Estimate House Buying Timeline

richardturn

Hi,

I am a FTB so the whole process is new to me. I understand there are so many variables so an estimated time scale may not be possible.

I made a bid on a house the beginning of March. I had a delay getting a mortgage as was struggling to get an appointment with a mortgage advisor. I have now had a mortgage accepted with RBS and confirmed with the underwriter.

It has been passed to CountryWide Surveyors to carry out a survey which has been booked for the 3rd April.

I have spoken to the solicitors and they are awaiting the draft contract in the post which was sent out to them on the 25th March.

How far along the process am i? From my understanding the only thing left to do is the survey will be carried out next week, the report will be written up and sent to me and the bank a few days later, The bank will then approve the mortgage which will then allow the solicitors carry out the searches.

Would the completion to happen before the end of April be too optimistic or are we well on track to complete this within the next few weeks?

Thanks,

G_M

You could Complete next week.

Or it might be July.

To understand what is being done, and still needs to be done, get a book on house buying. eg

http://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Your-First-Home-Sell/dp/0091935377/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1395930372&sr=8-1&keywords=house+buying

(free from your library!)

misssaver12

There is a lot of time-consuming paperwork for the seller to complete and get in including all information for the house which if the seller delays doing this can delay the process as well.

The whole thing is a 2 way process. My last exchange was delayed because the solicitors wanted the seller to sign the documents in her maiden name not married name.

firefly72

Having just been through a long process, I agree that assuming you are timely in the paperwork on your end, it would depend on how soon the seller and solicitors get through theirs.

I am finally completing a purchase on a property I put in an offer for in October 2013!

Nenen

If it helps - we had sold our house and were living in a rented property (so in effect in the same position as first time buyers) when we made an offer on our current home in mid August 2013. The place we were buying was already empty (the elderly owner had moved into sheltered accommodation) so there was no chain... so far so good (or so we thought).

I lost count of the number of different technicalities that had to be addressed before we were finally able to exchange and complete on 19th December 2013 (a mere 4 months from the date of our offer). These technicalities included a tiny discrepancy between the drawings of the boundaries on different documents, trying to get an up to date list of fixtures and fittings from the vendor and finding out the land hadn't been registered properly and negotiating with the vendor for him to do this.

In my experience, while it is certainly possible and some people are lucky enough to be able to complete within 3 months of offering, 4 - 6 months is more common and 7-12 months is not unheard of! :eek: