db
#chaplife
so, i recently conned ms. db into agreeing to marry me, and thus begins our first tentative steps on The Road of Life™.. step one - stop renting and buy a house together!
a friend happened to overhear this in the pub a couple of weeks ago, and mentioned that he was selling his house and asked if we would be interested.. we went and had a look round, and it turns out - we would..
we have never looked seriously into buying a house, so promptly went round all the local banks, asking for mortgage advice and the like.. they were all very helpful (obviously, seeing as they wanted our business), and educated us vis a vis stamp duty, deposits, interest rates, and other such dull, soul-crushing shenanigans..
what i want to know from you is, dear forumite, is there anything special we should bear in mind when buying privately - i.e. off a friend, rather than through an estate agent? they want to sell in 6 - 9 months, which is exactly the timescale we're looking for, so in that respect it's perfect.. it also allows us plenty of time to get our affairs in order, and do everything we can to ensure as smooth a sale as possible..
any pitfalls in buying privately/from a friend in this way?
anything in particular we should be asking/insisting upon?
has anyone done it in the past? if so, is there anything you would do differently?
i'm probably not even asking the right questions, such is our naïveté in such matters, and i know we have some very learned forumites in this area, so i would really, really appreciate anyone's input on this.
thanks, y'all
a friend happened to overhear this in the pub a couple of weeks ago, and mentioned that he was selling his house and asked if we would be interested.. we went and had a look round, and it turns out - we would..
we have never looked seriously into buying a house, so promptly went round all the local banks, asking for mortgage advice and the like.. they were all very helpful (obviously, seeing as they wanted our business), and educated us vis a vis stamp duty, deposits, interest rates, and other such dull, soul-crushing shenanigans..
what i want to know from you is, dear forumite, is there anything special we should bear in mind when buying privately - i.e. off a friend, rather than through an estate agent? they want to sell in 6 - 9 months, which is exactly the timescale we're looking for, so in that respect it's perfect.. it also allows us plenty of time to get our affairs in order, and do everything we can to ensure as smooth a sale as possible..
any pitfalls in buying privately/from a friend in this way?
anything in particular we should be asking/insisting upon?
has anyone done it in the past? if so, is there anything you would do differently?
i'm probably not even asking the right questions, such is our naïveté in such matters, and i know we have some very learned forumites in this area, so i would really, really appreciate anyone's input on this.
thanks, y'all