How long should it take between offer accepted and completion?

womble12345

To give some recent examples my chain free leasehold flat took 15 weeks, my girlfriends chain free flat took 19.5 weeks.

bee101

Thanks everyone for your posts. Feeling a little less stressed about it all (although I still am really stressed). But that is just me-a natural worry wart. My partner is frustrated with it too but doesn't show it like I do. Going to speak to the solicitors tomorrow and tell them that I want to know exactly what is going on. Enough of this "we'll update you when its done" malarkey. I think if we know exactly what is going on and what searches are back and which ones are still to come back we will feel more in control of the situation. At least this whole thing has been a learning curve. Again thanks all for the help.

flora48

There is no norm, my sale and purchase took 6 months, a conveyancer who always waited for the 'other side' to communicate first then sent documents to the wrong DX address and a buyer that b******d off to India for 6 weeks, Still we got there in the end, in the cold,dark ice and snow of December.

AllThatStuffIsJustStuff

We went down the 'cheapest' solicitor approach when we bought (first timers too) and went through a reseller who offered us 0% finance on the fees. Unfortunately they (ther reseller) went bust so we got the bad service and had to pay up front. Suddenly having to find an extra grand (roughly - it was three years ago and my memory isn't all that) we hadn't budgeted for was not easy.

It took over three months and was a complete nightmare as we agreed in September and were at the mercy of the xmas post to get in before everyone went off for their holidays. As it happened we got in on the 19th and had one shopping day to buy a bed so we could actually sleep here over xmas.

Two pieces of advice - 1. Nag relentlessly. Call every day if you have to. 2. Try not to stress. If you've got this far it's very unlikely it'll fall through and when you have your house, all this will become instantly forgettable and will seem like a minor inconvenience to have your own home.

sonastin

Hassling them relentlessly can backfire as they start avoiding your calls because you're a pain in the backside!

What you need them to tell you when something is "in the hands of a third party" is a) how long they would consider a reasonable time for the third party to respond and b) how long they would normally leave it before they chase it up. For example - local council search: usually takes 10 days, can sometimes take longer, would usually make enquiries if they hadn't had a response in 14 days. In that case, no point phoning every day in the first 10 days because they won't have anything to tell you. Maybe worth a call on day 10 and then another on day 14. After that, if you're not getting useful answers, phone every day.

If they aren't even prepared to fill you in on expected timescales so that you don't have to harass them frequently, you might harass them frequently and then maybe they'll get the message that if you don't get answers, you'll keep asking questions...

Pupnik

Before you start calling/ emailing them constantly check the small print as some will charge you for telephone calls and emails (ridiculous but true, and as it was the cheapest solicitor it is possible they make up for it with all the extra charges like telephone conversations, photocopying etc)

AllThatStuffIsJustStuff

Fair points both, Pupnik and sonastin. I should clarify. I meant to say hassle them if they are fobbing you off or just ignoring you and they aren't sure they're on track. We had occassions where the vendors solicitors were telling us they were waiting on ours and the only way to get ours to actually do it was to nag them. All depends on the circumstances I guess. But ultimately you can't be timid when you are trying to buy a house.

sonastin

AllThatStuffIsJustStuff wrote: »

ultimately you can't be timid when you are trying to buy a house.

Best advice so far!

bee101

I have just been looking on our local authority website and it says that searches should not take longer than about 2 weeks, with 3 weeks being because of exceptional circumstances. Obviously it has now been 4. I think KateLiana27 may be right-the solicitors may have submitted them later than what they are admitting to and that is why we are getting the same weak response every time we contact them. Do you think it would be worth contacting the vendor to tell them of the situation and tell them that we are still waiting on the search results? I know that I would appreciate this update if I was in their position but what do others think? I'm sure we will hear back this coming week especially once we have talked to our solicitor tomorrow.

Richard_Webster

Key issue for a buyer is when the buyer's solicitors received anything from the seller's solicitors. Until they get the draft contract papers they can't do the searches. Often the seller delays completing his own solicitor's forms and so there is a knock on delay in sending the draft contract out.