how long to exchange contracts

Jenniefour

And if you're in a chain then, hopefully, everyone else is actively getting on with it

olibrofiz

I've sold and moved 3 times, never been in a chain, and think 3 to 4 months is average?

House 1, sold June completed Nov
House 2 & 3, sold Feb completed June

80schild

It all largely depends on all parties being motivated and pushing the solicitor and estate agents. None of the people involved in my chain of 3 (other than ourseleves) have done anything of the sort. We are now heading into month six and have lost one buyer due to a slow vendor and now have a new buyer who seems to have employed a solicitor who does nothing but take holidays and long weekends! Now thinking we are just going to convert to buy to let and rent the house out ourselves so we can finally complete on oour purchase! Sick of everything being left in other people's hands!

nazlfc

Hi, we had an offer for a property accepted 5 weeks ago. The mortgage offer was accepted 2 weeks ago and last week we had a valuation. We were hoping to exchange next week or the week after. However, the valuation has come back with issues with damp and structural problems which now require a damp report and a structural report. The valuation report also highlighted an approximate cost to deal with both issues which is approx 6000. This has reduced the valuation of the price we had accepted. In the meantime the seller has on countless times threatened to pull out of the deal if we do not complete ASAP. It's only been 5 weeks from offer being accepted so I don't know why they are being so pushy other than other parties being interested in the property. However, we are at an advanced stage with all the searches complete by the solicitor and also having our mortgage being accepted. The only issue now is that the mortgage company want us to complete the above reports in order to release funds. Any ideas how long it will take to carry out these and how much they will cost. Also how do we handle this seller now that there is the potential for a further delay and also the possibility of asking for a reduction from our original price given the potential cost to repair what's been documented in the valuation report.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

nazlfc

By the way, how long would it have taken to complete i.e. exchange contracts following a mortgage valuation assuming nothing had gone wrong which in our case has.

MegaMiniMouse

There is a widespread acceptance amongst Solicitors, Estate Agents, and Powerless Punters, that Conveyancing is a very slow process.

Not many years ago, most government departments enjoyed the same lack of motivation, but just recently I received my new passport within a week of posting the application. DVLA regularly deals with 'issues' by return of post, and even HMRC is easily contactable by phone, and responds quickly to queries

The big difference is that the Conveyancing industry has not moved into the computer age, and still depends upon antiquated manual systems

MMM

hazyjo

Average, start to finish, is around 3 months. We lost our first buyer, then lost the house we were going for, started again, and this purchase now has taken five long months due to a few hitches along the way. All in all, we've been trying to move for the best part of a year. And it took a year to sell hubby's flat before/during all this so for the best part of 18-24 months we've been selling/buying.

We move in on Thursday and exchanged last Wednesday. OMG I cannot wait!

Good luck with it all!

Jx

kford224

nazlfc wrote: »

only issue now is that the mortgage company want us to complete the above reports in order to release funds. Any ideas how long it will take to carry out these and how much they will cost.

We had that with our offer. They put a £2000 retention on it (or so we thought) pending a full survey of the timber and any damp. We received that on Weds and got the survey done Friday. Everything was fine in the end. I called Santander today to let them know and apparently they never were planning on holding back the £2000!! It was just a recommendation by the valuer, which they had obviously 'ignored'. (This was not made particularly clear in the document, so we got a survey done anyway).

So, you could get this sorted within a few days if you find someone who can do a quick turn around on a survey. Check that it is a definite retention first though!! If it turns out there is something wrong, the sellers will either need to reduce the cost of the house to compensate, or get the work done.

The money they hold back is how much they think it'll cost, so £6000. Our survey was £300 including VAT

evoke

It took us three months and that was for a fairly straightforward transaction.

SnowBelle_2

Six months from sale to move date,my solicitor was brilliant theirs was useless.
Towards the end I was on the phone every other day,it seems that in a lot of cases people don't think to ring you & put you in the picture they seem to think you can read minds!