Hels

Some of you know our situation already, but for those that dont, basically I am an Aussie married to a Brit. His father passed away earlier this year and as we get half of the proceeds of the sale of the house, we are planning on moving back to Oz to live.

Now, we had a buyer for the house and within 3 weeks of the agreed completion date she pulled out. We had all of our personal belongings packed up with the shippers on the day she pulled out. We had had our farewell party the weekend before she pulled out. Hubby has put his notice in to finish at the end of this month. I finished work last month. We have booked the tickets to leave UK on 14/9 to spend 2 weeks in Florida on the way home.

My hubby is the administrator of his fathers estate. There is also my hubby's sister as a beneficiary of the estate. Everything will be split down the middle at the end.

We have pretty much given up any hope of finding another buyer and completing before the 14/9. So for the last week we had resigned ourselves to the fact that we will be stuck here for a few more months, potentially.

However, after a suggestion from a good friend tonight....Why couldnt we leave when we initially said? We have a bit of money to take with us this end. We have money in the bank in Oz already. Will be staying with my family for as long as either we can stand it or we buy a house, which ever comes first.

Has anyone else done a sale of a house from abroad? Is there anything we should consider before we make the decision to leave? I am trying to cover as many possibilities or problems to try and be prepared if we do decide to go....

Any help or advice will be gratefully received....

Hels
xxx

hevs

Hi Hels, buyers are pond life arn't they

Same thing happened to us, twice! In the end we just thought eff it, we're off!
Put everything in the hands of our agents and solicitor and legged it! It was very liberating, but very scary at the same time.

On the day of completion we kept looking at out account on line and i bet you lot heard the yell of elation over there when the money went in.

All in all we had no hassel, just some very chewed nails :scared:

I guess the only advice is to make sure you sigh everything before you go and check that theres enough money to pay bills etc while the property sells. Good luck

ABCDiamond

Hels

I've sold UK property from Australia before, and it wasn't any problem. All you need is a good solicitor, and sign a form before you go, giving them Power of Attorney to sign everything for you.

Remember to tell them which bank account the proceeds are to go to.

Hels

BM & ABC

I cant tell you how good your posts have made me feel......

Just knowing that it is a possibility has put a smile back on my face that I havent had for a week now.....

Will call the Solicitor and Agent tomorrow and make some enquiries and set the ball a rollin'

I can, again, see the light at the end of the tunnel!!

Weeeeeeeeeeeee.....I'm goin home!!!!!!!!!

[insert that little dancing man that we no longer have access to]

hevs

Who's BM???

Hels

Oh crap!!

I was reading another thread before this one and Badgersmount had posted on it....Hevs, I'm sorry....

If ya forgive me....I'll........I'll........ummmm.....give ya loads of karma???

Badge

Can I have some too?

BM

Hels

I have already!!! I tried again and got this;

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to badgersmount again.

MrsDagboy

Hels, we too sold a house in the UK from Australia, just be aware that if you are paying off a mortgage that there are some issues with servicing a mortgage from Australia. It took us 18 months to sell our house there & paying a GBP1000/month mortgage (at an exchange rate of 2.9 :scared: ) wasnt easy, not even on Dagboys excellent Aussie wage. There was also the logistics of paying it ie transferring money back. But apart from that, if you are mortgage-free its very do-able, just make sure that you have a good agent & an even better solicitor that you can give power of attorney to & be prepared to make lots of late night phone calls if need be .

Good luck .

Hels

Hi ya MrsD

Luckily for us, the mortgage on this place if frozen as the house belonged to my late FIL. So paying it off isnt an issue. Once we move out and pay the bills off everything else comes off the estate once the house sells.

But thanks for your imput. With every positive message I am getting, my hubby is relaxing more and more about going.

Thanks again

Hels

ABCDiamond

A good point about that. Athough a painful reminder !! I got a call in the very early hours from my Bank Manager, to advise how much was now in my account etc, and, after the call, in way too much exitement, I must have jumped for joy or something, and with hands extended high, in my sleepy state, I forgot the ceiling fans !! ouch !! It does hurt when the fan blade hits the nuckles !!

Hels

owieb

We sold two UK properties from Australia. We were in a similar situation as you; one property was being sold the other rented. It was taking ages to sell so we just decided to head for Australia anyway.

It was a struggle paying the mortgage from Australia (as it was £2,000 a month) so we had to budget very carefully as we didn't have much savings when we arrived and a lot of our income had to go on paying the mortgage, but we rented it out for a short period to during the winter when the housing market wasn't very active and this helped cover some of the costs. The other property was easily covered by rent so that caused us no problems.

We sold both properties after about 12 months of being in Australia and did all the conveyancing online, the solicitor we had was excellent (if you want their details then PM me), their communication was excellent, all via email. We only had to sign the contracts which were sent over by post.

The estate agents were next to useless and communicating with them was a pain, but luckily the solicitor took everything under their wing and sorted any problems out.

One thing that we found was that the buyers would try their luck a bit on messing us around because we weren't physically in the UK. Asking for more time, wanting more money off, including more items in the deal etc, thinking that we were desparate to sell. You have to play them at their own game and call their bluff.

The main thing for us was to get to Australia ASAP and get started out here with work and a place to live. We only came out with about £5K, but it all worked out in the end.

Hels

Thanks loads for that. I will PM you even though we are currently pretty happy with the Solicitors as we are using them for my lat FIL's probate and also the property sale. But you just never know when things might go wrong and its always handy to have other avenues.

Cheers

Hels

Don

Sold my UK place from abroad, no hassle at all and in a way it helps that you are far away (less stress, no showing people around.) Just get a reliable solicitor to act on your behalf (and estate agent) and correspond by email/ phone. The only document I had to phsically sign myself was the final transfer of ownership doc on completion - a short courier away - the rest was handled by my solicitor.