Wednesday 22 April 2015

The house buying process

The buying process progressed surprisingly quickly for us, if you ignore the four months when we thought we’d lost out on the purchase entirely…

The overall timeline has gone as follows:
  • July 2014: Apply for Mortgage in Principle. Accepted.
  • 19th August 2014: Put current property on the market.
  • 29th (ish) August 2014: After a small flurry of offers, and one aborted accepted offer, accept an offer from a cash buyer. (We got our first offer within 24 hours, which was reassuring.)
  • August 2014: Instruct conveyancing solicitor – for both selling our current property, and buying (once we’d found somewhere).
  • 20th August 2014: Muz found The Lodge for sale online. Evening drive by to have a look at it.
  • 23rd August 2014: First viewing of The Lodge (open day). Hate it.
  • Next couple of weeks: Muz keeps thinking about The Lodge. Decide we should go back again.
  • 13th (ish) September 2014: Second viewing of The Lodge (solo viewing). Love it.
  • 14th (ish) September 2014: Put in offer. As the Lodge is being sold by The Crown Estates, settle in to wait for response.
  • 2nd October 2014 (Thursday): Get told we’ll have a reply to our offer on Monday.
  • 4th October 2014 (Saturday): Somebody else puts an asking price offer in. We put in our best and final offer and settle in to wait again.
  • 10th October 2014 (Following Friday): Go to Grand Designs Live. Get to the car park. Get a call to say our offer had been rejected in favour of the other, higher, offer. Walk round Grand Designs Live feeling dejected.
  • January 2015: Aborted purchase of a water mill. Deemed structurally unsound.
  • 9th February 2015: Call from estate agent to advise purchase of the Lodge by the people who outbid us is looking likely to fall through – are we still interested?
  • 10th February 2015: Call from estate agent to confirm the sale has fallen through. We renew our offer.
  • 11th February 2015: Our offer is accepted.
  • 18th February 2015: Apply for mortgage.
  • 18th February 2015: Mortgage providers call, run through some questions, they offer mortgage in principle, fee paid to reserve rate.
  • 20th February 2015: Period house survey.
  • 22nd February 2015: Removed underlay, sprayed mould.
  • 23rd February 2015: Post payslips, bank statements, certified passport copy, proof of address, off to mortgage provider. Cross fingers.
  • 1st March 2015: Brushed down salts on fireplace, scraped off bits of flaky Artex on ceiling.
  • 2nd March 2015: Mortgage provider call, more details given.
  • 2nd March 2015: Text from mortgage provider, mortgage agreed subject to valuation!
  • 3rd March 2015: Text from valuation company, valuation arranged for 5th March.
  • 5th March 2015:  Valuation survey. Cross fingers.
  • 11th March 2015: Mortgage company call to say valuation was fine – mortgage approved.
  • 14th/15th March 2015: Stripped wallpaper from living room and the chimney breast of Bedroom 3. Cleaned kitchen. Arranged storage (150 sqft).
  • 16th March 2015: First load into storage.
  • March 2015: Details received from solicitor re questions asked of seller.
  • 18th March 2015: Pop into solicitors to sign purchase paperwork.
  • 20th March 2015: Pick up hire van. Take load of furniture to storage.
  • 21st March 2015: Take second van load to storage (garage 'furniture'). Return van.
  • 24th March 2015: Local Survey results finally arrive with our solicitor. No problems!
  • 24th March 2015: Letter sent by solicitor to in-laws to ask to confirm monetary gift in writing (condition of the mortgage).
  • 25th March 2015: Letter sent from in-laws to confirm.
  • 25th March 2015: House Insurance arranged (buildings insurance is a condition of the mortgage).
  • 28th March 2015: Go to the 'Homebuilding and Renovating Show' at the NEC!
  • 1st April 2015: Mortgage lender confirms to solicitor that all conditions are met.
  • 2nd April 2015: Solicitor proposes completion date of 17th April to our buyer and The Lodge seller. Our estate agent calls to say our buyer is happy and is telling her solicitors.
  • 7th April 2015: After the longest bank holiday weekend in our entire lives, during which a lot of gardening, packing and storage runs took place, seller confirms the 17th is acceptable to them as a completion date. Solicitor requests mortgage funds from our lender (our lender of choice happens to take 7 working days to release the money, hence the delay to the completion date...).
  • 9th April 2015: Stamp duty and remaining legal fees paid to our solicitor.
  • 10th April 2015: Book van for move day.
  • 13th April 2015: Pop into solicitors and sign old house transfer form.
  • 15th April 2015: Solicitor executes exchange of contracts.
  • 16th April 2015: Pick up van at 5pm. Load garden and most of the garage - take to The Lodge.
  • 17th April 2015: Completion! Load remaining possessions into van, cursory final clean,  get into van, drop off old house keys to estate agent, pick up The Lodge keys from estate agent. Move!
And so the project began...






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