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| "Having the benefit of readily accessible bacon..."? |
This is a short piece on the perils
involved in moving house; far away from the daily nonsense about leaving the EU - which in real terms we won't - it was the fact I am in the process of house
hunting and this article that brought this on...
The article is a simple rehash of proposals
made many times about simplifying the transaction process and as before, little
meaningful will be achieved.
Do I have the credentials to write anything
on this matter ? Probably more than almost anyone, would be my answer. For
reasons never explained, each time I have moved or attempted to move house I have somehow found myself the guinea pig to all the nefarious items that can
arise during the process.
Without detailing all, it started with our
first move when after exchanging contracts we were told two hours later we had
a “problem”: our contract had been posted and the vendor of the house we were
buying had changed her mind and phoned her solicitor who told her he still had
the contracts in the office and would not send them if that was what she
wanted. All legal in those pre-electronic days, but we were effectively homeless
and all with no redress, a rare event even then but it gives a fair insight
into what has followed.
You name it and it has happened to us and
that includes incompetent solicitors, two of whom we have had to take to court
for redress when they failed to do the job we paid them for. So yes, I am
qualified to have an opinion on the whole process.
Government action in this area is bound up
with vested interests: the Commons is stuffed with legal representatives of all
colours. They have no reason to simplify the house moving process as they will
lose money. In fairness - and I don’t like being fair to solicitors - they don’t
earn much from a straightforward conveyance, which probably accounts for the
number of errors and over-sights we have encountered; giving our house
conveyance to the office junior and not checking has consequences.
The only government attempt at reform was
the disastrous HIPS pack that took four years to clear Parliament and came with
more holes than the Titanic. Again as I pointed out to my useless MP at the
time, if the Commons stuffed with legal eagles could not in four years issue a
document on the simple ? matter of house purchase there had to be a reason and it would not be
a reason acceptable to the public if revealed. He didn’t like that; they never
do.
Estate agents, that merry breed of winkle-pickered, tight-trousered and -waistcoated, size-too-small-suited and (in modern
times) mainly bearded individuals, also have a large part to play in the process. They are of course supposed to work for you, the person who pays their
commission fee, but that will only apply with an easy (i.e. no work involved) sale. As soon as things go wrong - wrong meaning a slow sale for a variety of reasons - you will find them working for themselves: no sale no commission, so they get you to
lower your price after four weeks on the market , start telling prospective
buyers behind your back you will take an offer much lower than the asking price
and start to tell you of all the factors
your now rubbish property has that is affecting the sale and why the price
should be dropped further. They have no interest in you, the payer of their
commission, only in getting it off the books, whatever.
I am convinced that the ‘feedback’ one has
to endure is part of the wearing down process: the conveying of a viewer's
opinion on your house is pointless. "Garden too big" - what am I supposed to do? Didn’t they read the brochure? "Too many front steps" - you can count them in the
photos. "Dogs can get out" - my problem? Endless drivel that you could do nothing
about even if you wanted to and you can add the comments of those professional
viewers to whom house viewing is a weekend pastime: they never actually buy
anything, just look and say whatever comes into their heads when asked about the
place. It is all a wearing down process, that is if you let or are new to the
game; personally I now state I do not want any feedback other than when someone
makes an offer.
There are certain elements to selling that
are very difficult to assess. A good example in the rare event of several offers
is the “cash buyer”: there is no way anyone can prove that a buyer is in that
position, it puts him at the head of queue as regards offers for obvious reasons
and can demand a premium discount for that; but I have had a so-called cash
buyer who - when it came to the crunch and everyone was wondering why the sale
was slow - turned out to be negotiating a mortgage. I was not happy but you are
then a long way down the train of events and are you on principle going to tell
him he lied and get on his bike? Nonetheless there should be a way of verifying
a person's status; agents claim they can, my experience says they can’t.
The late discovery of an alleged structural
problem is another offer-reducing tactic. Despite having had a survey, at the
last minute there is a query on your drains! Or "Do you really own that
boundary fence?" Anything to delay and hopefully get a further discount. None of
this should happen if the survey has been done and dusted and the searches
completed; that should be it, but often it isn’t.
Never get involved in leaving deposits to
cover a perceived eventuality discovered at the last moment. Most minor
problems of that sort if real can be covered by a simple insurance. If a cash
deposit is asked for you can guarantee you will see none of it again despite
your own solicitor's guarantee you will - got caught with that one myself and the
solicitor totally failed in his duty to keep tabs on it, a story in itself; they are only interested in getting the conveyance off the books.
The one thing that has never been addressed
in house buying and selling is having a deposit system whereby when someone
makes an offer a deposit is given so that in the event of a buyer pulling out the
vendor will not be out of pocket in any way. Why should he? He will have
incurred costs by that stage and wasted time. It is the buyer's choice to
pull out so he should suffer the costs. This is not of course in relation to
survey findings and the like, just the change of mind syndrome. This was once
actually proposed but a myriad of dubious reasons came up and it was dropped; again there was no interest in protecting the innocent party.
It would also stop an awful lot of chain
break downs caused by one party wanting to bail out on a whim, as often happens. Many people out there treat house buying as a game; it isn’t.
There have been many attempts (and that is
all they were) to shorten the time it takes from offer made to exchange and
moving in. Many excuses for the drawn out process are made but all are
spurious. During the late eighties property boom houses in London were sold and
completed by specialist solicitors in less than 48 hours. Yes you had to pay
for a lot of running about getting documentation, but it was proved to be
possible, so why the long-winded performance we put up with. Is it another
example of being seen to be earning the fee by the time spent on the job?
Gazumping and gazundering should not be
allowed, - how many times have we heard that? Yet the position remains that until
the exchange actually takes place both practices can be employed, usually at
the last moment when someone who is desperate to get the whole thing over and
done with will capitulate and accept the lower price or be told they will have
to stump up more than agreed as another party has emerged (or not) from the
woodwork.
The "other offer" ploy is also used by agents
when selling. It can be true but how can you know? I had it used a week ago on
a property I was viewing: “We have had a lot of interest and two offers on this
property, Sir.” So why have you still got it on the market, I asked, are two offers
not enough? Silence; the owner who was present told me later there had been
interest but no offers. At times like that you can really build up an intense
dislike of the estate agent class.
And there lies another problem. Over many years listening and being involved with what is basically a seriously
flawed and corrupt system one does become cynical with a big “C”; estate agents' words and blurb, solicitors “solutions”, all are received with an incredulity as
to their worth.
So how is the current move going, you ask. Not good at the moment and we have run out of houses to view. There is a
shortage of what we want on the market so our sale is in jeopardy. Not for the
first time we may have to start over.
Of course many will ask, why do you keep
moving. That is another story. Many moves have been simply because of changing circumstances,not necessarily choice. The only thing that helps with
all this is I do not get attached to the property I am in; only once did I feel
a pang of remorse when leaving a house. As long as the place suits it will be
my home whilst I am there, I do not put down roots; just as well!
I have told before about the image at the top of this piece. It appeared in an estate agent's listing by mistake (?) The photographer took the picture after the house was put up for sale; it
was not intended for the house details, but for a short time it found its way
onto the site. Yet I had been told about this pig in the house long before that
sale came about, as my plumber had been called to the property/sty to do some
work there and saw said pig in situ. The world is a wonderful place...
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