The nervous wait to exchange....

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Ah amazing! We're expecting our house demo to be next week. Waiting on a phone call this week to confirm it has all been signed off by the NHBC.

I assume you had to do the same, do you know how long that took? We've been in the house once so far and that was a few weeks ago to have a look around but it will be nice to see it finished with all of our choices

Yeah, same process. Sign off by NHBC and the developer's site manager, obviously had to be booked up in advance. It was about a week after the NHBC sign off we got our 2 week legal notice (e.g. completion 2 weeks after that date).

We were told we could go inside, but because of Covid, we'd have to provide our own PPE and didn't have any of it, so seemed like a bit of a waste for the sake of an hour...
 
Soldato
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Yeah, same process. Sign off by NHBC and the developer's site manager, obviously had to be booked up in advance. It was about a week after the NHBC sign off we got our 2 week legal notice (e.g. completion 2 weeks after that date).

We were told we could go inside, but because of Covid, we'd have to provide our own PPE and didn't have any of it, so seemed like a bit of a waste for the sake of an hour...

We were told that it should have been happening from the start of this week so I suppose we just have to wait and see. So I presume, if all goes well, we should get our 10 day notice some time next week, if all goes to plan at least.


Yeah I know what you mean, I wasn't really sure of the point of going but my partner wanted to go so I had no choice! It was just him pointing to empty rooms and saying a few bits and bobs. Nothing crucial. They provided PPE for us though.
 
Soldato
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Pretty sure the NHBC guy will stand outside the house and sign it off without even setting foot inside! :D
That's basically all i was expecting. Some bloke (it's 2020 so could well be a lady. How rude of me) with a clipboard standing outside, inhaling through his teeth because of the time and just says "Yeah, why not, it'll do"
 
Soldato
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That's basically all i was expecting. Some bloke (it's 2020 so could well be a lady. How rude of me) with a clipboard standing outside, inhaling through his teeth because of the time and just says "Yeah, why not, it'll do"

True I should not assume anything!

I can't stress this enough but go around everything with a fine tooth comb when you move in, because they will not accept damage claims for things like scratches or dents after 14 days since you moved in.

One of my kitchen cabinets had a small dent in it and I didn't realise until later, clearly they'd damaged it when putting the washing machine in, but I could not get them to agree with me on that one.
 
Associate
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True I should not assume anything!

I can't stress this enough but go around everything with a fine tooth comb when you move in, because they will not accept damage claims for things like scratches or dents after 14 days since you moved in.

One of my kitchen cabinets had a small dent in it and I didn't realise until later, clearly they'd damaged it when putting the washing machine in, but I could not get them to agree with me on that one.

Missus has booked a professional snagging company. They apparently use lots of tech, like thermal imaging to see if the insulation has been done properly, etc. Stuff you couldn't do on your own, so seemed worthwhile and took the hassle out of it. For the sake of a few hundred quid on a purchase of a few hundred thousand..
 
Soldato
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Missus has booked a professional snagging company. They apparently use lots of tech, like thermal imaging to see if the insulation has been done properly, etc. Stuff you couldn't do on your own, so seemed worthwhile and took the hassle out of it. For the sake of a few hundred quid on a purchase of a few hundred thousand..

Yeah potentially worth it, and they can help give you a list of things to give to the developer as well. Although I am pretty sure the developers hate seeing lists from professional snaggers because part of their business model is to hope people don't notice faults!

Rather than forwarding them a list you may want to write them up as if you found things, and say a family member is a surveyor or something if it looks too in-depth for you to have picked up on things.
 

Jez

Jez

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Rather than forwarding them a list you may want to write them up as if you found things, and say a family member is a surveyor or something if it looks too in-depth for you to have picked up on things.
Out of interest why would you wish to save face like this when it comes to dealing with a developer?

I'd not be ashamed of using a professional at all, and i'd be extremely difficult with them if they didnt take a professional snagging list seriously. Don't forget that they are making a huge margin if you are buying one of their newbuilds, it should be absolutely perfect, you are paying a big premium for a brand new turn key product. You are not buying from a nice old lady whom you'd not wish to offend....
 
Soldato
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Out of interest why would you wish to save face like this when it comes to dealing with a developer?

I'd not be ashamed of using a professional at all, and i'd be extremely difficult with them if they didnt take a professional snagging list seriously. Don't forget that they are making a huge margin if you are buying one of their newbuilds, it should be absolutely perfect, you are paying a big premium for a brand new turn key product. You are not buying from a nice old lady whom you'd not wish to offend....

Well I bought from Linden homes (now Vistry) and they were shoddy regardless! :mad:
 
Soldato
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I think snags are to be expected really. It's just how they end up dealing with them. The snags on my friends house on the same estate were fixed pretty quickly.

For comparison my cousins house from Taylor Wimpey which was north of £600k had hundreds of snags and some took almost a year to get remedied.

Though my cousin didn't mind too much as they forgot to charge him for the upgrades so he wasn't too upset.
 
Soldato
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Sellers are in a hurry and don't want to have to redo contracts etc with a reduced amount, so have proposed just paying the remediation cost separately. I don't have a problem in principal, but can anyone recommend an escrow service?
 
Soldato
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Sellers are in a hurry and don't want to have to redo contracts etc with a reduced amount, so have proposed just paying the remediation cost separately. I don't have a problem in principal, but can anyone recommend an escrow service?

Can't the solicitors work that out? Agreement between your solicitor and there's to release the funds back to you on completion?

I did something like that when I sold my last place, wasn't much money but they held some money back from my side and released it to the buyer later.
 
Soldato
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Can't the solicitors work that out? Agreement between your solicitor and there's to release the funds back to you on completion?

I did something like that when I sold my last place, wasn't much money but they held some money back from my side and released it to the buyer later.

Actually, just spoke to solicitor and they said they can do this, and put it through as an 'allowance' and just hold it back from the transaction while keeping all the transaction value the same. Ta!
 
Soldato
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I think snags are to be expected really. It's just how they end up dealing with them. The snags on my friends house on the same estate were fixed pretty quickly.

For comparison my cousins house from Taylor Wimpey which was north of £600k had hundreds of snags and some took almost a year to get remedied.

Though my cousin didn't mind too much as they forgot to charge him for the upgrades so he wasn't too upset.

The key difference to me between TW (my current house is a TW) and Linden was the level of care given.

If you look at the trustpilot for TW they at least seem to have claimed their review page, and they respond to negative feedback: https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.taylorwimpey.co.uk

Linden homes don't and they have really bad feeback: https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/lindenhomes.co.uk

That small difference to me speaks volumes really. If Linden were any good they'd be trying to fix their deep underlying issues from top to bottom. All they really showed me was various levels of incompetency.

I have lots of examples but one example I can give you to show the ineptness is as follows:

After a long battle I finally got Linden to agree to come and look at a job for me that needed doing. Before that date they added another few smaller jobs to the list. On the day they showed up, they dealt with the smaller things but didn't even have the original job on their planner for the day (the main reason they were even booked in to begin with!).
 
Soldato
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All I can say is hopefully I don't get a similar experience that you have got - fingers crossed for me.

I'm just not that worried as I've had a year or so to see how my friends on the estate have been dealt with.
 
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Buying a house is a nightmare!

Currently own a 2 bed terrace which we are remortgaging to a buy-to-let and raising capital to purchase a 4 bed semi. We used a broker to assist in this and was told there wouldn't be an issue with what we wanted. Advised on both mortgages and got the ball rolling.

After a delayed valuation on our new property and then a 10 working day wait after the valuation we were told the mortgage we were applying for was no longer available and needed to find just £10k extra. Luckily, we were able to do this and finally got a mortgage offer on our new house.

The broker informed us that the buy-to-let mortgage would be approved when we had our other mortgage offer in place. Unfortunately, the buy-to-let mortgage company undervalued our house and we aren't able to raise enough capital. They did a remote valuation on our current house and it's £30k below a near identical house that sold near us recently. Just waiting as the broker has asked them to get a surveyor to value. Stupidly, I've already paid for a Building/Structural survey on the new house as I thought the buy-to-let was a given. Told them to hold off until we can secure an offer. We also have tenants lined up for more than we thought we'd get in rent though they've been made aware by the letting agents that there could be a delay. Stress stress stress.

The sellers on our new house accepted £10k under asking as there was no chain and were eager to move asap, oops!
 
Associate
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The key difference to me between TW (my current house is a TW) and Linden was the level of care given.

If you look at the trustpilot for TW they at least seem to have claimed their review page, and they respond to negative feedback: https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.taylorwimpey.co.uk

Linden homes don't and they have really bad feeback: https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/lindenhomes.co.uk

That small difference to me speaks volumes really. If Linden were any good they'd be trying to fix their deep underlying issues from top to bottom. All they really showed me was various levels of incompetency.

I have lots of examples but one example I can give you to show the ineptness is as follows:

After a long battle I finally got Linden to agree to come and look at a job for me that needed doing. Before that date they added another few smaller jobs to the list. On the day they showed up, they dealt with the smaller things but didn't even have the original job on their planner for the day (the main reason they were even booked in to begin with!).

There are Linden and Bovis on the same development we bought on. Glad we didn't get one from them! Ours is with Bloor, who seem to do pretty well - https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/bloorhomes.com
 
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