How do I speed up the exchange & completion process?

malteser

Hi again!

We are not in a chain and are waiting to buy our house. The people we are buying from have found a bungalow and the bungalow guy has found a flat which is vacant so its a complete chain right??
We have been told that exchange should happen the end of next week and then completion by the end of the month.....
Does that sound reasonable? I feel this is really dragging on and wondered if given our position in the chain we can do or say anything to speed things along? End of the month is ok i guess if it happens but how can i stipulate that it MUST happen then? We have so much work to do in there and we want to get things going, I just want the damn key and to get in there as i feel life is on hold and i can't plan anything until this is done.

18th Feb was when our vendors finally found their bungalow and we have been patiently waiting since the beginning of October last year when our offer was accepted.

Any suggestions would be very welcome as I havent done this before.
m x

Pal

Threaten to pull out of your house purchase unless it completes by a fixed date? Threaten to reduce your offer price unless it completes by a fixed date? Refuse to exchange unless a completion date within a week is specified in the contract?

Speak to your solicitor and ask their advice. Get them to force the issue for you.

lush_walrus

It is possible to exchange and complete on the same day, so you could ask your solicitor to set the exchange date as the day it completes also, so in theory you could be moved by the end of next week. Presumably the exchange date cant be moved forward as the solicitors are probably still waiting for searches to come back. An average sale takes 8 weeks and your chain was only complete as of the 18th Feb, so its a normal length of sale as far as I can see.

I personally wouldnt threaten to pull out unless you have already tried hard to get an earlier date. You didnt mention that you had already requested an earlier completion date, so perhaps everyone feels as if there is no rush. So try to negotiate nicely first, why put everyone involveds back up by threats and what if they do call your bluff. Its still a rising market in a lot of areas, so the people you are buying from might just choose to re-market their property if you do that, I certainly know from friends who own a chain of agents that from time to time that has happened.

Try being nice first and pick a date you would like to move on, then negotiate from there. Dont forget that for the people in the bunglow this is all pretty quick for them, it was your choice to wait until your venders found somewhere to move to.

Hope that helps.

frugal_dougal_3

Hi Malteser,

I know why you're getting fed up, you have had so much to think about with this purchase.

Theoretically there is nothing now holding it all up, BUT I have noticed that things are going slower generally with solicitors since the money laundering regs came into play. There is only a bit of extra work for them to do but you know how some of them make a meal of it.
Ask them to let you know exactly what the hold up is, and whether you can do anything yourself to speed up the process.

And then...............hang in there !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

dougk_2

Realistically I would say most house purchases take about 3 months from start (offer) to finish (move), but speaking to our solicitors it seems to be taking a bit longer. The solictors themselves are busy , the mortgage companies seem to be on a go slow (Abbey in particular) and because of the building regulations becoming more complex in the last couple of years (FENSA for door/windows and now part p) there seems to be a lot more questions asked, which then need replies etc etc.

Also with houses not selling as quickly (i.e. on the market for longer) it just seems that things are going slower in general and people are thinking more carefully.

Theres lots to organise and think about anyway like moving your stuff and organsising removal company/van, notifying everyone of change of address so time will go quickly. Personally I think exchange and completion is best done with at least a weeks gap, pref. 2 so you can plan everything so nothing goes wrong!

Elliott_Woods

Like Lush Walrus says you can exchange and complete on the same date but it is not recommended. Say for example this happens:

You pack you furniture etc and belongings into removals van. All packed up and ready to go say 11am. Contracts still not exchanged. Someone in the chain says hang on a minute I cannot do it. Then you are in limbo because you cannot move into the house you are purchasing, but you still own the one you have just packed up. Do you really want to up pack everything again?

I would try and speak to both Estate Agents on sale and purchase and see if theyr could bring some pressure on all parties concerned. Ideally you would be better off having a week between exchange of Contracts and completion and some security it is all going to happen when it is supposed to.

calleyw

We moved in on the 24th of March after putting in a offer on in the 1st week of jan.

It would have been earlier but for some reason his solictor told him the 24th and would not budge from that date. We where :mad: to say the least as we didn't want to keep our buyer hanging on as we had accpeted there offer the end of the November. And we had probs in the middle but that is another story.

Hubby rang the solictor everyweek at least once if not twice. I swear that is the only reason it happened as quickly as it should have done.

So I do understand why you feel this way. As I could not wait until we got got the keys. And the day never seemed like it was coming.

The average is 12 weeks from start to finish. So unless you buck everyone up you are going to be waiting a little while longer.

Hope you get your keys soon.

Yours

Calley

Elliott_Woods

Yes but the average is different in different parts of the country, for example Local Searches are the searches that seem to take the longest, some areas they can take several weeks. It also depends on the length of the chain - if you have approximately 8 people in the chain it is a matter of waiting for everyone to have results of Surveys, Searches, Contract and Mortgage Offers (all being satisfactory) before proceeding. You may get someone in the chain who is not prepared to pay for the searches until they have received a satisfactory valuation/survey and again this can delay. But some people dont like paying out for searches until this stage because they are quite expensive.

Each chain is different.

malteser

hiya

thanks for the info and suggestions, I particularly like the sound of exchanging and completing on the same day! Fortunately we don't have to worry about removals vans as we are only moving 5 doors away and don't have much stuff anyway! Plus we need to do a fair bit of work so won't actually be living there straight away but I want to get people in to do the work.

My solicitor said something about several other searches that can only take place after exchange, if thats the case how can it happen on the same day??? I don't mind a week but 2 weeks is toooooooooooooo long!
I know the local search fee is done as i paid for it right at the beginning of the process but there are still others such as land registry searches, bankruptcy searches etc can these be done quickly?

Our mortgage is from the Abbey and from an admin perspective they are crap, it takes 6-8 phonecalls to get a letter faxed.

Oh well nearly there.................

Elliott_Woods

The only searches that should be left to be done are the Land Registry and Bankruptcy. They can be sent in the post takes a couples of days, done over the telephone - results straight away or on-line - results in minutes.

Abbey National may require a few days notice for the advance monies to be sent to your solicitor - this is normal.

garysletters

It is certainly not a good idea to exchange/complete on the same day.

Mortgage companies have been in turmoil since the introduction of the new Key Facts regulations a few months ago. They mainly claim to be over the initial problems, but some are still slow.

The solicitor will have given a date of 24th as they (and estate agents) always seem to like to do things on the last Friday of a month. I cant see any valid reason why this couldnt be brought forward if everything had been completed satisfactorily weeks before. Sounds like your solicitor is too stuck in his ways (or up his own a**e).
I know the 24th was a Thursday, it was a bank holiday Friday!

It generally takes around 3 months from offer to completion, although solicitors may try to claim they will do it in 2, this rarely happens.

Local searches, in some areas, can be obtained in a day. Most solicitors advise a wait of 2 weeks. My mum used to work for solicitors, and once a week or fortnight, she'd be sent round to the council offices (or somewhere) to pick up all that weks applications.

That is why they say 2 weeks, it means they can all be picked up at once without having to go every day!
(i know some get sent by post, I'm just saying they can be obtained in a day in some areas.)