How long for draft contract?

Ultranol_2

Hi,

Just a quick question - how long should it take a seller's solicitor to draft the intial contract? We had our offer accepted over 2 weeks ago and this still hasn't been sent to our solicitor, despite chasing every day since last Thursday.

Is it normal for it to take this long or does it suggest there is a problem? Or is the vendor's solicitor just being slow??!

Thanks

princessamy86

Are you buying with cash or mortgage?

seabright

Sometimes I don't send them out immediatly (I am a property lawyer) as I am waiting for other documents to send as well - must solicitors prefer to receive the whole bundle of what we call "pre-contract papers" in one go, rather than in dribs and drabs.

BTW, if your lawyer's chasing everyday and you're chasing your your lawyer every day you could end up paying more in fees than you bargain for, unless you've got a fixed quote. We time record everything and every unit of time gets logged to a file and charged. I'm not saying don't chase your solicitor, but bear in mind you'll be charged for every call, email, letter etc

Ultranol_2

We've got a mortgage - which is approved and ready to go.

We've also got a fixed quote, so no worries there...

princessamy86

So you've had the survey and you actually have your mortgage offer?

Ultranol_2

Yep survey is done, mortgage offer recieved. We're all ready to go!

princessamy86

Cool, was just wondering where you were up to! In my experience, draft contracts are normally about 2 to 3 weeks into the sale, assuming all is well with mortgage offers etc. 2 weeks since your offer got accepted though? Calm down! It will be on it's way, you have to let the solicitors do their stuff. What's your solicitor saying?

G_M

seabright wrote: »

Sometimes I don't send them out immediatly (I am a property lawyer) as I am waiting for other documents to send as well - must solicitors prefer to receive the whole bundle of what we call "pre-contract papers" in one go, rather than in dribs and drabs.

BTW, if your lawyer's chasing everyday and you're chasing your your lawyer every day you could end up paying more in fees than you bargain for, unless you've got a fixed quote. We time record everything and every unit of time gets logged to a file and charged. I'm not saying don't chase your solicitor, but bear in mind you'll be charged for every call, email, letter etc

Hi seabright - I welcome your expertise and comments on the forum but have to comment and raise the issue for posters generally:

charging by time for conveyancing is not, I believe, the norm (though I accept a minority of solicitors do it.)

Certainly my advice to posters here would be to get a fixed price from their conveyancer, including a clear breakdown of which extras/disbursements etc are included/excluded.

Except in perhaps a very small minority of cases where the conveyance is in some way unusual/complex eg perhaps unregistered land.

Would welcome your view.

Ultranol_2

Ah thank you, that’s reassuring. They’re saying that they can’t go forward with anything until they have the draft contract – which although understandable is frustrating as it feels like no progress has been made in the last two weeks!

Reassuring to know that this is normal though.

princessamy86

That's about right, at this stage some people are still waiting for their survey to be done so try not to panic. I've also found that those who chase up daily can sometimes think that things should get done a lot faster than they actually do get done. Hope that makes sense, I'm not having a dig, but it might be better to only chase things up twice a week, as your solicitor will have more to report to you and you'll feel like more has been done. Your solicitor will also have more time to get on with the work!

Richard_Webster

Typical process for many sellers' solicitors is once instructed to send forms out to client to complete and only when these have come back filled in will he send out the draft contract papers. Sometimes therefore it is the seller himself who is delaying things by not filling the forms in.

I try to short cut this by sending the necessary forms out with each estimate on a sale so if they want to use me they have the forms already there, and there is not a further stage involved.