers! I was only selling as I had decided not to look for a new house until I had the money in my bank - I was already commuting from my new job at weekends and living with my mum during the week.

I had two buyers pull out. The first one was very keen, things were progressing well between the solicitors etc and they came round several times to take photos of the rooms to plan where their furniture would go. Then, after the sale fell through ( never given a reason) I found out that they were buying a house around the corner of the same design but not yet modernised and gave the builder the photos of my house so it would be the same! Cheeky or what? The second time I had to pull out at the advice of my solicitor when it became clear that he did not have a mortgage offer and appeared to have no intention of getting one! He was relying on a savings scheme whereby a group of people paid each month into a savings account and each year they held a draw to see who would get the money, enough to buy outright. My solicitor knew that this type of scheme was common in the buyers culture but it was new to me. The buyer had not yet "won" the money so we had no idea if he could finance the purchase.

Luckily my third buyers were really keen to complete as I was in the catchment for an acclaimed secondary school and they had to be living there by a certain date to apply. So they were happy to push things through and did not ask me many questions about the house.

Moving house is so stressful and made worse for me by the distance I was moving. Fortunately my solicitor was an old friend who used to phone me in the evenings with regular updates and brought paper work to my workplace for me to sign.

Good luck to everyone involved in this process.

Why not rent for the interim?

I wish I could afford to rent one house and run/upkeep another... I would do it all the time One hectic house for my lovely family... one peaceful serene house for me .

Marie lots of buyers (myself included) wont start the expenses of the checks until the property is marked "under offer". It makes no sense to do so

craftyone
I feel your pain, I really do
We have bought and sold a lot of property but this last one was the worst: think sitting at the traffic lights and both legs went into shaking with the stress
But getting back to your planning permission documents.
I had exactly the same problem. My solicitor informed me that this was needed ( this planning happened years before)
I asked him how long this would take: he said: about 6 weeks!!!
I took the situation into my own hands, phoned the planning department, pleaded with them ( in floods of tears)
the lovely lady emailed the document over to me which I printed off.
You have to bypass the solicitors sometimes, even though your paying them an arm and a leg.
I wish you well.

Surely your solicitor should be dealing with these problems. As somebody else said, just say you don’t know, if that is the case or thre are things like not having a certificate for electrical work or replacement windows carried out an indemnity insurance policy will be taken out.

We bought and sold several houses in our liftime, bought this present one 9 years ago and the deal sailed through. There are questions upon questions nowadays, the professionals covering their backs and yes the process is taking much longer. I had several buyers lined up, nosy viewers who fell in love and then had to sell their own. My present buyer is in a very different position and is local

Marieeliz, my buyer is not getting a survey, does not need one for here and I took it off the market as soon as the sales agreement was sent out. It gives the buyer peace of mind and encourages them to stop looking, if they think that their buy is safe. Having a survey is an extra cost to your buyer. My EA changed the status to `under offer` which really means that other people could in theory get a look in but makes the buyer feel safer

I am hoping that my new build will have the final paperwork in place very soon and to save a delay to completion, I have changed my mind about using a cheque. Halifax personnel have already told me that they will transfer the cash, they will actually do it in branch, rather than me fretting about scammers and the like.

Well other buyer has come back tried to offer less but I said we would split the difference. He then a me back to split again. PUT MY FOOT DOWN AND SAID NO !!! He came back and said he wanted me to take it off market while he got a Survey. Again I said no. Previous person has just had a survey and not cone back. Why should I take it off the market to suit him. I have told Agent this she hasn't come back yet. Love bossy men giving their orders out.

Craftyone Take it one little thing at a time. If you can only do one question a day - so...? And being at bit raggy nerve wise in these situations is just human. Have your priorities - make sure you get at bit of rest every day, don't let your nutrition go too far to pot. Ask for help with everything its possible to get help with. And Good Luck.

I have to disagree that moving is taking longer nowadays. Maybe it depends where in the country you are but when I was young it was a long drawn out process and difficult to get a mortgage with the high interest rates in the 1970s. Each time I moved in the past it took six months though some people managed it in three months, never less.
The difference now is that it takes a long time to find a buyer whereas in the past there was always someone to snap up a house immediately. My recent move took 15 months, plus several months before that decluttering and decorating ready for sale.

Dear Craftyone, glad you are feeling less stressed. Moving house is one of the HUGE stressors in our lives.

When I sold my flat, I was lucky enough to not have to buy at the same time - that would have trebled my stress, which was already high enough.

As others have said, it was only after my first buyer dropped out, and my solicitor went through the written questions again, plus different ones, did I realise that I didn’t have to know the answers to everything, and that I didn’t necessarily need to know where all the paperwork was.

Plus, we couldn’t find the FENSA paperwork for our new replacement windows, and as long as everything was at least one year old, my solicitor said you can get a VERY cheap one-off insurance policy to cover the glazing installation, etc.

And from my experience, sometimes buyers or sellers (or their families or neighbours!) can get very hung up on something that simply does not matter, like leaving carpet or not. Anyway, I sold eventually, and bought, and after a year or more, can look back on it all with a sense of relief and am very pleased I persevered with it all!

Selling and buying houses nowadays seems to be more complicated and usually strings out longer than it did years ago. Helped our son sell his flat couple of years ago. No chain as he and his partner had already jointly bought a house and moved in together. Agreed price with buyer for bit less than we wanted on promise of quick sale. But it dragged on and on. And like your buyer we would get letters from our solicitor with questions from buyers solicitor, answer them, and then get further questions. Estate agents and solicitors little help. Got to stage where we gave an end date after which we said we would withdraw from the sale. Suddenly buyer managed to complete within a week. Have had friends who have been let down due to chains falling through. It's horrible being in limbo and so frustrating. So you have my sympathy. But just tell yourself how proud you are of yourself for coping with it all alone. And that there will be an end point when you can put your feet up, pat yourself on the back and say I DID IT.

Why not rent for the interim?

Renting while selling our family home and buying our retirement home (new) was the best thing we did.

We could hold out for a well qualified buyer and we were able to strike a good deal on our new home.

And we had plenty of time to give away or sell what we no longer wanted.

I requisitioned a survey on one house, same area that I am moving to, old house, big garden. Survey was the full works, cost me aroung £1000. It was worth every penny but it still needed to be deciphered in the cold light of day, luckily I have a structural eng friend who talked me through it and I backed out. Everyone in the industry is covering their backs these days, no-one gives spcific advice but words advice in a way that again needs translating.

I am almost 8 months on, should have been settled 5 months ago. We bought and sold 5 times in 8 years when we were young, job move or we fancied a change. It didn`t cost much and took about 6 weeks

Marieeliz, I empathise, you must be utterly drained. If I could turn the clock back I would, I would move at around 65, rather than in my 8th decade

Even with indecisive/cold feet time wasters in the past, they only got to waste a few weeks, not months and months.

Its so frustrating and really draining.

Quite honestly, if I had had MONTHS to overthink my first home purchase I would have probably doubted it and got cold feet. But with everything progressing quickly, as it did then, we only really had time to worry about major issues, not every little detail

It has gone crazy. Such a shock to the system having bought and sold in the past. The time frames are just insane. But it's really not individuals fault, the process is so drawn out and complicated now.

Sympathy to craftyoneand everyone else going through stressful house moves. I'm downsizing. Finally everything seems to be sorted. I've bought a property and sold my current one. Move in May. I have had 9 months of hell to get to this point. If I went into all the details we'd be here till Christmas!
Suffice to say it's been the most ridiculous, arduous process and I hope I never have to do it again.
I've bought and sold several times over the decades - never known anything like this before! Absolutely draining. I do sympathise with anyone else having difficulty!!

That sounds good Chewbacca

The survey that I recently had done on my prospective new house was done on a traffic light system. Anything coded green was good and needed nothing done. Anything coded yellow was to be seen to in the not too distant future and red was to be addressed now. I took the report to the relevant tradespeople and asked for their advice, and the estimated costs to rectify the items, and then went back to the agents and reduced my initial offer. The selling price was reduced by £3500 to take into account the work needing to be done. The survey cost me £360 + vat and so was worth every penny.

Its not necessarily that the survey itself is bad, but because surveyors are now reluctant to summarise and advise on it, like they used to, interpreting it can be an overwhelming task for buyers who have no contacts in the trades, and they are advised not to communicate with the seller until it is interpreted but there is no "survey intetpretation" service out there..

Don't think Survey is problem. Buyer has not answered her mobile or land line which is backed up with messages. They were 1st time buyers in their late 40s living at HT property. Think they got cold feet but they could have told us.

New buyer could be a pain but I know what is despair ate for the house as he lived near previously and was sorry he left.

I am 80 have lived here since 1960 have no one to help me pack up and move. I have got rid of some stuff but have only touched the surface. I will have no storage when I move. I have fitted wardrobes here none in the bungalow.