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

whatever99

Yes, that is completely ridiculous...something that is requested probably multiple times a day should have had a more streamlined process put in place by now. But sure, who do they have to answer to?!

Cash_Q

Any insight into what's involved in granting probate? Long wait times too and in our case it seems to be a straightforward sale, house left to two siblings. If theres such a backlog why don't they just hire temporary staff? Our solicitor said that they moved to an online system at the start of September but that caused a rush of applications right before then as solicitors wanted to lodge applications the way they were familiar with. Covid also contributed to a backlog, although they're working at present.

GrumPy

Dolbhad wrote: »

The land registry hold every instrument on every folio in Ireland. As you can imagine that’s a lot of documents! As far as I am aware these are not online and the land registry hold the documents physically in another site which means they need to be physically picked up and copied. The land registry need to go through instruments now before copying, due to GDPR, and may have to omit part of the instrument which has also added to delays.

Thanks for the insight. I didn't know anything about the land registry until now, only that a file for the property we are buying is required as part of the contract process. From what I understand, the request was made on, or before Oct 20th; which means we probably have another good few weeks of a wait before this can be obtained...

In the meantime, I'll keep close with my solicitor and keep pushing the EA to get the vendor solicitior to close out the other pre-contractual questions that can be worked through while we wait on the land registry document in parallel.

Dolbhad

Cash_Q wrote: »

Any insight into what's involved in granting probate? Long wait times too and in our case it seems to be a straightforward sale, house left to two siblings. If theres such a backlog why don't they just hire temporary staff? Our solicitor said that they moved to an online system at the start of September but that caused a rush of applications right before then as solicitors wanted to lodge applications the way they were familiar with. Covid also contributed to a backlog, although they're working at present.

I mentioned on a previous post probate depends on which county is has been submitted to. Cork had massive delays - 6 to 9 months. However anybody can submit a probate to Dublin regardless of where the deceased lived and they have a lot more staff so it moves quicker. If you know the probate was submitted to Dublin And the month it was submitted, you can ring the probate section. They have an automated message which says what dates of submission they are dealing with. Think it’s about 8 weeks to process a grant but if questions are raised, that will delay things.

Dolbhad

GrumPy wrote: »

Thanks for the insight. I didn't know anything about the land registry until now, only that a file for the property we are buying is required as part of the contract process. From what I understand, the request was made on, or before Oct 20th; which means we probably have another good few weeks of a wait before this can be obtained...

In the meantime, I'll keep close with my solicitor and keep pushing the EA to get the vendor solicitior to close out the other pre-contractual questions that can be worked through while we wait on the land registry document in parallel.

Yes it’s a government body so it moves at its own pace unfortunately and since anybody requesting an instrument requires it for a sale and is seating a sale, it’s hard to be asked for it to be expedited.

GrumPy

Dolbhad wrote: »

Yes it’s a government body so it moves at its own pace unfortunately and since anybody requesting an instrument requires it for a sale and is seating a sale, it’s hard to be asked for it to be expedited.

I wonder if they are even able to tell how long it will take/if you're in a queue? Or whatever clerical officer
/worker received the request in the first place, just gets to it whenever they feel like it...

Corruptedmorals

Instruments did indeed take 6 weeks pre-Covid. Land registry told me they prioritise when sales are involved. I'm presuming some applications are prior to selling or are people looking into adverse possession of vacant/ex-council land etc. so not everything they do holds up a sale.

We had an application of adverse possession go into them in January. It is not holding up the sale but the average time for this pre-Covid was roughly a year so I expect at least 18 months now. They should never have been allowed to close in the first lockdown - it meant initially sales couldn't complete at all iirc.

Cash_Q

Dolbhad wrote:

I mentioned on a previous post probate depends on which county is has been submitted to. Cork had massive delays - 6 to 9 months. However anybody can submit a probate to Dublin regardless of where the deceased lived and they have a lot more staff so it moves quicker. If you know the probate was submitted to Dublin And the month it was submitted, you can ring the probate section. They have an automated message which says what dates of submission they are dealing with. Think it’s about 8 weeks to process a grant but if questions are raised, that will delay things.

Hi yes thanks for that I saw those posts they were helpful thanks, we are at 8 weeks going into the 9th week, current message states 8-10 weeks in Dublin but doesnt give any further info about dates. I was moreso wondering what is actually involved, like what are they doing in there with each application? Its incredible to have such delays and really frustrating when the house is empty and just 5 minutes away from where we are currently staying with family. The owner is deceased for over a year and I'm sure his children just want to close the sale and move on.

Corruptedmorals

Instruments did indeed take 6 weeks pre-Covid. Land registry told me they prioritise when sales are involved. I'm presuming some applications are prior to selling or are people looking into adverse possession of vacant/ex-council land etc. so not everything they do holds up a sale.

We had an application of adverse possession go into them in January. It is not holding up the sale but the average time for this pre-Covid was roughly a year so I expect at least 18 months now. They should never have been allowed to close in the first lockdown - it meant initially sales couldn't complete at all iirc.

GrumPy

We are just buying a totally generic, built in the late 1960's, 3 bed-semi in North Dublin. I'm sure if their system wasn't as archaic as it's been described. things could be turned around more quickly than 6 weeks, 6 weeks for anything - even getting a physical file from a warehouse archive, is mental.

There must be hundreds of would-be buyers caught in the same issue as we are. You'd hope there would be a COVID workaround to stop delays, we are technically homeless as a result of the delay - crashing with parents is the last thing I wanted to do. Luckily, they are happy to have us. I wish my solicitor could cause some kind of fuss to get things moving, but I guess we aren't special and just have to remain patient...

It's crazy though, has anyone mentioned how stupid the whole system is? :pac:

cnocbui

Transfers of title - Weep: https://www0.landgate.wa.gov.au/for-individuals/legislation-and-reform/electronic-conveyancing

Dolbhad

Cash_Q wrote: »

Hi yes thanks for that I saw those posts they were helpful thanks, we are at 8 weeks going into the 9th week, current message states 8-10 weeks in Dublin but doesnt give any further info about dates. I was moreso wondering what is actually involved, like what are they doing in there with each application? Its incredible to have such delays and really frustrating when the house is empty and just 5 minutes away from where we are currently staying with family. The owner is deceased for over a year and I'm sure his children just want to close the sale and move on.

Well the probate system changed in September to online submission with original documents to follow by post to the probate office. It’s in theory meant to speed things up but at this stage probate offices are reviewing two systems.

It can depend on the value of the estate. The more bank accounts, life policies and properties involved the longer it can take to get all the right info from all the parties to submit into the probate application. Also depends on if there is a will or not. If not you may have a view people entitled to take out a grant and deciding among them who will.

It’s standard that a house is put on the market before the grant issues so it’s a tough situation cause nothing can be processed until it is!

The probate office has to check is the correct person taking out the grant, is the beneficiaries in line with the law or the will. They have to look at the will and ensure it’s all correct and valid. Then if there is money due to revenue or social welfare etc. If the probate offices raised any questions they have to be answered and officially, you are back to the end of the queue again for 8 weeks review.

Dolbhad

GrumPy wrote: »

We are just buying a totally generic, built in the late 1960's, 3 bed-semi in North Dublin. I'm sure if their system wasn't as archaic as it's been described. things could be turned around more quickly than 6 weeks, 6 weeks for anything - even getting a physical file from a warehouse archive, is mental.

There must be hundreds of would-be buyers caught in the same issue as we are. You'd hope there would be a COVID workaround to stop delays, we are technically homeless as a result of the delay - crashing with parents is the last thing I wanted to do. Luckily, they are happy to have us. I wish my solicitor could cause some kind of fuss to get things moving, but I guess we aren't special and just have to remain patient...

It's crazy though, has anyone mentioned how stupid the whole system is? :pac:

Trust me the land registry is well aware of the delays and the law society has had plenty of complaints by solicitors about the delay!! If you have a really organised seller who has instructed a solicitor before the house goes on the market, they can request the instrument at that stage so it arrives around the time of signing contracts. But that’s not often the case. GDRP really slowed things then since some documents have to be removed. You usually only need one document in the instrument like the estate transfer but can also have the mortgage deed and family home declarations in there which land registry have to go through.

Dolbhad

cnocbui wrote: »

Transfers of title - Weep: https://www0.landgate.wa.gov.au/for-individuals/legislation-and-reform/electronic-conveyancing

Our other issue is we have two issues of land registration in Ireland. The registry of deeds (old system) and land registry (new system). Even the U.K. had very little registry of deeds title where Ireland still and huge sections of it left (especially in Munster). So the whole system is slowly getting re-hauled but not in our lifetime.

The U.K. System is great from what I hear. You can apply to the council and in one go get your planning documents, taxes and letters about services. And very quickly. Whereas here it’s different departments and timelines. It’s why the U.K. can close a sale much quicker than here.

Cash_Q

Dolbhad wrote:

It’s standard that a house is put on the market before the grant issues so it’s a tough situation cause nothing can be processed until it is!

Thanks for all that, its interesting to know whats going on behind the scenes. So far no queries have been raised with the lodging solicitor, so our solicitor is hopeful that its going to go through without issue very soon. Fingers crossed!

sheepondrugs

shesty wrote: »

I don't usually post here but looking for some outside opinions...

We are currently house hunting.We have a home, just looking to trade up.We are mortgage approved.

Our house is not on the market.It has been photographed and is ready to be put up for sale but I am very reluctant to put it up until we have something.We are in a position to put a large cash deposit on any house we might get to sale agreed with.

A few estate agents have asked us is our home for sale, then suggested that we might be more desirable to potential sellers if ours was already up on the market or even better, sale agreed.The problem is we have only seen one house we want to put an offer in on (and that is going on in the background), nothing else has been suitable so far. Our house had extensive work done on it in the last 2 years, so is in a very good condition, with extension and attic conversion. I suppose my fear is that we would put it up and it would go sale agreed in a short period of time, leaving us under a lot of pressure to find something to move to.We have 3 small kids so I am extremely reluctant to be put in that position.

Any thoughts?Would we better to take the risk of putting it up for sale with nowhere to go?Is it that off-putting to a potential seller to be offered a cash deposit, but to have to wait a bit for our house to go?

Hi was in this situation this year. If you need funds from selling your current home to finance the new one (ie a chain) then you should have it on the market now.
Few EAs will look at you seriously unless you are close to sale agreed -as someone said a buyer with cash or an FTB is going to be more
tempting to a seller than someone still to sell.
You will not be made homeless, any decent solicitor will understand this and will wangle the closing date of the sale of your old home to coincide with the purchase of the new one. They do this all the time. (I thought like you I could end up homeless the solicitor laughed at me and said it doesn't work like that.) Your main focus should be getting your current home on the market. If you think it will sell fast (and very few sales are extremely quick and straight forward so that will buy you some time) get looking at houses too. You cant have the best of both worlds in a chain. sorry hope i don't come across as unsympathetic.

Moving!

sheepondrugs wrote: »

Hi was in this situation this year. If you need funds from selling your current home to finance the new one (ie a chain) then you should have it on the market now.
Few EAs will look at you seriously unless you are close to sale agreed -as someone said a buyer with cash or an FTB is going to be more
tempting to a seller than someone still to sell.
You will not be made homeless, any decent solicitor will understand this and will wangle the closing date of the sale of your old home to coincide with the purchase of the new one. They do this all the time. (I thought like you I could end up homeless the solicitor laughed at me and said it doesn't work like that.) Your main focus should be getting your current home on the market. If you think it will sell fast (and very few sales are extremely quick and straight forward so that will buy you some time) get looking at houses too. You cant have the best of both worlds in a chain. sorry hope i don't come across as unsympathetic.

I agree, BUT, tried this and found it impossible to secure a property ourselves due to low supply (lower than at least going back to '06. maybe further back now and still dropping). Our plan is to move in with parents and to continue looking... frightening prospect as we won't be able to stay there for long. Hoping that supply picks up in January, but I feel that this will be dependent on future lock-downs.

Roberto_gas

Few of my friends bought new builds 3 bed in range of 450K in greystones, clonsilla, celbridge ! Many of the friends bought last year similar homes similar locations well below 350K ! Market is hot alright !

Graham

Mod Note

thread is for currently buying/selling. Please take the pub/reopening debate elsewhere. Off topic posts deleted.

Do not reply to this post.

shesty

sheepondrugs wrote: »

Hi was in this situation this year. If you need funds from selling your current home to finance the new one (ie a chain) then you should have it on the market now.
Few EAs will look at you seriously unless you are close to sale agreed -as someone said a buyer with cash or an FTB is going to be more
tempting to a seller than someone still to sell.
You will not be made homeless, any decent solicitor will understand this and will wangle the closing date of the sale of your old home to coincide with the purchase of the new one. They do this all the time. (I thought like you I could end up homeless the solicitor laughed at me and said it doesn't work like that.) Your main focus should be getting your current home on the market. If you think it will sell fast (and very few sales are extremely quick and straight forward so that will buy you some time) get looking at houses too. You cant have the best of both worlds in a chain. sorry hope i don't come across as unsympathetic.

I don't think we would be homeless, but I would be concerned that we would end up putting our house up and taking it off the market a few times, or go sale agreed and then end up under pressure to settle for a house for ourselves that we aren't all that happy with. We also don't want to be messing a potential buyer and estate agent around by stringing out the date to hand over our house. The main reason basically is that the supply that we are looking at is quite slow to show up on the market - we are trading up in our area - so it isn't as though there is something new to look at every week. We have looked at a number of houses in the last 8 months or so, but they haven't worked out for various reasons.Houses of the type that we might trade up to, are only popping up around here at a rate of maybe 1-2 per month, so there isn't that steady supply - I would have no confidence of finding something for ourselves within a couple of months at the rate things have gone so far this year.


I think this side of Christmas anyway, we will leave things as they are, and make a decision in the New Year.

sheepondrugs

shesty wrote: »

I don't think we would be homeless, but I would be concerned that we would end up putting our house up and taking it off the market a few times, or go sale agreed and then end up under pressure to settle for a house for ourselves that we aren't all that happy with. We also don't want to be messing a potential buyer and estate agent around by stringing out the date to hand over our house. The main reason basically is that the supply that we are looking at is quite slow to show up on the market - we are trading up in our area - so it isn't as though there is something new to look at every week. We have looked at a number of houses in the last 8 months or so, but they haven't worked out for various reasons.Houses of the type that we might trade up to, are only popping up around here at a rate of maybe 1-2 per month, so there isn't that steady supply - I would have no confidence of finding something for ourselves within a couple of months at the rate things have gone so far this year.


I think this side of Christmas anyway, we will leave things as they are, and make a decision in the New Year.

Was not suggesting you string anyone along rather that a compromise can be met with all parties in a chain if the solicitors are competent and in agreement. That is the nature of this type of transaction.
I was fortunate the purchaser of my old home was an investor who had some flexibility on the closing date as he wasn't moving into the house himself. (although he screwed me around in other ways but thats another story)

But yes if you are not seeing enough of the type of house you like come on stream hold off.

Moving!

Months on, still looking for a house and seeing very little of the type of house we're looking for in the area we're hoping for. This one came up recently - there's a settled halting site in Kimmage Manor Way about four doors down from it:
https://www.myhome.ie/residential/brochure/4-the-recorders-whitehall-road-terenure-dublin-12-d12-pt89/4466920

Came across this old post which has me thinking twice about even making a viewing inquiry for it:
https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=85127534

Checked with the Gardai in Terenure and although the Garda I spoke to didn't tell me much, he didn't say anything negative about it.

The more that supply drops, I feel the more likely it is that we could end up making a poor decision on our next house. What seemed like a realistic goal to us 6 months ago is now a pipedream! Any thoughts or do any of you know the area well?

givyjoe

Moving! wrote: »

Months on, still looking for a house and seeing very little of the type of house we're looking for in the area we're hoping for. This one came up recently - there's a settled halting site in Kimmage Manor Way about four doors down from it:
https://www.myhome.ie/residential/brochure/4-the-recorders-whitehall-road-terenure-dublin-12-d12-pt89/4466920

Came across this old post which has me thinking twice about even making a viewing inquiry for it:
https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=85127534

Checked with the Gardai in Terenure and although the Garda I spoke to didn't tell me much, he didn't say anything negative about it.

The more that supply drops, I feel the more likely it is that we could end up making a poor decision on our next house. What seemed like a realistic goal to us 6 months ago is now a pipedream! Any thoughts or do any of you know the area well?

Im from Greenhills myself, 10 mins away, and would drive to Carlisle Gym up the road from that house everyday (pre lockdown). Never heard of any particular problems arising from that halting site. Personally I wouldn't want to live anywhere near one, but not sure if really matters if you're 4 or 40 doors away on that road. I dont think too many properties pop up along there, which im sure you could easily check on the property register. In general, very nice quiet area but a busy main road.

GrumPy

Solicitor sent another chaser to vendors side again today. Several pre-contratual questions remain outstanding, but the main sticking point seems to be the land registry.
EA suggested consideration of a caretakers agreement, as the property is vacant. However, solicitor advised against it - legal minefield.

So we march forward, essentially having made no progress since Oct... Feel like marching into the vendor solicitors office and rattling a few cages at this stage.

leahyl

Salanky wrote: »

Collecting my keys this afternoon. Sale agreed to closed was 16 weeks to the day. Went through Louth Coco using the RBI loan. Had a few hiccups along the way but I am proof that it is possible for a single person to buy their dream house. Its taken me maybe 10 years to get to this point between one thing and another but its so worth it. I'm not one for tooting my own trumpet but I am dead proud of myself for what I have achieved. There were plenty of times I wanted to throw the towel in and just give up but I'm too stubborn and stuck it out.

To all thinking of buying and those going through it now, stick with it, stay positive and always look towards the end results. It will be worth it.

Congratulations I'm at the point where I'm thinking I'm never gonna be able to buy - it's lack of suitable properties this time; I was kind of giving up but your post has given me hope!

Reins

Anyone good at playing poker?..

Am looking for bidding strategies.

A place I'm interested in has 2 offers on it currently. Both offers are 10k under asking. 1 is a cash offer and the other is FTB with AIP.

If I was the vendor I'd be leaning towards the cash buyer. I'm also a cash buyer so I guess I'd be competing against them. How do I play this?

Small increments or a one time Kapow offer?

Graham

Reins wrote: »

Small increments or a one time Kapow offer?

Definitely one of those two options.

Or something else.

Big offer might frighten off other bidders, might mean you overpay, might mean they outbid you again.

Unless Mystic Meg joins the thread, any other suggestion is going to be guessing as much as you are. :pac:

DubLad69

Reins wrote: »

Anyone good at playing poker?..

Am looking for bidding strategies.

A place I'm interested in has 2 offers on it currently. Both offers are 10k under asking. 1 is a cash offer and the other is FTB with AIP.

If I was the vendor I'd be leaning towards the cash buyer. I'm also a cash buyer so I guess I'd be competing against them. How do I play this?

Small increments or a one time Kapow offer?

Depends how badly you want the house. For the best chance of getting the house I'd go for a big offer that is still a bit less than the max that you are willing to pay

wassie

Reins wrote: »

Anyone good at playing poker?..

Am looking for bidding strategies.

A place I'm interested in has 2 offers on it currently. Both offers are 10k under asking. 1 is a cash offer and the other is FTB with AIP.

If I was the vendor I'd be leaning towards the cash buyer. I'm also a cash buyer so I guess I'd be competing against them. How do I play this?

Small increments or a one time Kapow offer?

Neither - I'd offer 5K above current offer so you can flesh out the bidders. Then the other bidders are forced to show their hand. The agent will keep you in the loop. If they start a bidding way, then sit back and wait a while.

Reins

Graham wrote: »

Definitely one of those two options.

Or something else.

Okay - What's the something else?