HELP: Questions about what *exactly* happens on exchange day

Moonraker71

Forgive me for I am highly stressed

I MUST exchange on Tuesday or my vendor is pulling out.

Chain of three: My FTB buyer, me, and my vendor.

My solicitor is not yet in possession of my buyer's draft contract or his deposit.

Yesterday afternoon, my buyer went into his bank to transfer the deposit money to his solicitor, but the solicitor hadn't received it by close of business.

On Tuesday morning, he is driving 150 miles to his solicitor to physically sign and pick up draft contract, then driving back to personally hand it to my solicitor.

My questions are:

1) Should his deposit definitely be sitting in the solicitor's bank account by Tuesday morning if it was transferred Friday afternoon?

2) What's the standard method the solicitor would then use to transfer the money to my solicitor? Is it instant, like when I transfer my own money from one bank account to another?

3) If not, how do they get it there and how long does it take?

4) I assume the money then has to pass from my solicitor to my seller's solicitor before exchange can take place? Is this feasible all on the same day - both transactions?

Also, should I set up my buildings insurance first thing on the Tues morn, even though exchange won't have happened at that point? It's organised and waiting to go but not 'started' yet (or paid for) as I haven't been able to give them a date until now.

Finally - what the hell happens next, I will only have 48 hours before completion. How do I redeem my current mortgage in time and how do I make sure NatWest will release the funds for completion in time? What happens on the Friday (completion day) if the funds haven't turned up by the end of the day?

This is the most hateful week ever!! I want to KILL my vendor for putting me through this.

tim123456789

1) depends what method he used to transfer it.

2) The "standard" method - the one that costs circa 25 quid gets there in less then 2 hours. If you try and do it for free it might take three days because many banks won't do "faster" payments for large sums.

3) see 1 and 2

4) It doesn't absolutely have to. There is no reason at all, apart from the security of having the money why you can't exchange with a zero deposit. You'll still be bound to complete on the due date and subject to the penalty of losing the value of the deposit if you don't. But most solicitors will strongly advise you (or in this case your vendor) not to do this.

You can arrange insurance on the phone in minutes.

You need to be sure that the mortgage company will meet your requirements. Only they can tell you if it's possible.

I understand why a vendor might pressurise you into exchanging ASAP (mine did this), but putting extra pressure for a swift completion as well is just asking for the buyer to be forced into the position of saying "can't do that" (which is not likely to be what the vendor wants)

moneyistooshorttomention

...and your vendor richly deserves those sentiments too by the sound of it.

You might possibly take a leaf outa my book. I had hoped Exchange would have happened on Friday....so I have decided it darn well WILL happen Tuesday or else basically (as my own vendor is selling a probate house, rather than a home, and my own buyer is obviously impatient). So there honestly isn't a genuine reason for delay and the only reason this is happening is inefficiency or people trying "special pleading" to leapfrog in front of me (even though they are behind me).

So, I've sent an email winging towards my solicitors laying down exactly what I see as necessary now to finish the process off to Exchange level and calculating how long it takes and stating that this WILL happen and I want an explanation if it doesn't (or words to that effect). After all, no-one is having to try to arrange a lightning removal or get outa home area scenario and, if they are being put out at all, its purely down to their own inefficiency.

Personally, it struck me that parents would probably be trying to "leap the queue" ahead of me on the excuse of a School Year about to come and that I had to "create" in order to "keep my place" and not get leapfrogged over by people citing their own "special:cool:" circumstances.

Maybe parents are trying to leapfrog your "place in the queue"? and I think maybe you might usefully tell your own legal person that you wont tolerate that and keep right on their case to maintain your own position.

EDIT: eRRRM...how is that "no removal firm available in timescale" scenario going to be deal with? Is your vendor going to bear his own responsibilities to sort out HIS problem or has he thrown it onto your shoulders to sort out his problem for him?

Moonraker71

Thanks both.

Money, the lack of removals problem is partially resolved in that I have someone on standby who are doing another job in the morning. I thought this was another move but it's actually just a packing job, so has a 'beginning and end' rather than me being at the mercy of someone's else's completion. They hope to be with me by 4pm if the sale goes through.

Re: exchanging contracts tomorrow. I'm still really worried about the transfer of deposit funds taking too long, and the issue of my mortgage funds being released on time for completion. I assume my solicitor will handle this - surely they are used to dealing with short gaps between exchange and completion: exchanging on a Tuesday and completing on a Friday is not *that* rare is it? The problem is the short notice and no advance warning it would be this way.

I also don't understand how I redeem my current mortgage in time, do they handle all this too?

I have not slept this whole weekend, the absolute worst bank holiday ever. I've been saving for ten years to finally be able to buy a house, and this process has taken up the entirety of 2013 so far. January I had to do a lease extension which took three months and £6,000, April had to do all my self-employed accounts and get my house in order, in May flat went on the market, sold and offer accepted on somewhere else, and the legal process has been going on since then. And two days ago my vendor threatens to pull out, after keeping me waiting five weeks for a completion certificate. I feel sick to the stomach. Sorry to sound so melodramatic but I'm doing this completely on my own and friends so far are just being "Oh well, never mind. Chin up!" Just feel really alone.

moneyistooshorttomention

Moonraker

YOu don't sound melodramatic to me.

I do sometimes (make that "often") think that maybe couples don't appreciate just how hard it is for those of us who have to do this on our own.

There's no-one else there behind that front door who is sharing this with you and you can share a hug, a laugh or a moan with as appropriate.

It does help to have friends there on the end of phone or other side of a pub table or wherever to sympathise....but I am now trying to think of just who else I know ITRW that is going through this on their own. I've only been able to think of couples to date and it also doesn't help when you're in an agegroup that has "finished with all that" by and large re moving. Its not even easy to sympathise with yourself for someone who knows all this should have happened 20 years ago and "So why the blimmin' heck didn't it then?" (well that's how I feel personally). Personally, I feel too old to be doing this particular move...as in "I should be settled by now" and I know I'm having to do this because I'm not and won't be until I actually do move.

How old are you Moonraker (if you don't mind my asking)?

calicocat

Nope, not being melodramatic. Just done it all for the first time on my own rather than being in a couple, and when in a couple hadn't really had anything to do with any of it other than picking curtains and carpets.


I went pretty stressed and bonkers towards the end, and most people told me this was normal, and my estate agent said it was a really easy sale....god help me with a bad one..!!

To be perfectly honest to this day i'm not entirely sure what happened when. I didn't give a deposit though, my money was transfered to solicitor 2 days I think before completion, he rang me to say when I was completing as had signed the contracts weeks before. I had insurance etc in place and just had to ring them with final final start dates so mortgage could be released.

I think that's how it all went.....it's all a bit hazy now, thank god, as I just don't need to remember the trauma of it. my estate agent and solicitor were fab though and pretty much organised everything I didn't need to and just sent me an email as things progressed.

It is horrid doing it on your own the first time though, i'm 47 and felt a bit of an idiot not knowing how all the process worked, however my solicitor said compared to a lot I was clued up. It didn't feel like it at the time though, I think it's that a lot of things are out of your control that's is so infuriating and stressful. That's why in the end I asked people to email me as I was getting head-overload talking about it as well as thinking 24/7 house sale.

You will get through it, one way or the other. We all do.

Good luck......the trauma will pass.

Richard_Webster

My solicitor is not yet in possession of my buyer's draft contract or his deposit.

Your solicitor would have sent a draft contract to the buyer's solicitor to approve. Your solicitor should have kept a copy so he can get you to sign that - if the buyer;s solicitor is too slow to not have sent it back "approved" yet. Buyers' solicitors often ahev quibbles about points of wording but these are generally quite technical and your solicitor can agree them on the phone at the point of exchange if necessary.

As long as the buyer's solicitor has the deposit money, getting it to the seller's solicitor is not the most important thing - generally the buyer's solicitor send a a client account cheque in the post the evening of exchange but often it goes out the next day. If completion is within a week or so, the seller's solicitor often will say that the deposit can be held to his order, which means that it actually gets sent on completion but the seller's solicitor can require it before then if he wants. This is because a cheque may well not clear before completion and cleared funds will be needed on any onward purchase.

Moonraker71

Richard - thanks so much for this clear explanation, much clearer than any I've had from my own solicitor! Both my buyer and I were under the impression my sol needed to be in possession of a physical copy of the draft contract signed by my buyer (I've already signed it) which is why he's driven 150 miles to pick it up this morning, but she's just emailed to say it would have made more sense for him to have signed it and left it there! I'm just confused about this whole process. She was trying to explain the different exchange formulas to me last week, but it wasn't very clear. I now understand that it is my *buyer's* solicitor who needs an original signature in order for exchange to take place, not mine.

She also seemed not particularly hopeful of NatWest being able to provide the funds in time (she needs them Thurs for Fri completion) which is really freaking me out now. I assume she can only request the monies after exchange has actually taken place? What if we exchange, and then the funds can't be provided in time?

Money/Calico - thanks for your reassuring words of support Early 40s in answer to your question Money. It is indeed hard not being able to share this with anyone else. But most of all is the financial impact of it falling through, which hits me and me alone. And only me to save up all that money again. The worst thing is that this exact scenario happened to me before. I 'sold' my flat before in 2007 and due to a freeholder issue (turned out my freeholder was bankrupt and in prison!) my buyer pulled out on the day of exchange. So it's like deja vu right now. I also lost a load of money then, but managed to settle out of court for a small sum from the original solicitor I bought the property through, who had neglected to uncover that my freeholder was a crook!

moneyistooshorttomention

It's entirely understandable you would be feeling so upset with that exact scenario you are worrying about having happened to you before. Don't blame you at all for feeling that way. I'm guessing though that this is basically just pushing on a very "sore spot" from that incident.

I know exactly what you mean by thinking that if things go wrong its only down to you personally to try and get the needful money together to put it right. Those exact thoughts have certainly crossed my own mind, ie that I cant turn round to Mr Right (because there ISNT a Mr Right by my side) and he will also be having to find money/put in effort to sort things out with me and "start all over".

It definitely is MUCH more scary doing all this on your own and with only one income coming in to do it with. I lost count long ago of just how often I have thought over the years "This would all be SO much easier if there was another income coming into the household and one that would probably be higher than mine at that".....

Moonraker71

Indeed. I am just extremely fortunate that I originally bought a property in 1999. There is absolutely no way I would ever have been able to afford even a quarter of a studio flat where I currently live otherwise.

Am still waiting to hear anything. My stomach is churning like a 30 year old washing machine right now.

G_M

Just to clarify how Exchange happens:

It happens on the phone. There is no need to actually swop the signed contracts on the day.

So, assuming both solicitors are happy with the wording of the contracts, the searches etc etc, and the buyer and seller have each signed their own copy of the contract, AND assuming the buyer's solicitor has got the deposit money, then everything is ready.

The solicitors will then phone their respective clients, and say "We are ready - do you want to Exchange?", and you, your buyer (and your seller) will all say "Yes please".

Thesolicitors will then phone each other and say "We are Exchanging" and make notes in their records of the date/time.

Exchange done.

The solicitors will then put the contracts in thepost to each other and transfer the deposit money - this ca be done after 'Exchange' as solicitors have professional trust.