My kid’s moving out! House buying.

[James]

We put the offer in on Friday, a good 10% less than the asking price…(considering it’s been on the market since September) but we haven’t heard back today…. So either;

1. The sellers are disgusted with the offer, and aren’t responding to such an insult. Or

2. They are seriously thinking about it.

Either way, it’s not a “no”



More thoughts on the plans, and I’m thinking this wall I want to remove is brick….. so structural engineer and an RSJ? Or, is it not actually holding anything up?

View attachment 119477


This space at the window was an outside store… so there has already been a brick wall removed, and RSJ added from the end of the chimney to the top wall…. (Marked grey on plan)
So if that wall (and now RSJ) was supporting joists… is it likely the other wall, which is running perpendicular, isn’t supporting anything? (The red bit)

I should have paid more attention to the floorboards.
Downstairs boards are running front to back… so joists left to right…. Do upstairs boards normally run the same way, or at right angles to the bottom floor?

I may be putting in a partition wall further forward from that position… to the other end of the chimney breast, just to give the kitchen more space… or I might leave it open.

Another thought is that where the outside store was will be a concrete floor…. Rather than floorboards elsewhere…. Then the thought of, could it have been an asbestos ceiling in there?

Home report hasn’t brought that up.

house i am hoping to buy at the moment.
1st offer was 13% under the asking price.
they came back with a figure 9% under the asking price.
we have settled on that.
I might have pushed more but I have a wife that has started to make plans that now can not be upset!!

I dont think your original offer was insulting.

 

[brianmoooore]

For a 50 year old ex council house, im pretty certain the joists will run uniformly left to right downstairs.... but upstairs.... i just have an inkling it goes the other way.... ie front to back

Largest downstairs area is the living room. The span here sets the size of the joists for the whole place, if the upstairs floor and downstairs ceilings are to al be on the same levels.
The room is rectangular and well off of square, so the joists would preferably go across the shortest way, which would allow smaller joists. It looks like there's a load bearing downstairs wall, originally running from front to back, carrying the joists from each side, with a trimmer between what may be double joists, forming the stairwell.
The upstairs floorboards will then, of course, run front to back.

 

[littlespark]

Hey....

I think i updated this story on another thread... but to bring anyone up to speed, we lost out on this property, as the offer was too low. They wanted over the asking price and wouldnt entertain anything less... so we walked.


Fast forward to today, and the property above is still marked as "under offer".... but thats by the by....


We were going to leave it a year or so before she bought a house, but something else cropped up more in her budget... We viewed it tonight.

Upstairs 2 bed flat stretching across 2 shops below.... looks like it used to be 2 upstairs knocked through into 1.
In the town she works in. No garden, no parking... but she can walk to work. Private front door to street, into a hallway, and stair up to the living accomodation. Large living room/ kitchen with all new units... less than 5 years old anyway. 2 bedrooms, and a very nice bathroom.
Would suit her very well...

Question though.... does anyone know of websites that show old plans of buildings? In scotland.

This house has had some work over the years, and theres nothing on the council website about planning applications. The front hall seems to have nothing behind it, but part of the bedroom above ... so my thoughts are it was once an alleyway through to the back. Other houses have been built up around it... so cant see... but have heard theres a courtyard behind accessible from one of the neighbouring shops.

 

[littlespark]

everything is in motion... she's just waiting for her mortgage to be accepted, and she's good to go.

how long are these things supposed to take? i dont remember it taking so long when we bought our first house in 1998.

 

[James]

industry standard for estate agents is 120 days if i remember correctly.

 

[littlespark]

industry standard for estate agents is 120 days if i remember correctly.

That seems an incredibly long period of time.

Mortgage lender seems to be the hold up at the moment. She received a letter from them in the post yesterday, just stating the info that she put down on their online form about a week ago. Nothing to sign, nothing to send back unless there was a mistake.
Her LISA could have a full year on it before this gets settled.

We’ve started stockpiling “gifts” from family and free stuff from Facebook. My storage unit is looking like a cross between an ikea and a charity shop.

What we don’t need is it to finish too quickly. The road outside the flat and most of the town centre is closed for the Jim Clark Rally for a few days… so moving in at that time would be impossible.

 

[UNG]

My daughter bought a house early last year and the conveyancing took about 8 - 9 weeks to completion even with all the questions on how the large deposit was being funded and the having to provide evidence that some of it was inheritance and the rest savings
I think a lot can depend on the chain if there one and whether the solicitors want to get their fingers out and do the job in a timely fashion rather than dragging their heels to justify high costs

 

[littlespark]

Well, luckily there is no chain. It’s my daughter’s first house, and the sellers are offloading an extra property. No one is waiting for anything else to happen.

Just had an email from lender asking for valuers details….
It’s on the flipping sales page of the estate agent. Home report link, containing surveyors credentials, date of survey and valuation for mortgage.
Do your job. Stop asking for things on a Friday…. Because by the time we reply, you’ll be out of office for the weekend, and another weeks gone by with no progress.


Rant over

 

[UNG]

Well, luckily there is no chain. It’s my daughter’s first house, and the sellers are offloading an extra property. No one is waiting for anything else to happen.

Always a plus point but doesn't necessarily mean the process will be any quicker

Just had an email from lender asking for valuers details….
It’s on the flipping sales page of the estate agent. Home report link, containing surveyors credentials, date of survey and valuation for mortgage.
Do your job. Stop asking for things on a Friday…. Because by the time we reply, you’ll be out of office for the weekend, and another weeks gone by with no progress.

Too many people trying to justify their existance and charges these days by asking unnecessary questions when the information they need is already available to them if they choose to look for it. When my daughter was purchasing a house last year they had my details and my wife's details as we had helped with the deposit from the early stages of the process then hours before completion they wanted me to confirm my middle name which was on at least 2 or 3 forms that we had to fill in for the audit trail for the money we gave her so they already had information but clearly needed to know I hadn't changed my middle name in the last 8 weeks

 

[littlespark]

She has the offer of mortgage, other funds in place…. But as the seller is the executors of a deceased person, there’s going to be a little delay on their side of things.

Saying that, solicitor thinks she will be in by the end of the month…. So from acceptance of offer, it has been 6-8 weeks. Which I guess isn’t so bad.

Gives me time to strip my van out of shelving and turn it into a removals van.

 

[pirate]

Nothing moves smoothly in conveyancing in Scotland. It used to be amazing, but for the last 20 years it has just got worse and worse. There are many reasons for this, and the behaviour of lenders and all the money laundering stuff hasn't helped. The biggest problem is that many of the people involved in the process are simply incompetent, and the "lawyers" are the worst element. I include lawyers, para-legals and frankly the quality of service has plummeted.
Yes, there are still some good conveyancing practitioners out there, but they are literally a dying breed...or at least they are all at retiring age now. A good friend asked me recently if I could recommend a decent lawyer given my 40 years in the profession. I said "no"....indeed I wouldn't know where to look myself these days, it's just pot-luck. Avoid the corporates like the plague and use a small, local firm... if you can find one.

 

[littlespark]

We are finding that out very fast, Pirate.
We bought our first house in Dundee in ‘98, and it didn’t take this long.

I get the feeling the solicitors are prioritising the sales that are part of chains…. Whereas we are less urgent on both sides. No other houses to sell, no other houses to buy.
It’s just the probate on the sellers part now.

 

[littlespark]

Just a little side note on the title of this thread….

“My kids moving out!”

By October, there will be none left!

Eldest is in South Korea, middle one is the one buying this flat, and the youngest heads up to Aberdeen uni in September.

Just gonna be me and the wife. Empty nest x 3

 

[westward10]

Result how many years have you been counting down the days

 

[littlespark]

Result how many years have you been counting down the days

Youngest is 18 in September…. So she’s having a very dry freshers week before her birthday.
I’m sure she will make up for it the week after though.