Homebond delay stalling house move.

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BlueSkyThinking

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First time poster however have followed a lot of excellent advice on These forums over the years.

Earlier this year we agreed to buy a house in a new development. Our dream house, we are putting every penny into it. Paid a booking deposit as far back as May with a target move in of end of August. We have moved our kids to the school in the new area and it’s a fair trek. Stress levels are at breaking point.

Our current house is contract signed and we are ready to leave end of November.

The new estate has been ready since July I believe with building control sign off a few weeks ago. We have gotten our snag done and almost everything is fixed up.

The thing that appears to be holding everything up is Homebond. It’s been something that we have been told by estate agent will come through this week for about over two months. There is no other information. Our Solicitor can’t get any additional info either.I have tried to research myself on what exactly is required for the Homebond sign off however little information on their website. Rang them directly to get an update but they can’t give information.

Can someone give me a quick run down on why Homebond is needed, what information is provided by the developer and why it would take months to come through.

I work in financial services and understand how things can get held up, however it’s the lack of transparency for all the people waiting on this to get on with their lives that really annoys me.

In general our experience on this house move is one that does not inspire much confidence in any of the professions involved.
 
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BlueSkyThinking said:
First time poster however have followed a lot of excellent advice on These forums over the years.

Earlier this year we agreed to buy a house in a new development. Our dream house, we are putting every penny into it. Paid a booking deposit as far back as May with a target move in of end of August. We have moved our kids to the school in the new area and it’s a fair trek. Stress levels are at breaking point.

Our current house is contract signed and we are ready to leave end of November.

The new estate has been ready since July I believe with building control sign off a few weeks ago. We have gotten our snag done and almost everything is fixed up.

The thing that appears to be holding everything up is Homebond. It’s been something that we have been told by estate agent will come through this week for about over two months. There is no other information. Our Solicitor can’t get any additional info either.I have tried to research myself on what exactly is required for the Homebond sign off however little information on their website. Rang them directly to get an update but they can’t give information.

Can someone give me a quick run down on why Homebond is needed, what information is provided by the developer and why it would take months to come through.

I work in financial services and understand how things can get held up, however it’s the lack of transparency for all the people waiting on this to get on with their lives that really annoys me.

In general our experience on this house move is one that does not inspire much confidence in any of the professions involved.
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By any chance is this a small development in North East Wicklow? I am going through the exact same process and your timelines/story is shockingly familiar.

BMCS awarded end of September. We’ve been told by the vendor’s solicitor that Home Bond are saying the delay is due to personnel being out sick…
EA telling us it’ll land any day now…

Home Bond won’t talk to us as we technically aren’t their customer.
 
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Braystones said:
T

By any chance is this a small development in North East Wicklow? I am going through the exact same process and your timelines/story is shockingly familiar.

BMCS awarded end of September. We’ve been told by the vendor’s solicitor that Home Bond are saying the delay is due to personnel being out sick…
EA telling us it’ll land any day now…

Home Bond won’t talk to us as we technically aren’t their customer.
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It’s not there but exact same situation. It sounds like our one is now close however will believe it when I see it.

I did a bit more investigation based on their website to get an idea of what is involved and spoke to someone familiar with it.
 
BlueSkyThinking said:
It’s not there but exact same situation. It sounds like our one is now close however will believe it when I see it.

I did a bit more investigation based on their website to get an idea of what is involved and spoke to someone familiar with it.
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Would you mind sharing what you learnt on getting Home Bond over the line?


We’re in the same boat as you anyway. Very similar timelines.
House was completed in August (water hooked up, BER Cert awarded, etc).
BMCS given in September.

Home Bond’s reasoning for the delay is that there has been a person out on sick leave…

Bit of a joke really - not like we’re in a housing crises or anything.

Hope you get sorted soon anyway.
You might update the thread if you do!
 
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We got ours through. Nothing really we could do except keep onto Estate Agent and Our solicitor.

From chatting to some folks, it appears if there is a change in developer during a development, this can be a major pain.
 
Congrats, that’s lovely news and Im sure a big relief.

We were told last Monday ours would land by the end of the week… still waiting.
 
Braystones said:
Congrats, that’s lovely news and Im sure a big relief.

We were told last Monday ours would land by the end of the week… still waiting.
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Hi there, I think we are in the same position as you at the same development : small, NE Wicklow, We’ve been told it’s imminent for weeks. Have tried contacting all players and received different stories each time, but still no further on. Not much to add but moral support, I guess. Keeping fingers crossed it’s resolved soon.
 
Hopeful Owner said:
Hi there, I think we are in the same position as you at the same development : small, NE Wicklow, We’ve been told it’s imminent for weeks. Have tried contacting all players and received different stories each time, but still no further on. Not much to add but moral support, I guess. Keeping fingers crossed it’s resolved soon.
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Cool.

If you open your profile to private messages I can share the development with you and correspondences I have. Only if thats of interest.

I have no real update since my last post anyway…
 
Braystones said:
Cool.

If you open your profile to private messages I can share the development with you and correspondences I have. Only if thats of interest.

I have no real update since my last post anyway…
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Thanks. It would be good to share some information if we are indeed talking about the same development.

As far as I can tell I have that option open on my profile, but I read that new members are not able to send messages until they become registered. I have updated my profile to include a contact email. I’ll leave it visible for a short while in case the first option doesn’t work - I know that’s not ideal!
 
Hopeful Owner said:
Thanks. It would be good to share some information if we are indeed talking about the same development.

As far as I can tell I have that option open on my profile, but I read that new members are not able to send messages until they become registered. I have updated my profile to include a contact email. I’ll leave it visible for a short while in case the first option doesn’t work - I know that’s not ideal!
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Nope sorry it won’t let me do much - I cant access your profile. I think we need to have made 10 posts on the forum before we can use that feature…

Are Orchid Homes the developer?
 
Braystones said:
Nope sorry it won’t let me do much - I cant access your profile. I think we need to have made 10 posts on the forum before we can use that feature…

Are Orchid Homes the developer?
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Yes.
We have exchanged but have no idea of when things will move. We were told it was HB holding things up, but - after calling practically every day, they called us to say they were waiting for something from the developer before they could issue the cert. We were told today by EA that the developer says they sent this and it’s with HB again…no idea if this is correct as we’ve had countless versions of this for the last 6 weeks.
 
Hopeful Owner said:
Yes.
We have exchanged but have no idea of when things will move. We were told it was HB holding things up, but - after calling practically every day, they called us to say they were waiting for something from the developer before they could issue the cert. We were told today by EA that the developer says they sent this and it’s with HB again…no idea if this is correct as we’ve had countless versions of this for the last 6 weeks.
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Thanks. That is interesting - Homebond refused to talk to us citing GDPR.
Do you know how long ago HB said they were waiting on that document? I know the BCMS was awarded at the end of September…

I was never told about any outstanding documents. The developer’s solicitor has always maintained that personnel being out sick at Homebond has been the cause of this delay (farcical stuff).

We exchanged contracts back in August. HB has been the only outstanding document for us since then…

We de-snagged in October (make sure your floors are level, we had uneven patches in our kitchen which had to be fixed).
 
Braystones said:
Thanks. That is interesting - Homebond refused to talk to us citing GDPR.
Do you know how long ago HB said they were waiting on that document? I know the BCMS was awarded at the end of September…

I was never told about any outstanding documents. The developer’s solicitor has always maintained that personnel being out sick at Homebond has been the cause of this delay (farcical stuff).

We exchanged contracts back in August. HB has been the only outstanding document for us since then…

We de-snagged in October (make sure your floors are level, we had uneven patches in our kitchen which had to be fixed).
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Thanks for the heads up on the flooring!

We were also told the same about sickness: that the cert was ready to go, it just needed to be signed, but that person was off sick. We wanted to know if someone else could sign it off and kept trying them. We were given short shrift but eventually they relented and with the back & forth between that and the EA, we got the different story ( I don’t want to get anyone into trouble so apologies for the lack of detail - it’s not changing the outcome). We understand that whatever it is that is outstanding is not a big deal - nothing wrong with the houses- just paperwork for underwriting, but extremely stressful for all of us, all the same. If we hear anything I will let you know.
 
Hopeful Owner said:
Thanks for the heads up on the flooring!

We were also told the same about sickness: that the cert was ready to go, it just needed to be signed, but that person was off sick. We wanted to know if someone else could sign it off and kept trying them. We were given short shrift but eventually they relented and with the back & forth between that and the EA, we got the different story ( I don’t want to get anyone into trouble so apologies for the lack of detail - it’s not changing the outcome). We understand that whatever it is that is outstanding is not a big deal - nothing wrong with the houses- just paperwork for underwriting, but extremely stressful for all of us, all the same. If we hear anything I will let you know.
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Thank you.
I might know what you're referring too - personality clashes between the site and HB…

I spoke with the EA today.
Apparently 1 new item came up this week as being required by HB. It should have been closed off yesterday morning by the developer. This is potentially what you’re talking too.

She’s gonna follow up today and confirm if was accepted by HB…

Such an ordeal.
 
Braystones said:
Thank you.
I might know what you're referring too - personality clashes between the site and HB…

I spoke with the EA today.
Apparently 1 new item came up this week as being required by HB. It should have been closed off yesterday morning by the developer. This is potentially what you’re talking too.

She’s gonna follow up today and confirm if was accepted by HB…

Such an ordeal.
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Hi, I believe I am also moving into this same development. Homebond personnel were on site yesterday I can confirm as they were seen by my wife so hopefully this means it will move now. We also had uneven patches on the kitchen floor
 
Braystones said:
Thank you.
I might know what you're referring too - personality clashes between the site and HB…

I spoke with the EA today.
Apparently 1 new item came up this week as being required by HB. It should have been closed off yesterday morning by the developer. This is potentially what you’re talking too.

She’s gonna follow up today and confirm if was accepted by HB…

Such an ordeal.
Click to expand...
That’s it exactly. Thanks for the update - fingers crossed it will move shortly. Will keep you updated if we hear anything.
 
User12345 said:
Hi, I believe I am also moving into this same development. Homebond personnel were on site yesterday I can confirm as they were seen by my wife so hopefully this means it will move now. We also had uneven patches on the kitchen floor
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Thanks for this. Hopefully we’ll see some movement now.
 
User12345 said:
Hi, I believe I am also moving into this same development. Homebond personnel were on site yesterday I can confirm as they were seen by my wife so hopefully this means it will move now. We also had uneven patches on the kitchen floor
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Thank you.

Interesting, the EA was framing it as though it were a document that was outstanding not an inspection.

Yes. We had several snags with them. A lot of small items with the exception being the uneven kitchen floor.

Did they allow you to test the underfloor heating? They wouldnt allow us to test it which has been on my mind ever since we signed off. Our solicitor got comfortable with that by us obtaining the fitting certificate of the heat pump and the warranty…
 
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Braystones said:
Thank you.

Interesting, the EA was framing it as though it were a document that was outstanding not an inspection.

Yes. We had several snags with them. A lot of small items with exception to the uneven floor.

Did they allow you to test the underfloor heating? They wouldnt allow us to test it which has been on my mind ever since we signed off. Our solicitor got comfortable with that by us obtaining the fitting certificate of the heat pump and the warranty…
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It didn't even occur to me to test the heating to be honest as I assumed that it would all be part of a guarantee. Hopefully this doesn't prove naive of me. Our snag was mostly just small things also so we weren't too worried. They do appear to be well built homes. We're just very excited to get moved in now
 
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