Purchase process timeline - no mortgage

CeeBeeGB

Hello,

If you were buying a property outright, roughly how long would it take from offer acceptance to contract exchange?

Thank you.

kingstreet

Normally, about the same.

No mortgage for you doesn't mean no-one else in the chain will need one, so you could be talking anything from three weeks to several months as completion will be the usual compromise between the different parties and exchange only possible after that compromise has been reached.

CeeBeeGB

Thank you for your response.

The reason I ask is that our sellers are purchasing a property which they will buy outright.

When we made the offer - it was agreed that there would be no delay to the sale. Our sellers would move into rented accommodation if required. Their sellers also assured them that they would go into rented accommodation if needs be.

We completed our sale, and have moved into temporary accommodation. We are now ready to exchange, but our sellers are delaying until they exchange with their sellers.

kingstreet

If you have no legally enforceable agreement with them, they can take as long as they want. All you can do is threaten to withdraw from the transaction if you are unhappy.

In my experience, we can usually secure a mortgage offer in around two weeks, but it still takes months for the legal work to be done and the parties to agree on potential completion dates.

macman

Until exchange, your vendors are under no obligation to proceed with the sale at all, let alone to any schedule determined by you.
All you have is an apparent 'gentleman's agreement' not to delay, which is not in any way enforceable.

hamster2013

they are right to delay until their seller exchanges
as otherwise they would be legally obliged to complete on the date you put on exchange.

Therefore, to answer your question as already answered previously - it depends on other factors.
keep in mind, that the mortgage process of a purchase is anything between 1 to 2 weeks or less at the best.
which means that when EA's or solicitors say that a purchase takes anything from 4 to 8 weeks on average, its not due to the finances, but more the other elements associated:
1. solicitor searches and queries
2. chains
3. shakey sellers/buyers pushing back dates for x or y reason
....etc

CeeBeeGB

Thanks for the advice.

We've stated that we will withdraw our offer if exchange doesn't take place within a prescribed timescale. If we can't agree a contractually binding completion date which aligns with the availability of our temp accommodation, we're stuck. Our sellers agreed that they would go into temp accommodation so that the sale wasn't held up, so we'll hold them to that.

Thrugelmir

CeeBeeGB wrote: »

so we'll hold them to that.

You can pull out of the purchase at any time you wish prior to exchange.

CeeBeeGB

Exchanged - phew!