Shaun Adams' personal home moving story
When Shaun and his wife Nicola moved home themselves, they saw exactly the highs and lows of moving, the fact a buyer or seller can pull out on a whim and the issue of solicitors taking weeks and weeks to gather information, this made Shaun feel more passionate than ever to change the way moving home is done for the better, whether you are selling or letting.
This is our story...
Hi, my name is Shaun Adams, I started Cooper Adams. Here is my story on how I moved home and why we do things differently at Cooper Adams.
People ask why we do things differently to our competitors, let me try and explain why we do some of the things other agents don't even consider...
Recently with my wife, Nicola, and son, Harrison, we embarked on the journey of moving home. Although I've dealt with thousands of home moves over the years, when it's your own move it still can be stressful and things don't always go to plan.
We went through the emotional journey and felt the highs and lows. For me I feel it is so important to know what is happening at all times, buyers and sellers need regular reliable updates from agents, mortgage brokers and solicitors.
I've studied the move process in other countries including Australia and America and looked in depth at the UK way and how it is getting slower. I can't change the way the Law Society work and solicitors (even though I advise a Government steering group), improvements can take years. I can only control what I control.
I can share my wisdom, ideas and reasons on how we can make things better even with the current legal framework we have.
So, what is my story of moving home and how did we do it?
When we felt we were nearing being ready to start we got in touch with our mortgage broker, we asked... based on our situation, if our thoughts were possible, could this work for us? Initially, we were told not quite but a few weeks later they came back to us to say it was feasible, as some lenders had changed certain criterias.
With this in mind, we had the green light! Our preparations could begin. As most people want.. Our goal was to get the best for our home and then look around to find a new home right for us.
We started to declutter our home and get ready for photos and video, we finished off any DIY jobs including painting scuffed walls etc.
The next stage was to instruct our solicitor and let them know we would come back to them about our sale and purchase... another thing ticked off the list.
We next started compiling all of our house paperwork and did the legal 'TA' forms, yes I know most leave it until after they've agreed a sale but why add on time then when it can be done in advance? Also if any forms are lost and you need duplicates done, you can be proactive and apply for these in advance, (some companies may take a few weeks to provide duplicates).
We were then ready for the marketing prep, photos, video, details done etc.
We then launched to market and had a flurry of viewings, three offers came in and we chose the best one. The buyers were checked out thoroughly including their own sale, their chain and the mortgage details thoroughly. The young family who offered were happy to enter a Reservation Agreement (a legal agreement to stop either side from messing around). Before we introduced these at Cooper Adams we did have our fair share of the reported 30% of sales falling through due to sellers and buyers changing their minds, even though they always promise they won't. Reservation Agreements stop most sales falling through.
On a side note, we once had a lady after a very short timescale saying "My solicitor said we should exchange contracts now and we haven't, I'm going to pull out" I explained to her not to forget she was in a Reservation Agreement, and she said "oh yes, I forgot about that, OK leave it for now" a week later contracts did exchange.
Anyway back to my story... Now we had a sale agreed on our home we could go out and seriously view some new homes. We had a wish list but knew if we could tick off more than 50% of our wish list we would have to accept that. We finally settled on a property with older owners in who wanted to move to a smaller bungalow. Sadly the agent they were selling through wasn't that proactive and didn't provide an upfront legal pack or Reservation Agreement so there was a risk if either side wanted to pull out.
Back to our sale, the buyers seemed a bit evasive and after discussions they admitted they had a chance to move abroad. They accepted they would be letting us down and accepted they would need to withdraw and pay us the financial penalty of £2000 under the Reservation Agreement. Although we were devastated, at least the compensation could pay the already incurred legal expenses. We notified the agent we wanted to buy through that we would speak to the others who offered previously to put things back together, which we did and entered a new Reservation Agreement with our new buyers.
By this time many weeks had passed and the property we wanted to buy still hadn't done their legal pack. A few weeks later this was done and our solicitor could start working on the pack they received. A couple of weeks later the elderly couple said they had now decided they may shelve moving for a year and were going to stay put. (After this we found out they did this the year before and since our intent to buy have had it on and off the market three more times) Despite having met them on a few occasions, it was disappointing that they did not engage in conversation with us or offer any form of compensation for the legal costs we incurred. We were devastated. These people have wasted the time and money of other buyers as well as their agents. It's disgraceful people can mess around like this and get away with it. Although the UK government recommends the use of Reservation Agreements unlike most of the rest of the world they aren't mandatory here yet, which is madness. In most large purchases nowadays you have to show a financial commitment at the start of the transaction, booking a holiday, ordering a new car, ordering new furniture...
So for us, it was back to the drawing board and viewing more homes again, luckily soon after we found an ideal home we could make our own, the seller had also prepared all the legal work and papers on the house in advance of going on the market so this was a positive. We then had our survey done pushed ahead with all the legal work and not long after moved in. Now we are glad the first home we found didn't work as the new one was much more suitable, so a mixed blessing.
Did moving home for us help in our advice to others? Of course, it did.
Would we always insist on Reservation Agreements to make sure all buyers and sellers legally commit from day one? 100% we would
Even if your agent doesn't offer Reservation Agreement's call me, Shaun at Cooper Adams and we can organise one for you and your agents, anywhere in the UK.
That's our moving story that helps us with other people's moves and how we can keep improving.
Running Cooper Adams I have very high morals to do the best for our clients and community. The whole team know how important this is.
It's the same for letting... being ethical, fair and respectful to our tenants and landlords is not optional, it is the right thing to do.
In short, we try hard to be as good as our word, and we look forward to showing you how estate agency can be different, whether it's sales or lets.
Yours sincerely,
Shaun Adams MNAEA
Managing Director and founding owner of Cooper Adams