How far in advance do you tend to know your completion date?

ijrwe

I'm buying, and the vendor has found. He's going into a vacant property and, I'm fairly sure, will be paying cash - out of the proceeds of the sale. I have a mortgage application in the works currently, not approved yet. My offer was accepted ten days ago.

I'm wondering how far in advance I'll know my completion/exchange dates. Will it be with at least 3-4 weeks to go, really? And when are those dates set, only when all finances are in perfect order?

I need to sort out my exit from rented accommodation, you see, and can't do that until I have a date. Hopefully it will be at least a few weeks in advance, but maybe not.

Fire_Fox

Everything has to be in order before you consider exchanging - finances, searches, contracts, etc. The completion date is set when exchange of contracts occurs, you might well have an idea before then but nothing is certain until you exchange. Sometimes you have several proposed exchange dates before it happens, sometimes you know well ahead, sometimes there is a flurry of activity over a couple of days from not being ready to exchange to done and dusted. The time between exchange and completion varies, so your question is a bit 'how long is a piece of string?'

Don't forget your notice to quit will need to coincide with a rent period, you might wish to advise your conveyancer of this date and say how much of an overlap you are willing to have.

ijrwe

Fire_Fox wrote: »

Everything has to be in order before you consider exchanging - finances, searches, contracts, etc. The completion date is set when exchange of contracts occurs, you might well have an idea before then but nothing is certain until you exchange. Sometimes you have several proposed exchange dates before it happens, sometimes you know well ahead, sometimes there is a flurry of activity over a couple of days from not being ready to exchange to done and dusted. The time between exchange and completion varies, so your question is a bit 'how long is a piece of string?'

Don't forget your notice to quit will need to coincide with a rent period, you might wish to advise your conveyancer of this date and say how much of an overlap you are willing to have.

I live in a shared house and in practice what we do is just replace ourselves when we leave. That's never been a problem so far but I'll need to know, within a few weeks. Otherwise I'll just er on the side of caution and end up with two houses at once. And two is better than none, in this case.

G_M

Giving notice:

Ending/Renewing an AST (what happens when the Fixed Term ends?)(What is a Periodic Tenancy?)(How can a LL remove a tenant?)(How can a tenant end a tenancy?)

Completion should be discussed in advance, and preferred dates swopped, but the problem you have is that until Exchange of Contracts you cannot be sure of the Completion date. It very unwise to give notice on your tenancy until Exchange of Contracts since any delay (or cancellation) of your purchase could leave you homeless.

Your options are therefore

1) to have a long gap between Exchange and Completion (allowing sufficient time for your tenancy notice period).

2) to have an overlap and have to pay both rent and mortgage for a short period (a week or two)

giraffe69

We are hoping to exchange in the next few days and it looks as if completion will take place in about two weeks after that. It is a date agreed by all in the chain before exchange takes place and cannot be changed after exchange.
Unless there are special circumstances you need a period between exchange and completion to organise 101 things including movers.

phoebe1989seb

Last couple of times we've sold we dscussed completion dates with our buyers at second viewing/offer stage. Last-but-one time (2007) our buyers were shown over the house by our EA and after the first viewing the EA called me to say the viewing couple would like a word with me so could I pop home to answer a few questions. At that point the viewers said they intended to offer and were looking for a quick exchange/completion - six weeks - as they wanted to be in by Christmas. They were cash buyers (and we weren't getting a mortgage to buy our next house which was being sold by people going into rented, so short chain) and we did manage to compete the whole transaction within the six week time-frame.

Last year we moved again and at their second viewing the couple that went on to buy our house informed us that their buyers had a particular week in mind for completion/moving due to a booked holiday. We were perfectly happy to fit in with this - again we weren't getting a mortgage and ended up buying an empty house - and managed to complete during the week originally discussed which was around 8/9 weeks later

I definitely find that communicating directly with the vendor/buyer can be useful, rather than relying on EAs to mess up on passing messages on......

Richard_Webster

I definitely find that communicating directly with the vendor/buyer can be useful, rather than relying on EAs to mess up on passing messages on......

It can be but it isn't a lot of help if having agreed something with the vendor/buyer they do not tell their solicitor what has been agreed and discuss the feasibility of the suggested date with him.

The number of times I have been told by my clients that the whole chain have agreed such and such a date and I ring the seller's solicitors up and they say things to me like "Well, that's not going to happen because we haven't had a draft contract yet on our related purchase...."