Quote from: Leon on 01 February 2021, 09:40:10 AM
Wow, that's quite a skill.  I'm tempted to post loads of pictures of random buildings now and see if you can find them...!   

The first one, (the new gaff), was free. Other needs paying for! 

Quote from: andys on 02 February 2021, 05:56:30 PM
The first one, (the new gaff), was free. Other needs paying for! 

Nah, after the bank have cleaned us out for this deposit there won't be anything left!

Just to update on this, we're still waiting for the banks and solicitors to get everything worked out and get this finalised for us.  It's strange how often they seem to be surprised at their own processes and suddenly realise they need something from me or the sellers...   

My wife's an estate agent. Every night she comes home with tales of woe about how absolutely useless solicitors are.

Pro tip: If there's any sort of hold-up in your house purchase, >98% chance it's because of a solicitor somewhere.

Quote from: Raider4 on 19 March 2021, 08:23:40 PM
Pro tip: If there's any sort of hold-up in your house purchase, >98% chance it's because of a solicitor somewhere.

I think you're right there!  We've been telling them for 4 months that we need to complete by the end of March but now that we're getting to that date they all seem shocked that we need some urgency from them.

Imo., a lot of solicitors are a bunch of chancers. On at least three occasions, I can cite examples where I ran rings around them on their lack of knowledge. Often as not, you are dealing with unqualified, underpaid individuals and not the actual qualified solicitors within the firm. Once you escalate things, they will cave in and things will start to happen.

Quote from: Raider4 on 19 March 2021, 08:23:40 PM
My wife's an estate agent. Every night she comes home with tales of woe about how absolutely useless solicitors are.

Pro tip: If there's any sort of hold-up in your house purchase, >98% chance it's because of a solicitor somewhere.

Estate Agents Vs Solicitors.

Harry Hill might say "There's only one way to decide this - FIGHT!!!!!

We would ask "OK, but what rules?"

Rules, what rules

We just moved house yesterday. It's been a long old process with the first house falling through and having to move quickly on a second lest we lose our buyer.

Our solicitor was great, a family friend and very attentive and communicative, but he gave off numerous times about how poor the other three sets of solicitors were to deal with. Slow to respond, not sending things through, weeks without replying, never returning calls... Seems to be s common theme. Lot of kids handling accounts they've no experience with. Was literally the evening before the move when all the bits were actually in place so we knew for sure we could go. Then dealing with the mortgage company from my old mortgage was a nightmare (thankfully new mortgage company is much more efficient).

Can sympathise with your plight, but hope it all comes into place for you! Just keep on at them as often as it takes to move things on. And the estate agents can sometimes apply pressure too if someone is dragging their feet.

Good news, Matthew ! 

Steve....Hope you get sorted soon !

We were SO lucky with our last sale.

The buyer paid us up front.....and said we could stay in the old home for almost as long as we liked.....(a month rent free...and he'd only start charging rent after that month)...while we looked for our next home...The current Techno Towers.

The buyer was a pretty wealthy neighbour, who didn't want to see a group of houses built on our old home's land.
After he'd paid us, Von started looking on the 'net'.....found three or four potentials, with this place 'the favourite'... after that she drove over here on a recce.
Made an offer on this place....accepted...so the wheels were set in motion...Really fast result.
Before it was all sorted out, Von asked.."Do you want to go and have a look at the place ?"......"Nah...if you like it, I'm sure I will".
I'd never seen Techno Towers until the day we moved.
Von WAS fairly bothered that I wouldn't like it on the day we drove over...

The only iffy thing that happened on the day of the move, was the removal  firm telling us that they wouldn't be delivering any of our stuff until the next day...So we ended up sleeping on the sofa and chairs that we'd bought from the previous owners.

Cheers - Phil

My mums a lawyer.
She's a bloody good one. Even if the family can't stand her. She gets it done.
She always says that to get things done phone at 9.30 each and every morning. Even if you don't need to. It annoys them and keeps you in the loop. Why 9.30? Lawyers get flooded with family/marriage issues at 9 each morning, and will prioritise those.
Then ask for the complaint forms...

They say an unrepresentative 99% of lawyers get the rest a bad reputation.

Quote from: FierceKitty on 20 March 2021, 08:47:13 AM
They say an unrepresentative 99% of lawyers get the rest a bad reputation.

As few as that !

I've less experience than many of you, but have had good results by applying the same rules as I would for any other hired professional; from roofer to datacentre construction manager.

* Figure out what you want/need in advance, write it down and try to not make changes once they've started work.
* Ask for a written quote on price and completion date.
* Ask for regular updates (Could be daily, weekly, or when certain milestones have been achieved), this could be a phone-call, a brief email update, or a face to face (mask to mask?) if it's a long and complex business.
* Demand to know immediately if events (dear boy) affect the timeline, or viability of the plan.

It all sounds a bit official, but with preparation, you can squeeze your requirements and expectations into that initial 30 minute meeting.

On the other hand, some people are just useless at organising things, others delegate to the cheapest employee in the office (who ought to be photocopying and making tea).
On that subject, why does every 3 person office have an industrial strength photocopier the size of a range cooker?
The sort that would happily serve a building with 500 staff.

Quote from: mmcv on 20 March 2021, 06:59:51 AM
Can sympathise with your plight, but hope it all comes into place for you! Just keep on at them as often as it takes to move things on. And the estate agents can sometimes apply pressure too if someone is dragging their feet.

I'm emailing daily at the moment trying to get them to do something.  It's the lack of any structured process that I can't fathom?  They do this thing hundreds of times a year but no-one can provide me with an itemised flowchart of what to expect and what will be needed.  Had we been given something to work with I could have got 90% of the last-minute queries dealt with months ago.

Quote from: Lord Speedy of Leighton on 20 March 2021, 08:23:54 AM
She always says that to get things done phone at 9.30 each and every morning. Even if you don't need to. It annoys them and keeps you in the loop. Why 9.30? Lawyers get flooded with family/marriage issues at 9 each morning, and will prioritise those.
Then ask for the complaint forms...

I'll start doing that on Monday, definitely.  Most of the time when I ring him it just goes to answerphone and I have to leave messages but someone else from his firm got involved on Friday so I'll be ringing them as well. 

Quote from: steve_holmes_11 on 20 March 2021, 09:55:30 AM
* Figure out what you want/need in advance, write it down and try to not make changes once they've started work.
* Ask for a written quote on price and completion date.
* Ask for regular updates (Could be daily, weekly, or when certain milestones have been achieved), this could be a phone-call, a brief email update, or a face to face (mask to mask?) if it's a long and complex business.
* Demand to know immediately if events (dear boy) affect the timeline, or viability of the plan.

It all sounds a bit official, but with preparation, you can squeeze your requirements and expectations into that initial 30 minute meeting.

That's one of the annoying things from our end because we had that chat with everyone at the beginning and they all told us that it would be complete and done by mid-Feb, as our rental contract was due to end on the 31st Mar.  When the bank started dragging their feet a bit I got an extension from our landlord through to 30th Apr, just to give us some cover in case things took longer.  The timescales have been communicated to all of them throughout and here we are now, a week from our target completion date and still no end in sight.

The trouble is that we need at least 5 weeks to move into the new place.  We need 2 weeks to kit it out with new rooms, wiring, workstations, etc.  Then another 2 weeks to bring all of the machines, moulds and stock over from Pendraken, get phone lines installed, etc.  And then 1 final week to redecorate and restore the current unit before we give the keys back.  I've squeezed those timeframes as much as possible and dropped a few plans from the schedule but I don't have any leeway left now.  We can't get another extension on the rental either as they've got new tenants ready to move straight in, so all I can do now is badger these lazy bar-stewards on a daily basis and look forward to a lot of 14-hour shifts if we don't get completed on the 26th.