House buying is the worst

[Dog-amoto]

I paid £29k for mine in 2000. Not sure what it's worth now though. Mortgage is paid off in three years but I'm thinking of moving in the next couple of years.

[bob]

Yeah I've been hassling him a lot, and the agent has been great too, they've been hassling the vendors solicitor too. Someone fucked up somewhere though

 

 

 

 

Ahh flip thats crazy, half a mil in mortgage terms, jesus. And if you didnt have a fixed rate and rates went up you would be crippled. Like you would have to quite literally sell a leg to pay the mortgage lol

 

 

I got a phone call today, apparently the Land Registry have acknowledged the recpt of the application. Which means shit all. Gaaaaah

Who is buying legs and what are they doing with them?

[Shorty]

I'm being super lazy with my house purchase now, not chasing anyone up about it or anything. I'm just going to rely on the estate agent to do that, since it helps them close the sale and get their cut.

 

At first I was real excited, now all the negatives are weighing me down a bit. It's out of the way, further from my friends (not that I have many friends living around me at the moment anyway) and the area is not that nice. But, it has a nice garden, a garage, and most importantly, it will be mine and every penny paid will feel more like saving money (towards moving into a nicer place) rather than burning it on rent.

 

Here's a pic of my new garden, garage and house from the back

 

[Eenuh]

That looks really nice Shorty! Hope I can have a garden like that when we get a house! It is one of my requirements! Jim can have the garage, but I need my garden! :P

 

 

We actually had our first chat with a mortgage broker yesterday, nice guy. Think it helped us a bit more to understand what we are getting ourselves into. He is going to find out now what we could possibly borrow, but the estimate he gave us was a bit higher than what we thought we could get, so that's good. Gives us a few more options for houses to look at, though not by much heh.

 

I think our main worry right now is our credit checks, as we haven't built up much of that yet (especially me as I am a dirty foreigner)/might have issues with names. Fingers crossed it all works out fine!

[Charlie]

 

Ahh flip thats crazy, half a mil in mortgage terms, jesus. And if you didnt have a fixed rate and rates went up you would be crippled. Like you would have to quite literally sell a leg to pay the mortgage lol

 

It would be absolutely crazy for me to get a mortgage anywhere near that amount. Feels like another housing crisis ready to happen to be honest. I was thinking about buying something up to around £200k, with a £20k deposit, so a mortgage of £180k. There are lots of nice flats in the area I want to live around that value.

 

I'm being super lazy with my house purchase now, not chasing anyone up about it or anything. I'm just going to rely on the estate agent to do that, since it helps them close the sale and get their cut.

 

At first I was real excited, now all the negatives are weighing me down a bit. It's out of the way, further from my friends (not that I have many friends living around me at the moment anyway) and the area is not that nice. But, it has a nice garden, a garage, and most importantly, it will be mine and every penny paid will feel more like saving money (towards moving into a nicer place) rather than burning it on rent.

 

Here's a pic of my new garden, garage and house from the back

 

 

That looks lovely. I'm also quite tempted to move a little bit further away from the west end. For the same money I could easily get a 3 bedroom house, with garden and extra rooms rather than a combined llving/dining room or kitchen/dining.

[EEVILMURRAY]

House buying isn't the worse. It's unpacking all yo' shit when you finally move in.

 

 

We've been living here for almost a month now and we have so much stuff still in boxes. I have about 10-15 by myself, with games, books etc.

[Raining_again]

House buying isn't the worse. It's unpacking all yo' shit when you finally move in.

 

 

We've been living here for almost a month now and we have so much stuff still in boxes. I have about 10-15 by myself, with games, books etc.

 

I've lived in my rental accommodation for well over 1.5 years and i still have shit at my parents in boxes. Don't pretend like you'll ever unpack them lol

 

It would be absolutely crazy for me to get a mortgage anywhere near that amount. Feels like another housing crisis ready to happen to be honest. I was thinking about buying something up to around £200k, with a £20k deposit, so a mortgage of £180k. There are lots of nice flats in the area I want to live around that value.

 

 

 

That looks lovely. I'm also quite tempted to move a little bit further away from the west end. For the same money I could easily get a 3 bedroom house, with garden and extra rooms rather than a combined llving/dining room or kitchen/dining.

 

 

Absolutely. The rates are just waiting to go up. I would have crippled myself buying any more than I have. Just going to pour my money into this mortgage and hopefully it will give me power to upgrade in 10/15 years. Maybe.

[Serebii]

I paid £29k for mine in 2000. Not sure what it's worth now though. Mortgage is paid off in three years but I'm thinking of moving in the next couple of years.

How the hell did you finagle getting a house for just £29k???

[Rummy]

How the hell did you finagle getting a house for just £29k???

 

Now I'm not saying it's Bolton, but...Bolton. I'm jesting.

 

Tbh I went through the rigmarole a few years ago, and I don't know if I'd be able to stomach going through it all again. This time might be easier given I already own a house, but I'm not actually keen to ever sell this place. I think I'd been looking at houses(originally with friends who were gonna live with me) since 2012, almost buying something in 2013, that falling through, me getting fucked off with the whole thing for months, and eventually actually almost begrudgingly buying my current place because I'd got so burnt out on not having a house - finally completing Feb 2014.

 

Having said that, I've grown to like my house over time. It's a bit of an arsehole to get to, stuck in a shit end of SE london and in a place that traditionally had a bad rep - but it's actually been good since I've been here. It's got fuck all around, but as a result it's actually kind of quiet. I think also because there's nothing here you're only really here if you live here and so nobody fucks around and acts up too much that I've seen. Could genuinely see myself raising a family down here.

 

Ofc, it's London, and for the money it set me out I could have had something much bigger/nice up north. I've no driveway, but luckily the streets aren't marked(again, fuck all here) and I can park pretty easy most of the time. What kills me the most is how much the market's moved and gone up, I don't know what it'd estimate at now but I imagine it's gone up value wise by at least 40k. Whilst it's not really money, it still feels mad. I don't think I'd ever sell though - even if I end up with someone long term and buying something else, I'd probably keep this.

 

The only massive downside to it all - how much fucking money I owe -.-

[Dog-amoto]

House prices were a LOT cheaper back then. I've had a bit of work done over the years, had new windows and a porch built, new kitchen, bathroom etc. I'd say it's probably worth about £90k now based on what others are selling for in the area.

 

And yes, it's Bolton. To be fair, it's a reasonably nice area - never had any trouble since I've been here. The house is a 2 bed semi. It was fine when it was just me living here but with a baby, it's starting to get a little cramped, hence me thinking about moving.

[Fierce_LiNk]

I can't wait to move the fuck out of here. The flat is actually quite nice tbh, but it's akin to living on a construction site at the moment. I woke up at 8 today, on a Saturday, because the fucking neighbours were drilling. It's the ones directly next door AND the ones in the flat above. Drilling, banging, hammering (right now, as I type) and it's happened every fucking weekend for as long as I can remember. Even during my break, they were doing it every single day.

 

It's really quite bizarre because you'd expect this to stop after a while once the job is completed. But...without exaggeration, this has been going on for a year now AT LEAST. I really don't get it.

[Iun]

I can't wait to move the fuck out of here. The flat is actually quite nice tbh, but it's akin to living on a construction site at the moment. I woke up at 8 today, on a Saturday, because the fucking neighbours were drilling. It's the ones directly next door AND the ones in the flat above. Drilling, banging, hammering (right now, as I type) and it's happened every fucking weekend for as long as I can remember. Even during my break, they were doing it every single day.

 

It's really quite bizarre because you'd expect this to stop after a while once the job is completed. But...without exaggeration, this has been going on for a year now AT LEAST. I really don't get it.

 

There was a period from about 2010 - 2013 when our upstairs neighbours were CONSTANTLY redecorating. But it turns out that the apartment had changed hands a minimum of three times during that period, and in China, when you leave the house you spitefully rip out everything and leave it by the roadside, so whoever buys it has to completely redecorate. That includes floorboards, by the way.

[Aneres11]

House buying IS the worst.

 

My partner and I have been in our house for a month now, and we absolutely love it. (Bee-gate aside).

But our solicitors were a complete crock of shite. Even the estate agents were too.

The only person who was decent throughout the whole thing was our mortgage advisor.

 

We both had the new Help to Buy ISA's (set up in Dec) so by time we came round to giving our depost we would have had £450 each off the Government to our deposit. £900 to use on housey stuff.

Nah.

Our solicitors 'had never had anyone with a help to buy before' - so they didn't know that the accounts have to be closed 3-4 weeks before moving in date to give them time to claim the monies from the government for us.

So we lost out on £900 as it we just paid it ourselves.

We could have waited, but we had stuff arriving for the week after we moved n (BT, sofa, furniture deliveries, plasterer) so we couldn't cancel them all and were fortunate enough to be able to pay it ourselves. Just had to forget some other stuff we'd have liked to buy etc.

 

It definitely can be a stressful time.

 

Having said all that, now we're in there and we've put 'our stamp' (I hate that phrase, but didn't really know how else to say it ), on the majority of rooms, and have had so much fun doing it, it all then pales into insignificance once you're settled.

Although the £900 still annoys me...

[Shorty]

Glad you mentioned that, I will call my solicitor tomorrow and ask about my help to buy...

[Eenuh]

We both had the new Help to Buy ISA's (set up in Dec) so by time we came round to giving our depost we would have had £450 each off the Government to our deposit. £900 to use on housey stuff.

Nah.

Our solicitors 'had never had anyone with a help to buy before' - so they didn't know that the accounts have to be closed 3-4 weeks before moving in date to give them time to claim the monies from the government for us.

So we lost out on £900 as it we just paid it ourselves.

 

That is shit, I thought they would know to do that... I will have to make sure to mention it to our solicitor (need to find one first) when we get a house.

 

We are currently dealing with our mortgage advisor, he is trying to get us an Agreement in Principle. Had to send over lots of documents, apparently it's gone to an underwriter (no clue what that means) so we have to wait and see what happens now.

 

Stuff is getting real though! Thing is I haven't even seen a house yet that I like and that has the things we need for a price we can afford. This is getting frustrating.

[Ike]

I bought my house last year, the whole process went pretty smooth. It was a new build which wasn't due to be finished until July-ish anyway so there wasn't really any urgency. The worst was the builders since they didn't keep my updated like they said they would on stuff like when I can get access to the house so I could get someone in to measure for carpets/flooring.

 

I used the Help to Buy scheme since it's my first house but I think they've changed it since then.

 

Still moving stuff from my parents though. Moving your stuff is the worst part of house buying.

[EEVILMURRAY]

Our solicitors 'had never had anyone with a help to buy before' - so they didn't know that the accounts have to be closed 3-4 weeks before moving in date to give them time to claim the monies from the government for us.

So we lost out on £900 as it we just paid it ourselves.

Surely that's some form of misconduct/negligence, there must be something in your contract which protects against this.

 

Still moving stuff from my parents though. Moving your stuff is the worst part of house buying.

Feeling that bro. Made another small trip to my old room to pick up some storage and my PC chair. Still some bits and pieces left.

[Aneres11]

Surely that's some form of misconduct/negligence, there must be something in your contract which protects against this.

 

Believe me, I argued with her all day and got absolutely nowhere. I even rung the government website and they said there was nothing we could do either. Her only solution was to wait 3-4 weeks or pay it ourselves.

 

I told her I thought she was negligent and it's her responsibility / job to know the process, but she just basically blamed me. Total knob.

 

We gave them feedback though, and she said they'd changed their processing to avoid it happening again, but it didn't help us out.

[Charlie]

House buying IS the worst.

 

My partner and I have been in our house for a month now, and we absolutely love it. (Bee-gate aside).

But our solicitors were a complete crock of shite. Even the estate agents were too.

The only person who was decent throughout the whole thing was our mortgage advisor.

 

That's BS. What do you pay your solicitors for if they can't get something as simple as this right? They should be paying the £900 out of your own pocket. I would be writing a formal letter of complaint to them and sending a copy to the ombudsman.

[Blade]

@Aneres11

 

1. Contact the firm and ask for details of the complaint Partner

 

2. Draft letter/email of complaint and send it to him/her.

 

3. If you receive a unsatisfactory response then you can complain to the Legal Ombudsman. Possibly also complain to the Solicitors Regulation Authority too (the profession's governing body)

[bob]

Lawyered!!

[Shorty]

Regard Help to Buy ISA what's weird is that as far as I can see it's just a form they have to complete at least 5 days before completion, not 3-4 weeks:

 

https://www.helptobuyisaadmin.org.uk/conveyancers/the-scheme

 

The only other parts that could take time are the conveyancer joining the scheme through Lender Exchange (I've no way of knowing how long this takes, but presumably it's a one-off, so maybe it would've only taken time in your case being the first) and receiving a letter from the bank after closing the account.

 

Funnily enough I just called my solicitor, they told me to call the bank, the bank told me to call the solicitor and that they should just research it themselves, ha! Ridiculous....

[Raining_again]

14 weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeks

 

[Eenuh]

I think she means she has been waiting 14 weeks already for things to move along? And she said her mortgage offer ends in July I think...

 

 

Still waiting to hear back about our mortgage. Getting a bit stressful, worried they might deny us because of lack of credit history or something.

 

Also, the mortgage broker told us to already look for a solicitor, but what do you ask them when you don't even have a house yet you plan to buy?

"Hi, are you good at being a solicitor? Can you be ours?" :P

[Shorty]

I think she means she has been waiting 14 weeks already for things to move along? And she said her mortgage offer ends in July I think...

Ah, deleted my message as it will probably not help matters, I'll put back if it meant something else.

 

Still waiting to hear back about our mortgage. Getting a bit stressful, worried they might deny us because of lack of credit history or something.

 

Also, the mortgage broker told us to already look for a solicitor, but what do you ask them when you don't even have a house yet you plan to buy?

"Hi, are you good at being a solicitor? Can you be ours?" :P

Have you done a credit report? You can do one for free on Experian, just cancel before the 30 day trial is up.

 

Re: solicitors, ask around from other people who have bought in your area, look on forums online for recommendations, you can ring them and get an idea of the fees even if you don't have a property in mind.