how long till exchange

clairet707

interesting to hear all these stories..

Were buying, we offered 2 weeks ago on saturday, applied for mortgage last friday, got approved on monday, we appointed solicitors on tuesday, the valuation is being done today (hopefully as i type)

we have no chain but the lady were buying off is apparently looking for a retirement place to move to - hopefully she wont hold us up..

We want to have exchanged by this time next month so we can hand in our notice to our rented place (rent day is 17th of month) and complete a week later - there are renovations we need to do before moving in

Hope it all goes well for everyone!

Richard_Webster

In my experience it's usually the endless to-ing and fro-ing of daft questions relating to things like covenants that probably no one has ever known the answers to, contained in the Enquiries and Additional Enquiries (as if the original Enquiries weren't stupid and useless enough) that are the bane of every buyer's / seller's life and the cause of all the delays.

Solicitors could take the view that it is a complete waste of time asking any questions at all. If buyer contacts solicitors year later and asks about some issue that has arisen and then says "Why didn't you ask about that when we bought?" Our answer: "Well, we thought you would be bored with all the questions and answers so we didn't bother...." Somehow I don't think that would wash.....

A copy of the Enquiries and the seller's replies should form part of the HIPS but of course your solicitor and lender will probably raise an untold number of extra questions for the seller which will drive them - and you - round the bend.

The PIQ in the HIP is a government written set of questions that doesn't ask all the points that we need to know.

Kittenonthekeys

Richard_Webster wrote: »

Solicitors could take the view that it is a complete waste of time asking any questions at all. If buyer contacts solicitors year later and asks about some issue that has arisen and then says "Why didn't you ask about that when we bought?" Our answer: "Well, we thought you would be bored with all the questions and answers so we didn't bother...." Somehow I don't think that would wash.....

The PIQ in the HIP is a government written set of questions that doesn't ask all the points that we need to know.

Valid points that I wholeheartedly agree with - but surely the HIPS should include all the individual aspects of a property relevant to that particular sale gleaned in advance of the property being marketed?
The whole raison d'etre of the HIPS was precisely to speed up the process between offer and exchange by providing answers that a buyer's solicitor may require.
Instead, now we are stuck with a system whereby there is still the the same old time-consuming Enquiries / Additional Enquiries as before but this time at extra cost to the seller (via the HIPS) and with little advantage to the buyer who not only has to pay for additional searches not included in the HIPS but also often has to stump up again for LA searches which may have expired by the time the offer has been accepted.

So in actual fact, nothing has changed one iota to speed the process up between offer and exchange, since all the same old Q&A procedure still has to be adhered to, despite the HIPS.
If all this makes sense to anyone else, then I'm afraid I must be missing something.

Richard_Webster

Valid points that I wholeheartedly agree with - but surely the HIPS should include all the individual aspects of a property relevant to that particular sale gleaned in advance of the property being marketed?
The whole raison d'etre of the HIPS was precisely to speed up the process between offer and exchange by providing answers that a buyer's solicitor may require, in advance.
Instead, now we are stuck with a system whereby there is still the the same old time-consuming Enquiries / Additional Enquiries as before but this time at extra cost to the seller (via the HIPS) and with little advantage to the buyer who not only has to pay for additional searches not included in the HIPS but also often has to stump up again for LA searches which may have expired by the time the offer has been accepted.

So in actual fact, nothing has changed one iota to speed the process up between offer and exchange, since all the same old Q&A procedure still has to be adhered to, despite the HIPS.
If all this makes sense to anyone else, then I'm afraid I must be missing something.

I know, and a lot of solicitors and surveyors tried to explain this all to the government when they were proposing HIPs - that it was neither one thing nor the other, and we would still be doing more or less the same as before - but they just wouldn't listen.

The PIQ for instance, it asks a question about whether the seller has had any building work carried out - but not what we want to know - whether there has ever been any such work.

The truth is that if the HIP was really going to be "exchange ready" then it would have to be complied by a solicitor or conveyancer because they would know what questions buyer's solicitors would have asked. The HIP companies would not like that - too complicated for them.

Kittenonthekeys

Richard_Webster wrote: »

I know, and a lot of solicitors and surveyors tried to explain this all to the government when they were proposing HIPs - that it was neither one thing nor the other, and we would still be doing more or less the same as before - but they just wouldn't listen.

The PIQ for instance, it asks a question about whether the seller has had any building work carried out - but not what we want to know - whether there has ever been any such work.

The truth is that if the HIP was really going to be "exchange ready" then it would have to be complied by a solicitor or conveyancer because they would know what questions buyer's solicitors would have asked. The HIP companies would not like that - too complicated for them.

Absolutely, but re. whether any such building work had ever been carried out, that was precisely my point about 'daft' questions that no one can answer properly - often the present seller will not even know for certain when any works took place, and even if they did know, surely anyone in their right mind would take the easy option by replying that they did not know, in order to avoid potential further (delaying) issues around procuring old planning applications, building regs, etc?
Therefore, how can such enquiries be of any value to the potential buyer?

Bufger

I made a detailed timeline diary from a FTB perspective: http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1940511&highlight=

The process of buying was 7 weeks for me, it actually sounds like your buyers may be as proactive and could promise a similar speed. One very important part of the equation is the efficiency of the solicitors. There are many terrible solicitors out there and there are many very good ones with massive work loads that overwhelm them (there are also some good quick ones but its a lottery most of the time).

For me it was important to have direct contact with the seller, this enabled us to judge each others situation and give a bit of slack where its needed (ie on completion she needed more time to move out as she had 2 crazy kids and LOADS of stuff so we gave her some extra time). We also found out that my solicitor had lied to me meaning it was my side of things holding it up when she was blaming the other solicitor!

Be relentless but fair, its the only way to do it without a great amount of stress.

Kittenonthekeys

Bufger wrote: »

I made a detailed timeline diary from a FTB perspective: http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1940511&highlight=

The process of buying was 7 weeks for me...

Just read through your interesting diary which began on 1st Aug with completion taking place on on 20th Nov, which I make 10 weeks?
I totally agree with you on communicating directly with your seller / buyer. Makes an incredible difference and I wish we'd started doing it much earlier on in the proceedings.

Bufger

Kittenonthekeys wrote: »

Just read through your interesting diary which began on 1st Aug with completion taking place on on 20th Nov, which I make 10 weeks?
I totally agree with you on communicating directly with your seller / buyer. Makes an incredible difference and I wish we'd started doing it much earlier on in the proceedings.

So it does! haha. Well it only seemed like 7 :rotfl:

Kittenonthekeys

Mine is starting to feel like 7 years.......

Richard_Webster

Absolutely, but re. whether any such building work had ever been carried out, that was precisely my point about 'daft' questions that no one can answer properly - often the present seller will not even know for certain when any works took place, and even if they did know, surely anyone in their right mind would take the easy option by replying that they did not know, in order to avoid potential further (delaying) issues around procuring old planning applications, building regs, etc?
Therefore, how can such enquiries be of any value to the potential buyer?

OK the seller can only answer to the best of his ability. The answer could be qualified like "Extension built before we purchased in 1999. Do not know exact age but our seller said he thought it was put up about 1985." Seller trying to be helpful as he can but not committing himself to things he doesn't know about. In this case for a start I would be able to say (being 10+ years old) that it was immune from any possibility of planning enforcement if built in 1999 or earlier.

We need to ask the questions because when the seller is selllng, he may get asked, but worse still, in a few cases action might be taken by a local authority or by a covenant holder in respect of a breach of restrictive covenants.

If the building regulations were not complied with a future buyer might insist that expensive remedial works were carried out to bring them up to standard.