Getting an exchange date?

ag19lfc

Our mortgage offer is now with our solicitors. They have told me they will forward a written report on the offer shortly.

What needs to happen now before we can agree on an exchange date?

Do we have to sign a contract first and hand over the deposit before a moving date can be agreed?

Is it realistic to expect to receive an exchange date before the 25th of this month (two weeks from now)?

Road_Hog

Generally the process is, view property/make offer/arrange finance.

Once finance is in place, the mortgage company will arrange valuation/survey. Solicitors will then staat doing necessary searches and paperwork.

If nothing bad comes back from the survey/solicitor, youcan then proceed to exchnage contracts and as the buyer, hand over the deposit.

The exchange date is agreed together with the other party and at the same time a completetion date is set (the day the money is transferred and you get the keys), which is usually a month after exchange,but could be any timescale.

It could take over a month for the mortgage company's surveyor to visit and produce his report, especially if it is not a local independent.

Even the most simple sales can drag on. I accepted an offer on my property on the 17th June from a first time buyer (no chain) and it is an ex-rental property that I don't live in. I'm still waiting to exchange (as is the buyer), but haven't due to the snail's pace of the mortgage company and their surveyor.

ag19lfc

Survey and everything has been done. Results have been received over a week ago.

How long should the contract take to prepare? Do we arrange an exchange date before or after signing a contract/handing over the deposit?

If it's after contracts/deposit, how long does this process take? We want to agree an exchange date before 28th of this month as we have to give a months notice to leave our rented property and we want to be in the new house before Xmas.

Voyager2002

ag19lfc wrote: »

Survey and everything has been done. Results have been received over a week ago.

How long should the contract take to prepare? Do we arrange an exchange date before or after signing a contract?

There are various 'searches' that your solicitor has to do: things like ensuring that the property really does belong to the person selling it, and that there are no plans to put a new rubbish dump in your back garden... It is usually possible to do these in about a week, but they depend upon your solicitor getting prompt responses to a range of requests for information from different actors, so more or less anything could happen. Then the solicitor has to draw up the actual contract...

Don't forget to allow a reasonable amount of time between exchange (when the contract to buy/sell becomes binding) and completion (when you actually hand over the money and get the house. A lot has to happen between those two events.

ag19lfc

Searches are done too. Solicitors have told us that they are in the process of writing a draft contract.

Do we have to read/sign and send this back before negotiating a moving date?

hazyjo

Well they can't exchange until they have a signed contract, and also until you have all agreed a completion date.

You usually sign and leave the date off. They'll then exchange when a mutually acceptable completion date has been agreed.

Jx

camptownraces

The draft contact has to go from vendor's solicitor to your solicitor.

If they are not happy with it, there may have to be some negotiation between the two parties. Once the contract is in a form your solicitor is happy with, they will probably ask you to sign (but not date) it, and produce the 10% deposit which you send to your solicitors direct.

Then both parties have to agree a completion date. Then, probably, you can exchange contracts.

(Then you have to arrange the for the rest of the money to be transferred to solicitor, as does the mortgagee, and lots of other things.)

Yorkie1

The seller's solicitor prepares the draft contract. It is basically a standard form with the parties' details and the sale price inserted.

You sign your copy in preparation for exchange, as does the seller with his copy.

Once all the paperwork is sorted and there are no further questions on either side, a completion date is agreed. The solicitors ring each other up, agree that the contracts have been exchanged, and insert the completion date into the contract. You're legally committed to buy / sell the property at that point. Exchange is therefore a fairly fluid affair, with the completion date the more important one to focus on.

You need to ensure your solicitor has 10% of the purchase price (assuming you're the buyer) in cleared funds a day or two before exchange.

You need to ensure they have the rest of any money from you, including stamp duty and the balance of their fees, before the completion date.

ag19lfc

The text alert from our solicitors says "we have vetted the Title to the property".

What does that mean exactly? Sorry, First Time Buyer, the whole process so far has been quite alien!

akuma

its means the house your buying, really is the house your buying

Newly_retired

Don't want to worry you, but it can take a lot longer than you think.

Our solicitor told us everyone in our chain of four was ready to exchange , so we paid the deposit. This was with a completion date of five weeks away agreed. Exchange did not happen on the agreed date, and the same process repeated itself four times over the next few weeks, until at last everyone got their act together. We exchanged a week ago, leaving us only one week to completion,
21 weeks in all since our offer was accepted.
So the completion date did not change, just the exchange date.