[BaggiesFans]

Well the sold sign has gone up today - yeh!:yes

But with the great english system I guess it could fall apart at any time.:no

I'm worried we make all our plans, hand in notice at work etc and then something goes wrong at the last minute. We have first time buyers ready to move so hopefully it will be ok but you never know.

I'm thinking of asking for 4 weeks between exchange and completion so that we don't hand our notice in / cancel things / book flights until we know we have exchanged. Anyone else done this or any other advice on how to coordinate this?

I'm thinking that if we had put arrangements into place that we couldn't back out of like handing in notice at work they have us over a barrel if they ask to drop the price at the last minute. ( They don't know we are emigrating but do know we are moving away and leaving jobs etc.) Do we just take the risk?

Any experiences on this please share.

Thanks

[cathgates]

Are your buyers in rented? If so, they may appreciate 4 weeks between both dates - that's what we have agreed with our buyers - gives them their notice time for their landlord. Have you got a hip with your house? If so you can tell your estate agent to let their solicitors know they are welcome to use it for searches etc. The most you can really do is deal with your paperwork as quickly and efficiently as possible. Keep in touch with your estate agent every week, find out when the survey comes back, is all ok, have they been offered their mortgage, have they paid for searches, do they have any questions of you or the house? If they want to look round again, let them, as many times as they want to - this keeps reminding them what they are buying, and why they have to pay their solicitors for searches etc
Unfortunately, some things will be out of your control, you can't frog march them to the solicitors to pay monies or sign forms, but just make sure your side is constantly up to date.

Good luck

Cath X

[tim&em]

Hi

We're in the same situation, with our house sale hopefully going through at the end of March 2008. We've got flights booked for April and we've got everything crossed.

- Before I handed in my notice I levelled with my employers and they agreed to consider both letting me stay on longer if necessary and also leaving early if we needed to. I may just have been lucky, but it could be worth the discussion?
- By way of contrast, Em's employers were more rigid and once she'd resigned that was it - leaving date fixed, no negotiations.

- our buyers also know we are emigrating but we decided that we will just have to trust them :)

- in general, once we had picked the date to leave we agreed between us that we would stick to it, think positively, and deal with any changes if they arose, when they arose. There's enough to do and think about without getting hung up on what could go wrong!

- we made sure our airline tickets allow date changes and we're not booking any accomodation, hire cars etc. in NZ until we have exchanged contracts (which hopefully should be soon).

Best of luck!

[James 1077]

My advice is to give your number to the buyers and see if you can get their's; that way if they have any questions or worries they can call you straight away and vice versa.

It is so much quicker doing this than having to go through estate agents / solicitors if something comes up.

[bartons]

We didn't make any arrangements (book flights/arrange shipping/cancel everything etc.) till the contracts were exchanged. However, all the research was done before exchange, so the minute the solicitor phoned that exchange had happened we had the numbers ready to book the flights, book a container and start the packing. Being so keen to get going we only left a week between exchange and completion, which was extremely stressful, especially since we were self-shipping. However, we didn't have to hand in any notices (self-employed), which made everything more flexible.
I'd definitely recommend more than a week though!

[benandclare]

Congrats so far guys :raebanana

Cant offer any great advice as we were in different situation in that Clare had to give 3 months notice at work so once she had the job offer out here we were committed to a start date here in beginning of Sept.

We did have the proviso that notice period might have to be extended , by couple of weeks,due to process of emmigrating, this was fine with both our employers.

We had the mindset that if the house hadn't sold we'd go anyway but were very lucky and sold on first day of viewing but still didn't relax till we'd completed and money ws in the bank.

I guess if you can do it financially dont stress too much as you can sell your house from NZ but sure yours is going to sail through swimmingly now :clap

[mikewalkerfrom]

Good luck guys, you're in for a nervous time.

We sold start of January and were supposed to exchange 2 weeks ago. But the numpties at the bottom of the chain went to Paris for a week because of valentines day without telling anyone and kept their mobiles turned off. :wah

We are supposed to exchange in the next couple of days. Oh god I hate the buying / selling system in England.

Best of luck, like James says, try and get their phone numbers and stay in touch. Lawyers like to tell buyers different stories so if you're in contact with each other you can kick them harder.