Accepted Buyer's offer but still no Survey

Jaynorth_2

I accepted a FTB's offer on my property 6 weeks ago but they are still applying for their mortgage so there has not been any survey and they have not retained a solicitor - should I be concerned?

I know things are difficult in the current climate but I think 6 weeks is a bit excessive and because they do not have a solicitor all of my updates are coming via the EA who said that they were applying for a mortgage through HSBC and Santander. I know from other threads on here that HSBC are a nightmare at the moment, not too sure about santander, but I just want to know is it the norm these days to wait in excess of 6 weeks from accepting an offer till a survey is commissioned?

picklepick

We've just been through the mortgage process with Santander and yes, they have been a nightmare! We had an independent survey but if your buyers are having one bolted on, they should be almost ready. Santander send the valuers out at the end of the application process, rather than the start.

Mrs_b_4

We are in the process of buying our first house at the moment. From my experience 6 weeks is fine. They probably haven't got a solicitor because their broker has advised them to wait until the survey is completed (that is the advise our broker gave to us, its great in saving money if the survey comes back poor but not great time wise)

From our initial mortgage application I think it took nearly 8 weeks before the survey was completed. We started the whole process in May and we still haven't exchanged even though there is no chain!!

I wouldn't worry - I think those times are normal at the moment

Jaynorth_2

Ok thanks for the info, was getting a bit anxious but as long as 6 weeks is not unusual.... I can understand the advice about the solicitor because my solicitor was already pushing me to make a deposit of £300 before my buyer has even booked a survey.

DVardysShadow

Mrs_b wrote: »

From my experience 6 weeks is fine. They probably haven't got a solicitor because their broker has advised them to wait until the survey is completed (that is the advise our broker gave to us, its great in saving money if the survey comes back poor but not great time wise)

????? 6 weeks no survey due to mortgage issues is about where my confidence as seller would run out.

And the broker's advice IMO is bonkers in terms on maintaining the seller's confidence. If the buyer and seller have solicitors lined up, contract papers can be sent ready to get going the moment the survey gives a positive report, rather than delay another week to exchange solicitor details. The way to save money is to instruct the solicitor not to commence work until the survey is back.

krlyr

Our vendor's EA wanted to keep the house on the market until our mortgage was approved - the vendor was a friend of the family though so was happy to stop viewings as soon as he accepted our offer, but advertising the house and having viewings may spur the buyers on to chase things up, or at least communicate a bit better

Jimbo1976

You haven't told us what the position is for yourselves, ie where are you moving to. Have you found a property and had your offer accepted? If you were waiting for an offer on yours before you started looking, then I don't blame the FTB for holding out on the survey and solicitors.

If on the other hand you have had an offer accepted and your buyers are aware of this, then 6 weeks is pretty tardy, though as you acknowledge HSBC and Santander aren't very speedy at the moment.

I would keep prodding your estate agent to find out what's going on.

Jaynorth_2

krlyr wrote: »

Our vendor's EA wanted to keep the house on the market until our mortgage was approved - the vendor was a friend of the family though so was happy to stop viewings as soon as he accepted our offer, but advertising the house and having viewings may spur the buyers on to chase things up, or at least communicate a bit better

My thoughts exactly which is why I agreed with my EA that they should continue marketing my property until a survey is booked, yet immediately the offer was accepted all of my viewings stopped. I really do not understand why the EA would take the risk and stop marketing my property when things could fall through with this buyer and they will end up not getting any commission.

I had a go at the EA last week and asked if as he claimed they were still marketing my property why there have been no viewings and he said it was because it was August so things were slow. And as far as I am aware my buyer has not even requested that we stop marketing the property - not sure if that's a bad sign...

DVardysShadow

Get your mystery buyer fired up to see if your property is being marketed.

Jaynorth_2

Jimbo1976 wrote: »

You haven't told us what the position is for yourselves, ie where are you moving to. Have you found a property and had your offer accepted? If you were waiting for an offer on yours before you started looking, then I don't blame the FTB for holding out on the survey and solicitors.

If on the other hand you have had an offer accepted and your buyers are aware of this, then 6 weeks is pretty tardy, though as you acknowledge HSBC and Santander aren't very speedy at the moment.

I would keep prodding your estate agent to find out what's going on.

Well I started looking after I received the offer and I recently found somewhere but my offer was not taken too seriously after I explained the position of my buyers. I have assured my buyers via the EA that it will not take me long to find another property and even encouraged them to give me a time scale or schedule that they would like to work to so that I knew how much time I had but they did not seem to be in a position to do this as they were busy trying to obtain various documents that hsbc requested from them - I believe they are self employed so more information than usual was requested and from what the EA has said, they do not appear to be using a broker.

Lovelyjoolz

This would really concern me. I moved house in December and my mortgage was with Santander. 8 weeks after our offer was accepted, we moved in! And we weren't particularly motoring. Unless Santander have drastically changed the way they do things in the last 9 months, I can't see why they wouldn't have done the survey yet. They did ours 7 days after the offer was accepted.

If I were the vendor and this happened, I'd be thinking the worse, assuming the buyer couldn't get a mortgage and the house would be back on the market and I'd be accepting viewings.