Timescales - offer to completed?

Sweetcaz_2

Hi everyone,

I was just wondering in other peoples experience what sort of timescale a property purchase, with chain, usually takes?

I agreed to buy a property on 4th July and still have no exchange date or anything :eek:. 3 months seems a long time to still have no kind of dates agreed. Should I be worried?

Thank you in advance for any feedback on this

keith969

I am in a chain and had offer accepted 20th July, still waiting to exchange, EA says its imminent but its been that way since last week... so you're not the only one!

vegasbaby100

No dont be alarmed.

a lot of it depends on solicitors if your using any of the big commercial ones in my experience it takes forever

Hailstorm

I am in a similar position. I had my offer accepted in early July and still haven't exchanged yet.

I am a FTB at the bottom of the chain. It took about a month after my offer for their to be a closed chain. Then my seller's seller had problems with their purchase due to an extension that didn't have or comply with building regulations. In the end they pulled out of the purchase.

There is now a complete chain again. The top of the chain is a new build that is due to be ready for people to move into at the end of October. That seems to be the date everyone is targetting but there hasn't been any talk of exchange yet.

Sweetcaz_2

Thing that aggrvates me is it has been going on for 3 weeks since I have had any sort of feedback from my solicitor, grr. I emailed him last week and then spoke to him later in the week as he has not repsonded and he just said oh I have not had a reply to my email. What happened to picking up the phone!!!!

Would it be frowned upon for me to try speaking to the sellers solictor directly? Their EA has given me feedback a few times but nothing ever of much use!!

Jaybee5

Hey there,

It took us 14 weeks from the vendor accepting our offer to exchange, then one week after that to complete. This was quite drawn out due to a couple of issues with land registry and we found that chasing solicitors and even estate agents to communicate with our buyer helped move things along. It really is frustrating but don't be afraid to make a pain of yourself with calls/emails.

Good luck but don't set your heart on a specific date to move until you're lined up to exchange contracts.

Sweetcaz_2

That's the trouble I get so stressed about it all it makes me angry and I do not want to ring people up and be rude!! Therefore I tend to send a firm email and make sure it reads ok before i send it.

Guess I will have to learn to be abit more pushy but count to ten before I ring anyone, LOL!

hoolah

We exchanged last week after having our offer accepted in late June and the chain was quite short, so it was coming up to 3 months and we were starting to get a bit inpatient.

In the end we really had to keep pestering our solicitors and estate agent and that did seem to help. I would suggest following up any email with a phone call if you don't get a reply within a day.

mlz1413

I think 3 months from agreement to completion is a normal time span, but the solicitors always seems to be the downfall of every sale/purchase.

I won't worry if you have your surveys and searches in place.

But I would ring your solicitor and EA and tell them the date you want for exchange and completion. I have found that if you give a date it can normally be met but waiting to be given a date is like asking how long a piece of string is!

Before you ring write down all your questions and dates and then you won't forget all the things you want to ask or be side tracked.

I nearly pulled out of a purchase once because at 12pm the solicitors hadn't spoken to complete the deal and were about to go to lunch, I told my solicitor if the completion hadn't happened by 2pm he could tell vendors solicitor to whistle (vendors solicitor had been a problem from the start).
I was so cross I'd taken the day off work to get the keys and start decorating and cleaning and could just see the banking day being missed and not getting the keys until Monday, amazingly I got a call at 1pm to say everything had gone through.

Good Luck

Sweetcaz_2

Thanks for the feedback everyone.

The general concensus seems to be that 3 months is not out of the ordinary from offer to completion but we do not even have an exchange date yet so it seems it could be a little longer than the 3 months yet.

I will keep on at the solicitor now I think. I spoke to mine today and seems one further up the chain is on holiday and noone can update us at the moment - useless!

I will keep plugging away, LOL!