Posts Tagged ‘Boxes’

HIPs are dead. A new Government is in place. Power to the People seems to be high on the agenda. The Economy is stuttering forward. Our football team ….. well, enough said! What now?

Over the last few months I have helped and overseen my Parents sell their home of 48 years standing and buy a home down-market. The key areas I want to talk about include —-

1. Choosing an Estate Agent
2. Deciding what information, and in what form, we could produce to help speed a sale through.
3. The Solicitors and dealing with buyers in the chain.

Being a local Surveyor/Valuer all the Agents wanted my Parents instruction. I advised my Parents after considering who would be buying their home and matching that “profile” to the sales record and “typical profile” of each Agency. A sole agency was agreed and a marketing strategy and what advertising would be completed. That was fairly easy but it did emphasis to me that all Estate Agencies are different and use differing tactics and skills to package themselves in order to obtain selling instructions. We ignored those tactics and looked under the surface to see what real skills each Agent had. We were not displeased with our final choice – in fact the Agent was simply brilliant throughout.

Next my Parents and I sat down and filtered through vast amounts of paperwork collected over 48 years. We defined several key documents that our own Solicitors would need – Planning Permissions and related Building Regulation Control Approvals with original Plans, Guarantees etc…. Again, this was easy.

Legal FORMS duly arrived and my Parents had to tick boxes for this and that and decide what was staying and what was to be taken away with them (not always easy to decide).

Eventually, and quite quickly because we had the price right to achieve a disposal, a buyer was found: in fact the whole chain was only three properties long and the top end was “empty”. Simple? No, not quite.

The chain was assembled quickly. What then did not happen was all three Solicitors meeting to decide a plan to achieve a simple and pain free transaction and to then inform the home owners of that plan and what to do if things became problematic. Instead a date was set for exchange and only at that point did all documents get a thorough scrutiny. That scrutiny revealed that elderly Parents had missed ticking that their home had mains gas and electricity (heating was via mains gas and the utility room is dominated by a floor standing large gas boiler and flue plus the Estate Agent details state all mains services are connected + the home has light fittings and power sockets for electrical gear). My Parents buyer and legal adviser could not accept the risk that my Parents home may not have these services and exchange was delayed until they could tick the boxes and return the Form.

Next came the Tree.

Now this is a fairly massive Wellingtonia that pre-dates the house by about 100 years. It is well within “influencing distance” of the house and drains and because its roots were causing damage to the public road outside my Parents house I declared that problem to the buyer whilst also pointing out the only cracking (minor) to the house.

The buyer chose to not have any private survey completed because the house was going to be adapted, expected and very significantly refurbished after detailed Planning Permission and Building Control applications were passed.

My Parents had no knowledge of buying and selling and were highly nervous of what to expect with each solicitor delay the degree of stress increased. The delays experienced were for many causes, including some via my Parents lack of knowledge and understanding.

The house my parents were buying was empty and when exchange of contracts was finally agreed they wanted to get Builders in to complete fairly minor works such a new Sink, one room to be redecorated, minor re-wiring, etc…. but the sellers only gave us a few days to arrange and complete this. This meant that when my elderly Parents actually occupied they went into a bombsite rather than a nice interior adapted to their medical needs.

I am not ranting here: this is not a witch-hunt. Instead I am trying to square the actions and needs of many people and comparing this with the service levels we received from several sources and attempting to ask and answer “is this how people should treat each other in this new century?”.

I have not mentioned the story of how one Agent nearly sold my Parents another home only to see that Agent shot themselves in the foot and those actions costing my parents several hundred pounds is abortive fees. Indeed, the above overview only details main events – many tales of delay and outright stupidity staggered me then and now.

HIPs were poorly designed and lacked the one thing that could have added true value to data exchange – a seller survey that the buyer could rely upon and sue if found to be bias or inaccurate.

In my simple, humble opinion, many changes are needed to regulate buying/selling and to put service levels and common sense at the heart of things.

Buyers must prove they have approved/sufficient funds available before any sale can be agreed. Yes, this means Mortgage Certificates need to be introduced coupled with a professional assessment of what value that persons existing home may achieve shortly. By this method an Agent and Seller could assess the real, effective buyers.

Agent Details should be of greater detail and anything printed thereon should be guaranteed (honest errors excepted) by that Agent before they can market any home. HIPs had a high legal content but the data was presented in a gooble-de-gook way. Environmental Data was similarly presented such that at one stage my own business was getting multiple phone calls each week from buyers asking for a translation service! If the usual legal Forms were also prepared by sellers, and checked/verified by solicitors, BEFORE the home reached the market then the period between “offered accepted” and “exchange” would greatly shortened and both hassle and red-tape would be reduced.

I do not hold to the view that this causes unnecessary costs and delays to marketing homes. Of course I am biased in favour of seller surveys but the over “greater good” is served if such changes were made. It just cries out to me that the existing selling system we have reverted to simply panders to the Agents rather serving the client, the great British Public, buyers and sellers.

Mortgage Lenders and Solicitors plus my own controlling body, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors have a great deal to answer for in turning the defunct HIP opportunity to achieve real social change into a farce that was eventually scraped. If the public truly believes our current house buying system and both Agency and Legal service standards are adequate then, like Diego Maradona, I will run naked through the streets of my home town.

I would love the hear your views if you have recently bought and/or sold your home and especially if you had problems that required solutions to be found.