With the football cancelled, and the ‘improving’ literature I bought to get me through the lockdown not improving my mood, I spent a horrifically sunny Saturday at the end of March researching properties to buy in my price range in London.
Given that the economy was in deep freeze, I did not expect anything immediate to happen as a result of my ‘registering an interest’ in properties.
I had to scurry through deserted lockdown streets to a friend’s house to use a scanner, as providers still insist on wet signaturesAnd sure enough, my torrent of emails was met with a flood of replies stating that due to lockdown, nothing could be done.
Then the phone rang, one agent offered a “virtual viewing” the next day, with no obligation to actually buy the property until a physical viewing had happened.
This was the only agent from more than 20 with whom I registered who offered a virtual viewing option.
As an experience, a virtual viewing can never be the same; while one can see each room, it is hard to visualise the dimensions of each just from an online guide.
Key points
- Lockdown boredom prompted researching of properties
- The author found himself buying a property
- Getting hold of documentation during lockdown was difficult
But perhaps more importantly, one cannot see what the view from the window is like and how near the property is to supermarkets, the station, and schools.
As March gave way to April, the incentives to buy the property started to come in.
Thousands of pounds off the asking price for the new build house, and a £1,000 incentive to help furnish the new place.
With an agreement reached, I had to scurry through deserted lockdown streets to a friend’s house to use a scanner, as providers still insist on wet signatures for some documents, in exchange for reserving the property in April, with a refundable £500 deposit.
During a later discussion with the estate agent, he confirmed that during the 10 weeks of lockdown he “sold” eight properties, though several of these fell through later as some of the potential purchasers were placed on furlough.
The actual viewing of the property took place about about 10 days after it was first permitted, as the site had to be made ready.
The viewing happened without the agent being in the room, then a discussion took place with a screen between us.
It did not feel as though any of the physical viewing process was any worse as a result of the social distancing measures than would otherwise have been the case.
Mortgage broker
The mortgage broker was friendly and did a very good job of acting as though the pandemic was not really a consideration for anyone to worry about, until it came to dealing with the banks.
They clearly worked off a relatively small panel of potential lenders, and that list narrowed a bit more as some lenders raised the drawbridge.
But in the current climate, interest rates are very low indeed, and the chance to lock in such a rate for many years to come proved very attractive.
I had quite a large deposit, which made the task easier, but lockdown made the processes much more difficult.
In the first instance this was due to my own Luddite tendencies. The broker needed three months’ worth of bank statements, and I was the last person in Britain to not have online banking.
So I found myself in a very long queue before the bank opened in order to get bank statements.
Then came another furtive dash through deserted East London streets to my friend’s house to once again use the scanner, in order to send the paperwork back.
Even in a world without pandemics, the notion of wet signatures and documents that have to be sent through the post seems rather old fashioned.
Greeted with a lengthy post office queue, I departed for a local shop in an effort to buy a stamp. The shopkeeper told me he only sold stamps in a book of 20, so now it looks as though I am stuck with 17 stamps I will never use.
The broker’s shock at having a client that did not have online banking was obvious and not well hidden.
After experiencing the long queue at the bank, I subsequently did download an app and when re-sending the banking information, I could not believe how much easier it was.
Then came payslips. I have studiously stored all of my payslips for this employer for many years, but have not had access to any since the lockdown began.
The bank was, understandably, concerned about this, as by the time they asked, the one payslip I submitted was from five months ago.
The broker suggested a compromise whereby my employer provided a letter disclosing my salary.
Only one bank was willing to accept this in lieu of payslip information, and even then with reluctance.
The broker said the very low loan-to-value ratio I was seeking was a key consideration for the lender at this time.
The next big challenge was the survey. Obviously the mortgage was approved subject to a survey. As a newly built property in a block of flats, there was unlikely to be a problem.
But the lockdown meant a large backlog of work had developed.
So when it came to booking the survey, I joined a queue of 6,000 others needing the work done. They could not even immediately give me a date for when the survey would happen.
Then when a date was provided, the job was cancelled due to volume of work.
The survey added about three weeks to the whole process.
The lawyer
While the mortgage broker was simple to find and always left me in a better mood than they found me, the search for legal advice was trickier.
Firstly, I got three quotes, one from a firm in Kent, one from a firm in the Midlands and one in Cheshire.
That all quotes came within £50 of each other, and that I had to push back hard to get clarity on various “extra” fees that do not appear on the original quote indicates this is a market ripe for disruption or intervention.
Then came the maze, as the chosen law firm had three different people working on my purchase, one to give me the quote and nothing else, one to deal with anti-money-laundering regulations and one to do the main work.
Once again there was a relentless focus on sending and receiving documents by post, the easing of the lockdown made this easier in practical terms, if not any less frustrating.
But, at last, I have now exchanged contracts and look forward to moving in in the next few weeks.
David Thorpe is special projects editor of Financial Adviser and FTAdviser
