How soon to completion?

emmalita

Hi have had an offer accepted last week,have just received a questionaire from solicitors and 1 question is when would i like to complete. I dont know really im all new to this and dont know how long it takes. Survey is being done tomorrow pm amd am hoping this comes back ok. Is it the searches then? I would ideally like to be in before september due to kids going to new school but is this realistic. There is no chain and I am in rented accomodation. Thanks

getmore4less

Its down to how fast things get done,

Sept(6w+) should be fine if no one slacks, chase up everything all the time.

amz84uk

Have a look at the following website for the stages;

http://www.sharetobuy.com/information/homebuying.php

On the questionnaire, I would write "asap", and then once the mortgage lender / solicitor / etc are all appointed, they will try fast-track things through. But definately chase yourself.

It all depends on whether the sellers are ready to move out asap too, and if all the surveys etc come back without problems.

Congrats in advance on the purchase of your new/first home :-)

Richard_Webster

I think the solicitor needs to know:

1. What you would like .and why e.g. as you have said, by early September to sort children's schools.
2. Dates to avoid - e.g when you are going on holiday.

Please remember that there is all the difference in the world between a target date and the actual date. If completion later than early Sept is going to be a problem for you then explain why and that will give the solcitor ammunition if he needs to push other people. You do need to think through what you would do it you get can't the dates you would like, and sometimes there isn't much you can do, apart from pulling out or threatening to do so.

Cissi

We did it in 3 weeks to exchange and then have just under 4 weeks to completion, so 7 weeks in total. Completion could have been sooner but the vendors wanted time to get organised and this suited us as it coincides with our notice to our landlord.

Are you on a periodic tenancy with one month's notice? If so, try to make sure that you exchange at least a few days before your tenancy period date (usually when your rent is due) so that you can give notice as soon as you've exchanged. In our case the schedule was extremely tight - we exchanged at 4:15 on the day our notice was due for the next month. At 5 pm I marched into the letting agency with our notice letter which we'd prepared in advance!

In order to make this happen as fast as possible, we instructed our solicitor to start all necessary searches etc right away, before the survey. Whether you want to do this depends on how important the speed is to you as you'll be committing to extra costs (although most searches should be in the HIP). Then it depends on how quickly the solicitors on both sides turn around enquiries etc - you'll have to constantly chase them, both directly and through the EA. It was an incredibly stressful few weeks, but worth it!

We weren't getting a mortgage and that may well delay things further unless you've prepared things in advance

Cissi

I should have added that in our case the vendors had set "exchange within 4 weeks" as a condition, as they'd had one previous sale fall through and risked losing their purchase. There was no further chain above them and as we were renting it was pretty straightforward, but still very stressful.

I also think you should tell your solicitor that you need/want to move by X date due to school start and then make sure you chase absolutely everything up all the time to make sure everyone involved understands the urgency. However, if the vendors are not equally keen to move things along there probably isn't much you can do, so have a back-up plan just in case.

cherry76

My sellers were keen to have a speedy exchange date but dragged the completion. They gave me the impression they wanted to move quickly & that should give me at least two weeks to get some works done on the house. After they have agreed on the post survey price, they gave me the date of completion, only one week for me to get the builder to do the work. I was not very happy with the date. I think you should agree on a completion date and make sure it is on your exchange contract. You do have to do a bit of chasing, my fixtures and fittings form were sitting in my folder and I was wondering why it was taking so long to reach me. I found out that the solicitor forgot to post it.

sandraslice

Ours is at 8 weeks stage now, due to exchange at the latest Monday next week,,, Famous last words..

emmalita

Hi Thanks for the replies. It is a finance company that own the house although the people that have lost it to them are still living in it. I asked the EA when will they move out and he said the day of completion. Apparantley the finance company want a very quick sale although the couple dont coz they have to move in with family.Halifax have been trying to arrange the survey all week but EA didnt tell me that the couple had gone on holiday so there was no access. He eventually got hold of a family member who gave them keys.I think the couple may be dragging their feet and i do feel for them but id have thought EA would of had keys as they dont own the house anymore.The couple are in their 60s and their business has gone bankrupt so they have took the house of them. Today I have took questionaire and all ID to solicotor and payed £120 for a search so hopefully things will get moving.From everyone elses experiences i think its gonna end up going into september...