'We won't ever move house again' How an 18-month nightmare put one family off for LIFE

Moving home can be one of life's most stressful events. Some people describe it as up there with death and divorce.

It is a notoriously lengthy process with setbacks and delays par for the course.

The house buying process takes 41 per cent longer than most people expect, according to research from the Open Property Data Association.

On average, people expect it to take 88 days to exchange contracts once their offer on a property is accepted. The reality is that it takes 124 days, according to OPDA.

In total, the typical home takes six months to sell from when it is first listed, according to Zoopla data.

However, for many people it can take even longer than that. Most property transactions are in a chain and, if one sale collapses or is delayed, all the others are impacted.

This was the case for Steven Cryer, 43, and his family, who recently moved into their new house on the Wirral.

In total, it took the Cryers a staggering 18 months from putting their house on the market to finally getting the keys to the new home they are in today.

After two aborted purchases, lost buyers, broken property chains and thousands of pounds down the drain, Steven has vowed to never move again.

He describes the whole experience as an emotional whirlwind of dashed dreams, negotiations, changing plans, spiralling costs, paperwork and endless frustration.

'I think the system is completely broken,' he says. 'It’s been stressful and very hard on the family, hard on the kids.

'We felt stuck in this up and down roller coaster. Ultimately our life went on hold for 18 months but you keep having to remake plans.

'We won’t ever move again now. Not after this experience. I've lost faith in the industry. I think the system is completely broken.'

Steven had two buyers pull out of buying his former home, and then had to pull out of two purchases himself due to unforeseen problems.

'At one moment, we were selling our house, then the person who was buying our house lost their buyer, so we had to re-list the property,' he explains.

'Then we had another buyer, but they eventually pulled out because they saw something else they preferred. The next buyer luckily stuck with us.

'But then we had endless problems with the properties we were trying to buy because the surveys picked up major problems, so we had to withdraw twice.'

Steven would like the whole sales system flipped on its head, with sellers having to provide and pay for a survey of their own home before the legal process begins.

If this had been the case, he says, he could have avoided wasting time on the first two homes he made offers to buy - both of which had hidden nasties.

The first was due to structural issues, and the second needed a full roof replacement.

By the time he had discovered this, he had already paid hundreds for a mortgage valuation and for the survey itself.

Even the property he went on to buy has cost him much more than expected, due to issues not disclosed by the seller or contained within any sales pack.

He estimated a budget of around £22,000 for work needed post-move. So far it has cost in excess of £62,000.

> What type of survey to choose when buying a home

When the final searches were undertaken on the property an entry on the Land Registry had been made by the family of the seller to prevent the sale, which meant a further delay and cost.

'There should be some policy that protects the buyer,' said Steven.

'Sellers pull the wool over your eyes. Everyone does their house up to make it look good to sell, but when you get behind what's been done, often nothing has been done to a good quality.

'This cost us a lot of money. Every time we had a mortgage valuation we lost around £600. Our own personal surveys were £1,200 each time. Having to go through that three times over cost us £5,400 and that's before legal fees.'

'Even the house we ended up buying has had so many issues. All the tiles fell off the bathroom wall after we moved in.

'There was damp everywhere. We had a rat infestation. We’ve had to re-wire the whole house. The boiler didn’t work.

'You've got no comeback, unless you want to go through a small claims court - but how many people have the time or money to do that?'

Aside from all the expenses, stress and disappointment, the whole moving process has also cost Steven valuable time.

'You have to do so much paperwork and fill and refill the same documents,' adds Steven. 'Multiple mortgage applications, each time with a very different mortgage rate. That was very stressful as well.

'You wouldn't believe the amount of times I had to send bank statements and other documents to all the mortgage providers.

'Then I had to catalogue all the fixtures and fittings, and sign all the legal paperwork with the solicitors over and over again.'

The repetition inherent in document collection is something highlighted by the research from the Open Property Data Association.

It found that close to two thirds of home movers have been asked to provide the same information or documents two to three times during a home move.

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Last month, the Ministry of Housing, Communities, and Local Government announced that it wants to modernise the property transaction process through digitisation and secure data sharing.

But for Steven and his family, any change is too little, too late.

'Over the past 18 months, I kept thinking we were going to get our dream house. We had our removal company ready to go. We were imagining what we're going to do,' he says.

'The stress on our family life, the time it's taken, the emotional stress - you just have to put your life on hold.'