2 months between exchange & completion?

Grimbal

Hi, me again (apologies)

Our buyers are in rented accommodation at the moment. My house is a difficult sell (terraced town house) so I want to keep them on board.

They have asked for a 2 month gap between exchange and completion as they have to offer this length of time as notice to their landlord. Do you think that this is reasonable? I'm not too worried about it, but am concerned that I may be overlooking something important .

To give a bit of background: if our onward place doesn't find anywhere to go to, we'll be looking at renting anyway so the 2 months may come in handy for us. If our vendors DO find somewhere to go, we can't complete during the last 3 weeks of january, so again, the 2 month delay might work in our favour

What am I missing? Is there a downside to a 2 month wait after exchange?

G_M

Since you are keeping them hanging around it seems only fair to accomodate their request.

There is no legal problem with a 2 month gap, and yes they are right, they almost certainly have to give one months notice ending with a rent period. This means that if they have just paid rent, they may have to wait 2 or 3 weeks before their one month notice kicks in, meaning nearly 2 months in total.

2 months give plenty of time to plan: arrange removal company, organise time off work etc.

The only potential issue is if there is a chain and others in the chain object, but if you are prepared to sell and move to rental, that solves the chain issue.

CloudCuckooLand

Potential of mortgage offer/approval expiring ?

More time for something unfortunate to happen - i.e. 1 of the chain dying would complicate matters. Or a bank collapse.

pinkteapot

We ended up with almost two months between exchange and completion when buying in the summer. We were ready to exchange but the people we were buying from didn't want to move that early. Exchanged 10th June (we wanted to get exchange done so the purchase was as guaranteed as it can be). Completed 2nd August.

I remember the exchange date clearly because it was the day before our wedding. Nothing like doing everything at once. :rotfl:

We only ran into one problem, and this would be a problem for your buyers, not you. We had home insurance at our previous place. The insurer had said we could switch it to the new property on the same policy. They switch the buildings from exchange date and then the contents from completion, but with a maximum of 28 days between the buildings and the contents switching. Because our completion was so long, this wouldn't work as we would have ended up with an uninsured period for our contents at the previous property. So we had to take out a fresh new policy on the new property and then cancel the policy on the old place once we moved out. Cancelling insurance policies mid term is never cost effective due to the admin charges applied. But in the scheme of the overall costs of moving it wasn't a major issue.

mlz1413

Once you have exchanged you are both legally bound to continue to exchange. If they are in rented as G_M says they need to give 1 months notice from rent date, so this is buyers maximum time needed.

If you and buyers are happy with the time then that is what matters.

PS 2 months from today is 5th Jan, so have your rental agreement ready before xmas if your not going a rented house.

Grimbal

thanks guys. It's so frustrating as it's not us that is holding anything up, just our buyers continually faffing and refusing to rent to keep things going :mad:

that was a good point CCL - I hadn't thought of that & have asked my mortgage advisor to clarify. Apart from that issue, it seems that a long exchange to completion may be no bad thing. We now just need to establish whether we're renting or buying so we can work out an exchange date

I honestly have never felt so stressed about a house purchase in my entire life. All of my other moves have gone so smoothly. Karma I guess!

timmyt

Grimbal wrote: »

Hi, me again (apologies)

Our buyers are in rented accommodation at the moment. My house is a difficult sell (terraced town house) so I want to keep them on board.

They have asked for a 2 month gap between exchange and completion as they have to offer this length of time as notice to their landlord. Do you think that this is reasonable? I'm not too worried about it, but am concerned that I may be overlooking something important .

To give a bit of background: if our onward place doesn't find anywhere to go to, we'll be looking at renting anyway so the 2 months may come in handy for us. If our vendors DO find somewhere to go, we can't complete during the last 3 weeks of january, so again, the 2 month delay might work in our favour

What am I missing? Is there a downside to a 2 month wait after exchange?

renters always do this, they want to avoid paying rent and mortgage. classic. your agent should have pointed this out when they offered.

why it is 2 months I don't know, as most tenancies are one.

LittleMissAspie

timmyt wrote: »

why it is 2 months I don't know, as most tenancies are one.

But you have to give notice to end on a rent day. Let's say they've just exchanged but their rent day is the first of the month. This means if they give notice now, on the 5 November, their tenancy doesn't end until 31 December. Almost two months. And you don't want to give your notice until you've exchanged in case it all falls through.

Just had a thought though. On a periodic tenancy the landlord has to give two month's notice, the tenant has to give one month's notice. Are they getting mixed up and think they have to give two? Or it's even possible that the landlord told them they have to give two months because some landlords like to make their own rules up. They might not realise the legal requirement is one month (to end on a rent day).

beeswax_3

Remember VAT rises to 20% in January (I think from the 4thJan) could you avoid this? It would mean paying extra solicitors fees and EA fees.

G_M

timmyt wrote: »

why it is 2 months I don't know, as most tenancies are one.

Did you read the thread? Post 2? :

"they almost certainly have to give one months notice ending with a rent period. This means that if they have just paid rent, they may have to wait 2 or 3 weeks before their one month notice kicks in, meaning nearly 2 months in total."

timmyt

LittleMissAspie wrote: »

But you have to give notice to end on a rent day. Let's say they've just exchanged but their rent day is the first of the month. This means if they give notice now, on the 5 November, their tenancy doesn't end until 31 December. Almost two months. And you don't want to give your notice until you've exchanged in case it all falls through.

Just had a thought though. On a periodic tenancy the landlord has to give two month's notice, the tenant has to give one month's notice. Are they getting mixed up and think they have to give two? Or it's even possible that the landlord told them they have to give two months because some landlords like to make their own rules up. They might not realise the legal requirement is one month (to end on a rent day).

bingo, get them replying to both of your points