Buying a home – has your experience been as bad as mine?

For one person to cause so much distress to so many, seems almost criminal. Presumably he/she was able to do this without encountering any legal claim, or by being sued for misdeed. This would seem to be something the legal profession and government and Which should look at. If an offer, made and accepted, is then revoked, this should have repercussions to the revoker since it has repercussions to everyone else amounting to many thousands of pounds. Is this fair? If not, why is it allowed and when can it be stopped?

I suppose it’s all to do with exchange. Until that happens, nothing is binding. Some years ago W? campaigned for the things that take all the time – surveys, etc. – to be done by the seller so that once an offer had been made verbally, exchange could move to within a week of the offer.

I also wonder if an agreement could be drawn up that made an offer made / received binding on both parties to certain maximum – say, 5% of the total price?

Realtors across the pond are qualified to draw up an agreement following acceptance by the vendor of the buyers offer, which then becomes legally binding. A deposit is then paid by the buyer which can only be recovered by a lawyer in exceptional circumstances and involves litigation. Realtors in BC are required to undergo a 6 month training course in property buying and selling, followed by an exam at the end before qualifying.

It is not unusual over there for a vendor to ‘help’ a younger first time buyer out by offering to pay a portion of the deposit if the vendor is looking for a quick sale and a buyer with nothing to sell, which could be replicated here in order to prevent first time buyers going into rented accommodation.

Maybe the British psyche needs a little gentle persuasion to carry out such an altruistic gesture where everyone ultimately benefits – except maybe landlords of course if the demand for private rented property is eased when they would be required by local councils to lower their fees in order to fulfil an enduring need for social housing.

Over the Channel – as opposed to over the pond – we paid 1000euro as the binding deposit which was less than 1% of the asking price. They could have asked for 5% but in this genteel backwater much is done on trust.

The vendeuse had to provide reports on the property. These have to be renewed each year. They ran to about 80 pages each but do not deal with the overall structure. They cover lead, asbestos, certain insects, sewerage, electrics, gas etc.

You have ten days cool-off when you recieve the contract and the reports. This can be quite quickly after making an offer say within a week. Sign and return and then await completion. Suing for failure to complete and retention of the deposit being the penalties for default. In our case as the property was vacant we could have moved in within 2 months. We stretched it into January to make the move easier.

We bought chain free but in the UK this is very much complicated by the need to create chains. There used to be some flex in the system when Banks provided bridging loans to allow chains to be effectively shortened. I think this is an area where much could be done to ease up the market.

I decided to avoid stress and bought a house before selling my home. It was made possible because I don’t live in an expensive area and I had a lump sum from my retirement. I carried on living in my previous house while I did some work on the new one, including improving the lighting and redecorating a study with purple walls. It was completely stress-free and I think it helped to be a cash buyer.

I bought before the additional SDLT on second homes but nowadays it would be necessary to pay this and reclaim it once the original home is sold.

In November 1996 we were moved by a bad remover and received two vans from two separate locations at the same time. We had three small children and moved on a Saturday, whilst I was also getting regular calls from a nurse to tell me that my Mother was dying (about 150 miles away) and would not see the day out. I could not drop everything and go. It doesn’t get much worse than that.

When the vans had gone i drove full speed to my Mother’s house and found her mercifully still alive, but unconscious. It was a comfort that she seemed to revive a little on hearing my voice. She never regained consciousness but lived on for a couple more days.

Just goes to show, a good agent will go over and above to help a sale go through, yet everyone one to go with the cheapest quote they get! It’s your biggest asset!