Contracts from vendors solicitor

trv9865

Hi, some advice please!
We had our offer accepted on 1st July, property taken off the market, sold sign was put up within a week. We have instructed solicitors and are in the process of arranging a mortgage, our surveyor should be going in next week some time.

My concern is that its been 3 weeks yesterday and our solicitor hasnt had the draft contracts sent through from the sellers solicitors yet. Is this normal? Or has it taken too long and should I be worried? Does anyone know how long this should take? There is no chain on the vendors side and we are FTBs, so I would have things would be moving a lot faster than what they are at the moment.

I need some reassurance, my solicitor said last Friday that its not "unusual"....??????

sonastin

Nothing to be worried about yet. July is prime holiday time. Vendors solicitor goes on a 2 week holiday on 30th June. Gets back to office. Prioritises the live files which are nearing completion and need urgent attention. Drafting contract for new instruction takes more than a week to surface to the top of the To Do list.

Thats one scenario. Another could be that the vendors solicitor doesn't want to rack up any costs for working on the sale until it is more assured of going through, so he'll leave it in his in-tray until they know that your mortgage is certain and it is worth drafting contracts with you as the buyer.

There are also many many more reasons why the contracts haven't made it to your solicitor yet. Once everything else is done and that is all that you are waiting for, then you can start worrying about why they haven't appeared yet.

Hope that is reassuring for you?!

Doozergirl

I wouldn't be happy. That is the first thing to be done. The solicitor is at best slow, at worst your vendor is stalling for some reason.

Conversation with your vendor is in order I think before you spend any more money on this purchase.

colli

Easier said than done I know but try not to worry too much. I could have written your post myself a few weeks ago but everything moved fairly quickly once our solicitor recieved the draft contracts and we've just exchanged.

It's tough being a FTB as you've little idea of what is normal and what isn't but you're still aware that there are so many pitfalls throughout the whole process and I tended to think the worst if things weren't moving as quickly as I'd expect. Not helped when the EA doesn't return your calls and the vendor's solicitor is constantly fobbing off yours for whatever reason....

Good luck!

vet8

We are selling and even though I told my solicitor we wanted things to happen as fast as possible it still took them over a month to send the draft contract. Some of them are just glacial in their movements.

trv9865

I think I'll ask my solicitor to make another call to find out what the delay is? Surely its in the vendors best interest to get the cotracts across ASAP? My solicitor cannot start with the necessary searches untill we have that contract! Theres no HIP so those searches will need to be carried out as well.... Im starting to think hes stalling? I dont have the vendors telephone number, but I do have his address, I'm now drafting a friendly letter, just introducing myself and also try to find out what the delay might be... Do you think thats a good idea?

Cannon_Fodder

trv9865 wrote: »

We had our offer accepted on 1st July...
We have instructed solicitors and are in the process of arranging a mortgage, our surveyor should be going in next week some time...

My concern is that its been 3 weeks yesterday... and our solicitor hasnt had the draft contracts sent through from the sellers solicitors yet...

Why would they incur costs when you haven't arranged a mortgage or had a survey ?

My solicitor suggested leaving searches until after survey, to avoid costs on my part before the survey confirms the house is ok, the offer won't need renegotiating etc etc. I instructed survey within 24 hours. Why is your's not complete in three weeks ?

I'd bet that there's a thread here from your vendor saying, "my buyer is dead slow, they took two weeks to book the survey, I'm not sure they even have a mortgage..."

Communicate. Probably waiting for you, while you wait for them.

trv9865

thanks Cannon, i think you've hit the nail on the head!! key word communication!! I thought I was doing all the right things but obviously I've missed the trick, I need to talk to the vendor. Letter is now in the post! I'll hopefully get a call, text or email from him some time tomorrow or over the weekend. If the estate agents had given me his number, I would have made contact with him a long time ago. Some how I feel in control of the situation again.

Bananamana

whats more likely is the seller hasnt returned the papers to their solicitor for him to issue contracts... suprisingly few people seem to believe the delay can be on the client side

(shocking i know)

Hailstorm

Cannon_Fodder wrote: »

Why would they incur costs when you haven't arranged a mortgage or had a survey ?

My solicitor suggested leaving searches until after survey, to avoid costs on my part before the survey confirms the house is ok, the offer won't need renegotiating etc etc. I instructed survey within 24 hours. Why is your's not complete in three weeks ?

I'd bet that there's a thread here from your vendor saying, "my buyer is dead slow, they took two weeks to book the survey, I'm not sure they even have a mortgage..."

Communicate. Probably waiting for you, while you wait for them.

Some good points. It got me thinking, I wonder how many delays are due to the buyer and seller waiting on each other to do things before committing to spending money.

A delay in receiving the draft contract would send my warning bells ringing because last year the vendor of the first place I was trying to buy pulled out. That was six weeks after accepting my offer and at that point my solicitor had still not received the draft contract. The odd thing is that I received my mortgage offer on a Friday and the seller pulled out the following Monday. There was no chain either side.

The solicitor I used has a policy of not commissioning searches until they receive the draft contract to avoid the buyer spending money on them if the seller does not appear to be serious. This did save me money but I can see how both buyer and seller can end up waiting on each other.

Regarding your comment about two weeks to book a survey. That may not necessarilly be the buyers fault. I let my mortgage lender arrange my survey because a surveyor could do their valuation plus my survey in one visit. This made it considerably cheaper. It did however take the lender over 2 weeks to book the survey on both properties (the one that fell through and the one I eventually bought).

sonastin

Hailstorm wrote: »

Some good points. It got me thinking, I wonder how many delays are due to the buyer and seller waiting on each other to do things before committing to spending money.

So true. I've read on here buyers saying that they're not going to get a survey done until its taken off the market because they don't want to get gazumped after they've paid for a survey. I've seen vendors on here saying that they earliest they will take it off the market is when the survey has been arranged so that they know the buyer is serious.

I've seen people at the bottom of the chain not wanting to pay for a survey until their vendors have had a survey on the property they are buying so that they know the vendors are definitely planning to move out. And I've seen people mid-chain saying that they're waiting for their buyers survey to be done before they instruct their surveyor in case their sale falls through.

So much potential for a mexican stand-off.

And it all seems to revolve around the timing of the survey. Perhaps HIPs should be re-instated but this time with full surveys included, and a right of recourse for buyers if the surveyor is negligent. Or is there too much risk of the HIP being useful then?!