Solictors taking there time- what is normal

njh82

Hello

Can anyone help a first time buyer. we have our mortgage in place and the solicitors have just recieved the draft contract from the vendors..how long should the rest take from this point? It seems to be taking an age (its been a month and they have only just received the contract) but maybe thats normal? I don't want to hassle them and annoy them- plus I am sure they charge for every reply- 10% of their hourly rate or something?


Any advice very gratefully receieved!

whitesatin

How long is a piece of string?

We are at their mercy. What gets me is that we live in times when we can communicate instantly, phone, email and attachments, fax etc. etc. but, no, they always seem to use snail mail.

It can be a long, drawn out affair but I hope it is not, for you.

fiscalfreckles

They do take an age, but hassle them anyway. When we sold our house I seemed to be constantly badgering both the estate agent & the solicitor, even did certain things myself. Anything you can do to put a rocket under them helps as they are sooo slow and I took the view that if I didn't keep on at them, someone else would & might get their conveyancing put ahead of mine, IYSWIM!

Bananamana

njh82 wrote: »

Hello

Can anyone help a first time buyer. we have our mortgage in place and the solicitors have just recieved the draft contract from the vendors..how long should the rest take from this point? It seems to be taking an age (its been a month and they have only just received the contract) but maybe thats normal? I don't want to hassle them and annoy them- plus I am sure they charge for every reply- 10% of their hourly rate or something?


Any advice very gratefully receieved!

searches will take 2 weeks if ordered on receipt of draft contracts.

Enquiries on title hsould be raised in a few days after receipt of contracts (or same day if they are any good).

Further enquiries may arise out of searches.

4 weeks is a safe bet for a freehold hwoever if its taken them a month just to issue contracts they may not be too quick with enquiries

(must...resist..urge to rant)

njh82

LOL.. rant away!! Thanks for this. I will hassle them and not worry about annoying them. Its a leasehold whihc I guess might take longer. No chain on either side but it is a probate on their side which might be what was holding them up?

Bob_the_Saver

Solictors taking their time is normal

Jowo_2

On this topic, is it normal for a buyer's solicitor to refuse to approve and return the seller's draft contract until the buyer's mortgage offer has been completed by the lender? So far the seller's solicitor has made 3 requests over the last 5 weeks to action the draft contract and this is the latest excuse...

Richard_Webster

On this topic, is it normal for a buyer's solicitor to refuse to approve and return the seller's draft contract until the buyer's mortgage offer has been completed by the lender? So far the seller's solicitor has made 3 requests over the last 5 weeks to action the draft contract and this is the latest excuse...

Some solicitors get ever so worked up about approving or not approving the draft contract. The theory is that you can't do this until everything else is in place - but that is complete rubbish.

Approving the draft contract is really about agreeing its legal wording although a buyer's solicitor may still be waiting for replies to questions he has raised - but it is rare for those replies to have any real bearing on the wording of the contract. Most contracts are based upon the Standard Conditions of Sale (4th Edition) and each solicitor has his own particular ways in which he wants to amend the standard wording so most contracts will refer to the Standard Conditions and set out a series of amendments to them or additional clauses to give the seller more protection in usually fairly unlikely circumstances when things go really pear shaped. Buyer's solicitors will try to remove any unreasonable clauses, e.g. if there are penalties on the buyer if he defaults, a buyer's solicitor will seek to make those penalties equally applicable if the seller defaults.

This is really a side show to the main point of establishing if there are any legal nasties that could prejudice a buyer. Many solicitors these days approve/amend the draft contract at an early stage and wait for the seller's solicitors to deal with any additional enquiries about inconsistencies or missing documents etc that generally come up.

However in some solicitors' minds approving the draft contract means the buyer is ready to proceed - so "Please will you approve the draft contract...." means "Are you ready yet?" I often get seller's solicitors asking me that a month after a I have amended/approved their contract - it is simply a standard parrot like question.

In this case the buyer's solicitor has to explain a bit more: "If you are not yet ready to proceed please tell us the reason for the delay. In the meantime perhaps you would indicate whether the wording of the draft contract is acceptable to you. Unless we hear from you by return we will send it as drafted to our client for signature...." The last bit is something of an empty threat but it makes the point.

BBC46827

Hmm I wonder if thats why ours got held up. We had an agreement in principle when we offered and the mortgage was all going thruogh but credit checks, ID checks etc were taking a while and the bank usefully lost our documents! So we only had all the signed and sealed mortgage paperwork through a couple of weeks ago. maybe the vendors solicitor wasn't happy to issue the contract until we had those documents.

Although THEY claim it was due to waiting ont he sellers to sign papers and provide information..sigh its sooo frustrating not knowing whats going on.

Another quick query-- we were given a solicitors quote and accepted. since then the partner of the firm we were dealing with went on holiday and it was passed to someone else, then it went back to him but then the partners mum died so it went back to the other guy again and now it has been passed on to someone else....is this normal!? Shoudl this effect our final bill?

scriv

Just to reassure you, it took my first time buyer daughter 8 weeks from offer accepted to exchange of contracts on a property with no chain.

We assume this was due to it being a leasehold flat with a management company. There was no delay at all from the mortgage lender, the surveyor etc, so we think this extra link in the chain might have dragged things out a bit.

It is frustrating, though. Hope it all goes well for you.

bjl1953

My daughter is a 1st time buyer in the process of purchasing a new flat (hence no chain) and is suffering from a solicitor taking his time. The developer has given her a deadline to exchange and told her she'll lose the flat if she doesn't meet this date. It's looking doubtful if this can be achieved because the solicitor was so slow in requesting searches and making enquiries that some have still not been returned, just a few days from the deadline.

The seller's solicitor has dealt with so many sales in the block of flats that he knows the searches will come back clean, so they're hardly necessary. My question is, can a solicitor be instructed by his client to exchange before all the searches are returned?

I would also be interested in peoples opinions of the likelihood of the developer carrying out his threat. Surely he would prefer to wait a few more days than have to start all over again finding a new buyer.