Currently buying/selling a house? How is it going? READ MOD NOTE POST #1

Yep, would agree with this. We're at the start of a short enough chain (us, our vendors and our vendors vendors), and all of us are private buyers, with us being the only FTBs. All the buyers/vendors are screaming to get this done, all the delays that have happened were with banks and solicitors dragging their feet.

Has anyone tried to get a surveyor in Dublin recently?

When we went SA this week the agent asked us to “arrange the survey within one week to avoid delays with the sale”. However our preferred (and the banks’s recommended) surveyor isn’t available for three weeks. We won’t be around the week after next anyway and would like to meet the surveyor to chat at the end of their time in the house. In addition, the vendor is doing some work on the property and it would be great if the surveyor saw it finished. So it would definitely suit our side to wait the three weeks.

Is it seen as too long by the agents/vendors to wait three weeks from SA for the survey? A little anxious about it as don’t want to put the sale in jeopardy either.

Second query is - does anyone have any knowledge that surveyors are subject to longer timelines at the moment? Maybe it’s the pandemic?

Thanks all.

After over 3 years and 150+ house viewings, I finally got keys today. Crazy process but worth it. Thank for all the help here. Great thread.

That's standard estate agent speak to try and move the sale along as quickly as possible. They don't get paid until the sale goes through. From what you said you should wait until the vendor has completed the work and your surveyor is available. The vendor's solicitor could start preparing the contracts in the meantime.

The survey may bring up planning concerns which you solicitor might want to raise queries on, so that's why it's good to do the survey as early as you can, but also you want to make sure it's done right and you get all the information you can from it.

I'm sure your solicitors (and the vendor's) will come up with a thousand reasons not to, but maybe you could organise a group conf call - Zoom or whatever - with all four parties on it together, so there can be no excuse for one side claiming to not know what's going on?

If everything's working properly, that approach makes sense - let the experienced professionals handle everything, rather than unqualified amateurs (i.e. the ordinary punters like thee and me, who being honest wouldn't know as much) getting involved. Also keeps the emotions out of it.

BUT when you clearly have at least one, if not both, solicitors dragging their heels, such that the entire sale is at risk; and at least one, if not both, telling fibs, then someone somewhere has to bash heads - it sounds like it's the solicitors' own fault that the buyer and vendor are having to cross-check with each other and work out what's going on! They've blown any justification for the 'just leave it to us' argument.

Woohoo, managed to figure out how to do two quotes on new boards. A win.

Just an update on this - thanks for the advice. Spoke to the agent today re: the survey delays and of course it's not an issue, the agent said they are all on holidays at the moment. It was really worth losing sleep over all weekend. 😂

Cut

As far as I know when we initially viewed the house they had a house already lined up but I don't know what the status is now. A query has gone from our solicitors to theirs so waiting to hear back now.

Just gone sale agreed on property after years of searching! Had a structural survey carried out by property health check - report was provided to PTSB who have picked up on some minor cracking on exterior walls. Second Hand Home built in 1930s - surveyor said this is common in houses of this age however bank have asked "We will require further information on this and details of associated costs to remedy these works and written confirmation the subject property is structurally sound before we can proceed further here."

I've already paid a surveyor to tell us the house was structural sound so anyone know what my options are here or anyone had this scenario before?

You could ask your surveyor if they are willing to write that letter but they'll probably charge you for it. I think your solicitor should raise it with the vendor as an issue identified by your surveyor and the vendor should pay a surveyor to have it certified. That way if there is an issue in the future and the vendor's architect was found to be wrong then a claim could be made against their professional liability insurance. I don't think you should pay for it.

Sale agreed since early June, Estate agent says contracts were due first week of August, still no sign, estate agent ghosting us... Should we be worried? Buying in Galway if that helps

We've been attempting to sell (3 bed) and buy (4/5 bed) in South Dublin since March this year. We previously we're sale agreed on both sides of this chain, but it fell apart due to the vendors of the house we were looking for thinking they'd get more €€€ going back to the market in the late summer. We lost our purchasers as a result as we felt we could not go through with the sale without having a place to move into. Since then, it has proved very hard to find a buyer for our place; admittedly the asking price went up to just under the amount we were previously sale agreed at, which I'm sure has put some people off. But it just seems like things are much quieter now for certain properties, in March there was a bidding frenzy for our place! And we've viewed a few places recently in the €800k-€950k range with zero bids (and haven't place any bids ourselves for that matter, as we don't see any value), while other places in the same price range but slightly different locations see bidding wars. Feels like the market is a little in flux.

It's 20k or a 9% increase over 220k. If you think 220k is reasonable then imo it's a bit of a stretch to call 240k ridiculous. That 20k could easily get eaten up by rent or the prices could climb to 260 or 280 while you're waiting.

In other words if you consider it reasonable at 220k and you can get it for 240k, I'd go for it. OTOH if these apts are really too small for you then you'd be wasting your money at 220k or 240k or even 200k.