bridie

We are meant to be having settlement on our property and the one we're buying on Thursday

We've been waiting two months becuase our buyer's are in rented and didnt want to pay mortgage and rent for too long and for whatever reason wouldnt break the lease

We phoned the settlement agent and the bank three weeks ago - yes everything is ready with our mortgage

Last Monday we had our pre-settlement inspection at the new place. According to the contract everything has to be in working order (electrics, gas, pool, bore etc) and we also had on our contract that a window that had been smashed be repaired.

We turn up for the inspection: window still broken; no gas in the bottles to be able to check the hot water system; the extractor fan over the cook top trips out and takes a load of sockets with it (the vendor even admits it always does this!); the curtains and poles are gone; the bore doesnt work; no shed key so we cant check it and best of all she'd taken the batteries out of one of the air con remotes so you couldnt use it!!!

So after a week of worrying we had another inspection yesterday: bore still doesnt work; electrics apparently getting done Weds at 4pm; gas on order; window still not fixed; shed finally open but full of rubbish...

So yet more stress and then to top if off today we find out that the bank have only just sent the mortgage paperwork from Victoria today, it has to go via Perth (hopefully tomorrow) to be stamped and then sent overnight to Bunbury. So we may not settle on time.

Whoever reckons buying and selling property in Australia is easier than the UK I have to say you're wrong - our experience has been the most stressful in our entire lives - even moreso than getting our visa and emigrating - I have never known anything like it in my life. If it's not for the vendors who cant pull their finger out of their backside until the last minute it's everyone else so laid back about stuff "no the file isnt here yet...." as if it's not important.

I wish I could hibernate for a few days and it'll all be over and done with

moneypenny20

It's a total bummer when things go pearshaped but it will happen and in a month or so, you'll have moved on to the next crisis Stay chilled, tell yourselves it doesn't matter, cuddle the bub and have a drink. You've got a fab house there (saw a link somewhere ) by the way

bridie

thanks pen

i know we have been extremely unlucky, no-one at OHs work can believe what a cock up it's been from day one!!!

i did have to laugh earlier - our buyers want the key at 5.30 on settlement day which isnt really doable as we are moving ourselves. apparently no-one bothered to tell them that by law we are entitled to stay in the property until 12noon the day after settlement. Nothing like communication is there?!

moneypenny20

Tell them they can come in providing they bring a bottle and help you move your stuff out

Kapri

Bridie - I feel your pain!

We are currently selling our house and it has been a nightmare. I am a complete stress head

Hopefully things will sort themselves out for both of us soon. In the mean time there's always wine

EvannTel

Bridie, we had loads of agro too with silly little things - personally we reckon its the settlement agents! At least you had the good sense to check everything first - we missed one thing and its proving A) a nightmare to get fixed and B) VERY expensive.

Anyway when your first possum comes up for an apple from your hand you'll forget all it!!

We love it up this neck of the woods and sure you will do too.

dazah

check your contract of sale for chattles excluded and included if these item's are not on that have a word with your estate agent

and for broken window was that put on contract of sale as a condish of sale that its repaired i would be haveing a word with the agent

the words buyer be ware comes to mind should always take photos of moveable objects

without looking at legislation i cant honastly say but i will look

The Woodcutter

Sorry to hear about your experiences.

Perhaps it is just Western Australia. Certainly buying and selling property in Queensland is totally stress free and the process is far superior and easier than that in the UK.

dazah

i looked in the legislation cant find it i know its there some where i did it on a test

i would talk to agent and your solicitor sorry for your bad time must be verry FUSTRAITING

Reading fan

Really sorry to hear about your bad luck but that's what I think it is just bad luck. We bought/sold a fair few properties in South Australia and they were the most stress free business transactions ever. Hope it all works out

snappy

Bridie I've been looking for you to hunt you down to say hello

Don't worry it will get sorted out and you will soon be far away from your annoying neighbours with enormous shed and be settled in your new pad enjoying all the little odds and sods soon enough. Now do I have to remind you on how stressed you were when your TRA got turned down the first time round???

pumpkin blossom

It is a pain, but really, you must not have had any bad experiances in the UK.

Our house sale fell through with two buyers, 3rd one was a first time buyer, wanted to move in ASAP. Great.
He had FOUR surveys done, which we had to arrange as the bloke was usless. We had to drive around and get all the reports to send to his mortgage company, as he kept loosing them, and we figured at least we knew it was done.
He changed mortgage company half way through, so obviously we then had the worry that he had been turned down for the first one.
For MONTHS we kept being told everything was done, we would be exchanging contacts in 2 weeks, we were told this nearly every week for FOUR months.
We finally completed 5.5 months after he said he wanted to be in within a month, a week after the actual completion date, after having to serve a legal notice to complete against him (and having him phoning with abuse because of it). And we found out half way through he was a gangster who had just been released from prison for blackmail, beating someone up and chucking them on a motorway, but he had been let off with two murders as there was not enough evidence (according to a newspaper article and word of mouth around the area we lived).
We had had to put our dogs flight back as we did not exchange contracts on the agreed dates, to the point that we dropped her off at the shippers, and then sat in the car for two hours incase we had to take her home again if we didn't exchange.
We had to be in Oz 3 weeks after exchange so had to give less than our months notice at work (who luckily were very good) and all the direct (well as far as you can get to Adelaide) flights were gone and the prices had all gone up by a 3rd, all because he didn't exchange on the Friday but the Monday.
We got to Oz a day and a half before my course started.

NOT a good time in our lives, hubbie off work for months with stress, me bursting into tears randomly (and I am not a teary type). But then I'm sure we can't possibly have a worse experiance again.
So just think, it could be FAR worse lol.

The Johnstons

Sorry you're having such a stressful time of it. Once you've moved I'm sure it will all become a distant memory while you enjoy settling in. We've had problems too (we're supposed to settle today), but it was more with the estate agent (he forged our signatures to say we knew that a spa didn't have council approval when we didn't!!, he hadn't told the sellers that the spa needed approval either.) Hopefully things will be ok though. I'll never trust an estate agent again thanks to the slimy liar.

I have to say I'm not happy that the current vendors get to stay in the house until midday tomorrow. Once that money changes hands it's ours. We're on a tight timeline to get out of our rental and they settle on their new house at the same time so surely they should be ready too?

Buying a house here in WA is an easy process, it's the people involved who make it difficult - so lazy. Both vendors and buyers just want to move, but in the end we'll be moving in under a bit of a cloud. Not how it should be IMO.

Turned into a bit of a rant, sorry . I really hope your sellers get everything fixed in time (I can't believe they took the curtain poles!!?!) and the rest of your move goes smoothly.

TJ
x

bridie

we have decided overnight we'll ask for prior posession and if we can get the key today. at least that way we can clean up and start decorating DDs room and the paperwork can sort itself out.

i just cant beleive what a pantomime this whole thing has been and the usual Aussie way of "pass the buck until they get fed up and go away" which unfortuantely this time we cant go away!

And yes, I have bought and sold property in the UK - yes it was fairly stressful but at least you know how things work over there. Here we've been left in the dark, no-one even told us we had to pay the stamp duty up front so you can imagine how we felt getting an invoice for over $20K that had to be paid there and then.... I think that's half the problem, lack of communication from every which way.

I know once we're in and settled this will be a distant memory, but really could have done without all the hassle and stress - it's always us

DunRoaminTheUK

I totally empathise with you.

We had 2 lifetimes worth of shit when we decided to have our house built. We finally moved in to it at the beginning of February and we're still un-earthing bad practice and poor service. Only yesterday, I found out that AGL have been "transferring" our electricity account from our builders to us for the past 4 months so we can expect a HUGE electricity bill in about two weeks.

That's just one of an infinite list of cock-ups.

Oh, our phone connection merits a mention too. How long do you think it should take to have a phone line connected when the phone line from the pit in the street has been there since well before we bought the land? It took almost 3 months, if you can believe it!!

All I can say is hang in there she'll be right in the end (useless phrase which is an excuse for laziness).