Buying Repossession: 28 Day Deadline

Rickyt

Hello, we are buying a repossessed property and the Estate Agent has given us a 28 deadline to complete, which is bit rich over the Christmas holidays. Can anybody direct me to the legal regulations on this please?

FabDee

Hi

There is something going on at present regarding buying repo houses just now. not 100% sure whats going on, try the legal centre website and see what info ons that. Hope that helps.

FD

Flat_Eric

Rickyt wrote: »

Hello, we are buying a repossessed property and the Estate Agent has given us a 28 deadline to complete, which is bit rich over the Christmas holidays. Can anybody direct me to the legal regulations on this please?

Someone else asked a very similar question to yours. My question in response is have you purchased this property at an auction i.e have you already exchanged contracts. If yes then I suspect the 28 day deadline will apply. If you have not purchased this property at an auction/ have not exchanged contracts then usually the 28 day period will begin to run / should begin to run from when your solicitor is in receipt of a full contract pack i.e. Title Information document, Contract, any other relevant documentation etc etc. Also is it 28 working days or 28 days ? If 28 working days then obviously xmas won't really come into it because the days lost to xmas will be discounted.

Estate agents will always be keen to move matters along / insist deadlines are stuck to and whilst it might be desirable to the Vendor to have the deal done and dusted within 28 days, I suspect that if you do everything you need to do when you need to do it i.e don't delay in letting your solicitor having the money required for searches /deal with anything your solicitor asks promptly then I cannot see that the vendor can have cause to complain.

DVardysShadow

Rickyt wrote: »

Hello, we are buying a repossessed property and the Estate Agent has given us a 28 deadline to complete, which is bit rich over the Christmas holidays. Can anybody direct me to the legal regulations on this please?

There are no legal regulations. There is a common law duty to get the best price for the sake of the lender and the repo'd owner. The rest is driven by the client [repo bank].

Just move as fast as you can and accept that it could all fall through at any time before you exchange contracts. You are probably better placed to see this through now than at any other time of year.

G_M

Read this thread. Same answer.

Rickyt

Thank-you, I found a guide on the main website

FabDee wrote: »

Hi

There is something going on at present regarding buying repo houses just now. not 100% sure whats going on, try the legal centre website and see what info ons that. Hope that helps.

FD

Rickyt

Thank-you for your answer. It is through an EA and they have stated 28 calendar days, so there is a huge chunk out of that over the Christmas holiday period from the date of the offer. That is the trouble, trying to get everything done when a lot of people are off work/on the bottle.

Flat_Eric wrote: »

Someone else asked a very similar question to yours. My question in response is have you purchased this property at an auction i.e have you already exchanged contracts. If yes then I suspect the 28 day deadline will apply. If you have not purchased this property at an auction/ have not exchanged contracts then usually the 28 day period will begin to run / should begin to run from when your solicitor is in receipt of a full contract pack i.e. Title Information document, Contract, any other relevant documentation etc etc. Also is it 28 working days or 28 days ? If 28 working days then obviously xmas won't really come into it because the days lost to xmas will be discounted.

Estate agents will always be keen to move matters along / insist deadlines are stuck to and whilst it might be desirable to the Vendor to have the deal done and dusted within 28 days, I suspect that if you do everything you need to do when you need to do it i.e don't delay in letting your solicitor having the money required for searches /deal with anything your solicitor asks promptly then I cannot see that the vendor can have cause to complain.

Rickyt

Hi. Thankyou. Your answer intrigues me. Why is this the best time of year? Surely searches etc will be held up by people being on holiday & partying.?

DVardysShadow wrote: »

There are no legal regulations. There is a common law duty to get the best price for the sake of the lender and the repo'd owner. The rest is driven by the client [repo bank].

Just move as fast as you can and accept that it could all fall through at any time before you exchange contracts. You are probably better placed to see this through now than at any other time of year.

DVardysShadow

People don't buy at this time of year. You probably lose about 1.5 weeks of professional involvement. But nobody will be looking at houses for about 3 weeks.

jaffs

yes i'm in the same boat and have just lost about a week and a half due to no post because of snow and all paperwork being stuck in post. Im just hoping they extend the 28 days if no other interest is shown, but agree the market is bound to go quiet over xmas which must be good news for us as less chance of another offer coming in

MissMotivation

Flat_Eric wrote: »

Someone else asked a very similar question to yours. My question in response is have you purchased this property at an auction i.e have you already exchanged contracts. If yes then I suspect the 28 day deadline will apply. If you have not purchased this property at an auction/ have not exchanged contracts then usually the 28 day period will begin to run / should begin to run from when your solicitor is in receipt of a full contract pack i.e. Title Information document, Contract, any other relevant documentation etc etc. Also is it 28 working days or 28 days ? If 28 working days then obviously xmas won't really come into it because the days lost to xmas will be discounted.

Estate agents will always be keen to move matters along / insist deadlines are stuck to and whilst it might be desirable to the Vendor to have the deal done and dusted within 28 days, I suspect that if you do everything you need to do when you need to do it i.e don't delay in letting your solicitor having the money required for searches /deal with anything your solicitor asks promptly then I cannot see that the vendor can have cause to complain.

It's not the EA that sets the 28 day deadline it's the Repo company.

OP, it's in your best interests to get the sale to exchance of contracts asap as the property will be fully marketed until that point and you don't want to risk the chance of losing it to someone else.