Candice: I’m going to go slightly off piste with today’s post, only because this subject has been occupying me for the last three months and it all came to a rather abrupt end last week.
August – put house on market, October – accept offer on house, November – have offer accepted on another house,December – apply for mortgage. This is when things started to go somewhat awry.
I’m self employed, and in the current world of risk averse banking, that means I am a risk that some mortgage providers don’t want to take. Fine, so I’ll find someone who will.
December 19 – apply for another mortgage via IFA.
Enjoy Christmas break….
January – spend whole month going back and forth with mortgage company and accountant. “Can we have your books in triplicate, signed by the Queen, and from 1787 onwards.” Eventually supply everything after many phonecalls and lots of swearing.
Mid January – “You must complete by Jan 31st else we wont buy your house.” OK, ultimatum from buyers as looks like we are dragging our feet. However, house we want to buy is going through Probate and they have been late applying. “You must sort Probate before Jan 31st, else we want compensation.”
January 21st, “Bugger off we’ll sort Probate out when we feel like it.” Mad dash of trying to find a rental property so we don’t lose our sale. “Sorry, we don’t take cats.”
Finally, we gave up after many tears and heart break, and me feeling like the world was falling apart as we tried to keep it all together to maintain the chain.
Is it me or if the English house buying process a bit f*cked up. Where else can you spend thousands on searches and surveys and then it fall apart at the last hurdle?
I’m sure I’ll find a story in here somewhere but at the moment it is all too raw.
nolanparker 
it is messed up: why else are there people lookng for houses and unable to afford one, while perfectly good houses fall apart from lack of use? A friend of a friend made a home of his own a few years ago for about three thousand pounds. It’s one of the most beautiful houses I’ve seen, so why can’t we do this more?
You can find the house on http://www.simondale.net/hobbit.htm
That house is stunning!
Over to you Nolan. You have found your solution. 🙂
Beautiful house Andy.
Having bought and sold 8 houses in the UK and 1 in France, it is very complicated using a notaire rather than a solicitor. Still, there sounds like there could be at least a short story in the experience.