u/strattad

I've posted about my experience several times on UKHousing and this is the last time I ever will anywhere.

There's no other reason I am making this post than just to highlight just how traumatic, unforgiving and devastating the process can be. As a first time buyer you enter the system giddy with excitement. For me it was one of the first times I'd felt tremendous success in life. People warn you that the legal process that follows will be stressful, and you take note, but you're so high you think that nothing could be too bad, people buy house all the time and come out alive.

I've more or less been through the stages of grief, I'd like to think probably more than once. I don't have the energy to feel angry anymore, all I feel is numbness, exhaustion and a need to move on, and in any case it was almost a foregone conclusion that this would fall through a month ago so I've had time to accept it.

To explain, there is a high chance my FTB purchase of a flat will fall through after a mammoth 14 months of legal hell and after two mortgages the clock is about to run out. Almost the entire reason why it couldn't get over the line is because the sellers, a wealthy family of property investors, decided to cheap out on solicitors by instructing Muve.

Here's the entire saga, which I've tried to keep brief:

June 2025: First viewing. Offer accepted on a flat in Manchester.

July 2025: My solicitor instructed. I learn that the sellers have gone with Muve.

September 2025:

The sellers are still getting their documents in order. With no updates for weeks, I continue waiting and threaten to pull out if things don't get a move on.

3rd October:

I learn that at some point since offer acceptance, one of the siblings has died, meaning probate has been granted and they are awaiting a death certificate.

31st October:

4 months from offer acceptance, my solicitors are now able to proceed with the searches.

December: I don't hear back from anybody after 6 weeks of me and the agent repeatedly trying to get an answer out of my solicitors and hearing nothing back. It transpires that Muve kept claiming they'd sent the management pack, but my more competent solicitors told me it was the wrong document that Muve had misunderstood to be the management pack, and they'd been chasing the actual document for months without any response.

January: Searches are complete, report of title done. With my first mortgage offer deadline looming on 4th Feb, I get a one month extension.

26th Feb: Virtually everything is done. There is one hold up where sellers need to remove a unilateral charge from the title deed.

6th March:

My first mortgage offer expires. I secure a new mortgage of 3.83%, one week before the US started bombing Iran and sent interest rates skyward.

April to June:

To skip all the fine details, this period is taken up by Muve demonstrably not understanding the due process of removing the unilateral charge. To be fair, the situation is complicated, whereby the beneficiary of the unilateral notice is a company that is dissolved. However the process regarding this is situation something that I, a person with no legal expertise whatsoever, managed to find out after a few prompts into Gemini. My solicitor apparently assists them by sending them a step by step guide, and they still submitted the wrong form to the Land Registry, wasting around 6 weeks. Now needing to clear up their mess, there's a back and forth between various parties that gets more complicated with every turn, made worse by Muve's apparent inability to assign a single caseworker to a file.

Around this time, I warn everyone that I will not be remortgaging. It's my way of saying If they cannot get it over the line by the 28th August expiry date, I will let the sale fall through.

25th June:

Muve announce that a UN2 has been submitted to the Land Registry along with a Global Deed of Transfer from the affected parties signing off the removal of the charge.

26th July: After radio silence I find out through the Land Registry customer service number that their 15 working day notice period was sent and there was someone that filed an objection, something which neither side bothered to tell me or find out.

Fast forward and some a few more persistent calls later, they tell me they have served a second 15 day notice period after, I assume, some changes were made in response to the objection. This one ends on the 20th August.

On the 28th August, my second mortgage offer will expire. The title deed may be cleared by the 21st, but this will leave just one week to get the updated title deed, exchange and complete. It will be a nail-biting finish. My solicitors say they may be able to do it, but even if they do, I have lost any faith that Muve will cooperate quickly enough. There is a scintilla of hope that some miracle may happen, but I am now looking at other properties, gloomily re-entering a house hunt amid higher asking prices and a much worse mortgage market, about to face an enormous legal bill.

As I said, I am going to keep the venting to a minimum, but I cannot finish this post without highlighting that spending 8 months manipulating yourself into thinking that next month will be "THE MONTH" is extremely bad for your mental and physical health. Do not ever think like this. I have never been so stressed in my life; I have had about 8 colds, sore throats and mouth ulcers this year, as my immune system is weak and needs rebuilding.

Although I'm seeing out the mortgage till the end because of the gold dust interest rate, viewing other properties has been an unlikely source of therapy as it's served as a distraction. I've only just come to realise the stress has all come from wanting to be in control and not having any - now though, I've just sat back, trust that people will act in my interests and do their job, and will accept whatever outcome, and it's actually made me feel a bit better. All I want now is closure.

All I really want to say now is this: do not ever, ever, use Muve, and do not ever enter a property sale where Muve has been instructed.

Thanks for reading.

I've posted about my still ongoing (13 months since offer accepted) FTB nightmare a fair bit in this sub, most recently here, where you'll see that my grievances have been 95% due to Muve being the seller's solicitor of choice. They were trying to remove a unilateral notice despite not understanding the correct process.

When Muve finally submitted all supporting documents to the Land Registry I thought this was finally the end of the hard bit, yet FOUR WEEKS later we are still waiting for the LR to approve the removal of it.

None of my research indicates that they should be taking this long. Muve keep sending the agent a generic "we are still waiting for confirmation" response which seems incredibly passive as if they can't phone the Land Registry to try to find out why they are taking so long. Is this really the case?

I still sit here with just over a month to go on the mortgage. As this eats away at my mental and physical health, I have said repeatedly that enough is enough and if I am not moved in by the 28th August mortgage expiry date, I am walking away. I am now getting extremely nervous.

So my questions are:

• Is this actually normal for the LR to take this long? What circumstances could explain why?
• Is there genuinely no way that my solicitors or theirs could contact the Land Registry to find out the holdup?