Moving house: Our house buying stresses

This is a collaborative post or advertisement, but I am sure you will still find it helpful, so please do read on.

This is a mixture of a post that may help you and a rant about our house buying stresses. Why is the process so stressful? Anyway, read on so you can maybe laugh or sympathise with our stresses!

A living room filled with furniture and a large window

Choosing a new house

On the whole, choosing a new house isn’t really considered one of the house-buying stresses as it can be quite fun.

Of course, it can also be frustrating, I mean surely if your house smells so badly of wet dogs you can not possibly in the next breath tell someone it is ready to move into?

I actually felt sick on viewing this particular property!

Another property we viewed has actual cat sick and dog poo throughout the house and garden.

Even if the house had been perfect in other ways (it wasn’t!) then this surely would put anyone off.

Have you ever viewed houses that have put you off the minute you walk through the door?

I could tell you so many stories of dirty or odd ones we viewed but there were some beautiful ones too, including the one we almost bought.

I say almost bought as this is one of the house-buying stresses, the time it takes to actually finish the purchase!

Checking the house is worth the money

Once you have found the house of your dreams, however big or small that may be, the next step is to get surveys done.

Unless you are really open to spending lots of money on the new property and doing a lot of renovations so know what you are looking for, I would highly recommend a home buyers survey.

The home buyers survey looks at the building from an independent point of view and may spot things that you hadn’t for example, signs of dampness, structural issues and even issues with the boiler.

This is really important as there are things that novices like us are less likely to spot. The heating was on when we viewed this house so we were not concerned about the heating however the surveyor spotted a condemned sticker on the boiler we hadn’t seen!

By the surveyor drawing this to our attention, we have been able to ask the vendor to have this rectified before we complete the purchase, alternatively, we will have to reduce our offer to take into account the cost of a new boiler.

Obviously, if the boiler is not safe or working correctly we would have no heating or hot water! If you need a new boiler then check out the variety available.

A new boiler installation can cost at least a couple of thousand pounds depending on the company you use and the boiler you choose.

Our surveyor also was able to point out a few minor things we hadn’t noticed but that may be important to others for example that some of the internal doors have glass that isn’t labelled as safety glass.

They are doors we are likely to replace in time anyway and as we don’t have young children this doesn’t worry us.

Selling our house

Selling our current home has, on the whole, been relatively easy. After the decluttering of course! Who knew how much stuff I had and didn’t need?

I found the instruction booklet for Ben’s highchair – he is now 16 and I have moved house with the folder including this and other similar things 5 times since he no longer needed the highchair!

I also found an instruction booklet for a TV I bought in 2001 and have not even owned since about 2003!

Have you ever shown viewers around your home? It is a strange experience but on the whole, I think I did a great job.

If you are preparing to show potential buyers around your home then I wish you every luck in the world, it can be hard work and definitely one of the house-buying stresses!

A few people we had to view brought young kids who just wanted to be touching everything, turning on the oven etc!

Conveyancing solicitors – do they cause house-buying stresses?

Have you seen how much conveyancing solicitors charge? I honestly can not believe they can justify charging so much when everything seems to happen so blooming slowly!

It is of course hard to tell on each hold-up whether it is your solicitors or the ones for the other side that are causing the delay but I imagine that it is a six of one half a dozen of the other!

The actual move

We are not even up to the stage of the actual move yet but no doubt that will be stressful too! New broadband contract, new tv contract and sorting out the energy bills amongst other things.

Luckily we have a great removal company so are not worried about that and just need to pack all of our stuff up, minus the old instruction booklets of course!

Are you a conveyancing solicitor or one of their secretaries? Perhaps you can shed some light on the whole process? I am sure other countries have an easier house-buying process from what I have read online! What are your house-buying stresses?