Time between Exchange and Completion for a repossessed house

TomBridges

Hi All...

Basically this is our situation.. We're a couple of FTBs and have just had an offer accepted on a repossessed house.
We have our Mortgage in place, money for a deposit, Solicitors & Surveyor sorted.
The bank who the repossession is with wants to exchange within 3 weeks, and then complete 2 weeks after this date.
However, as we are FTBs, we are currently in rented accommodation, with a contract for another 3 months.
Is this 5 week timescale normal? Does anyone have any suggestions as to how we could drag the time between exchange and completion out to 4 weeks without annoying the bank?!
Any other comments or suggestions are welcome!
Tom

ginvzt

I think from what I heard, it is normal. Sometimes you get just 1 week in between.

Premier_2

Repossessions often come with an expectation to exchange & complete within 4 weeks, as any delay will add to the amount owed by the original purchaser. The current lender will be adding interest to the loan for each day until completion.

So on that basis, you have already have an extra week. Unfortnuately, the contract drawn up by the seller, will probably specify when completion must take place by so any negotiations would need to take place before exchange.

You could delay exchange, but the seller may lose confidence in your ability to proceed unless you can identify a genuine reason for the delay, and even then may still hold you to the original completion date. You can even exchange & complete on the same day.

Your issue seems to be that you don't want to pay rent for a property once you own the new home. Whilst the rental agreement may still have 3 months remaining, this can be anulled by mutual agreement between you and the LA/LL. Get in touch with them now, explain the position and ask for the property to be readvertised. If new tenants can be found, then you should only need to pay rent up until those new tenants take residence (although there may be a small extra cost to pay for re-advertising etc)

Don't try and time the end of your current rental agreement too tightly to the expected completion date of the purchase - something may cause a delay and you may be glad of an extra couple of weeks in the rental property - avoids having to pay hotel bills! Only once you've exhanged contracts can you be more sure of a completion date.