How long does it take a FTB to get their mortgage and searches done?

samba

Our (short) chain was formed on 15th December. Our vendors are chain-free and our buyers are FTBs, and we are in the middle.

We have had our mortgage offer, done our searches, had our enquiries back and are pretty much ready to exchange, but despite asking my solicitor to find out where the buyers are at several times, we haven't heard a peep out of them. Afaik no survey has been done and no enquiries have been raised despite having the draft contract and property details forms since 6th January.

I don't want to put the house back on the market unless I have to, but if I do have to, then I want to do it sooner rather than later, so I'm wondering if anyone can give me a timescale of when the buyers should be ready? Should we have heard something by now, or are there still lengthy delays getting appointments with lenders to make mortgage applications?

Last summer, one of my colleagues had to wait over 4 weeks between his 3 hour phone application and appointment in-branch, and took almost 4 months to go from making an offer to completion, so I do understand if this was the case that they might have told their solicitor to hold back on doing searches until they had their offer through, especially as they seemed right at the top of their budget.

So what should we do?

stator

They should be able to tell you something, sounds like something has gone wrong or having second thoughts.

If they apply for the mortgage first you would expect the valuation to have been done by now. If they wanted to do a survey first it should have been done by now.

Out,_Vile_Jelly

In 2013 it took my mortgage provider 7 weeks to get a HomeBuyer survey done, due to the backlog at the big surveying firms. This was common across all mortgages at the time though, so the agent and vendor couldn't do much.

It may be a simple issue like this, or something else - I would get your solicitor to firmly state that you expect a progress update in x timescale or the house goes back on the market. Actually, it may be quicker and more effective getting the agent to contact the buyer.

miss_sparkle

Your story sounds like ours
We are buying a newbuild, ftb are buying ours so just us in the chain.
After our first buyer pulled out we accepted an offer around 18th December, our solicitor sent draft contracts over 6th January, not heard anything since, no valuation arranged yet.

Rang our solicitor last week to ask what was going on, the buyers solicitor has got all searches back but is yet to receive a mortgage offer

Rang the Ea last week & she contacted the buyers broker, apparently they have changed mortgage companies

Ea rang with an update today, broker awaiting some paperwork from buyer supposedly posted at the weekend so was hoping to receive it today & then get the mortage app in & valuation to follow

Obviously we are pretty worried that the buyer isn't going to be able to get the mortgage, plus as we have been in this situation b4 it's even more stressful

Herbalus

I was a FTB buying a chain free house. We offered in late October, and completed December 19th. Didn't bother with a survey thought.

It can be done, but I gather not everyone is as quick.

DigForVictory

Most of us have to have surveys.

When selling we used the speed of getting a surveyor is as a gauge of how serious the buyer was.

When buying, we were so smitten we asked the vendors when would be a good time in the coming week for us to get a surveyor in. As there were plenty of RICS grade surveyors, but we didn't want to mess the vendors around.

samba

miss_sparkle wrote: »

Your story sounds like ours
We are buying a newbuild, ftb are buying ours so just us in the chain.
After our first buyer pulled out we accepted an offer around 18th December, our solicitor sent draft contracts over 6th January, not heard anything since, no valuation arranged yet.

Rang our solicitor last week to ask what was going on, the buyers solicitor has got all searches back but is yet to receive a mortgage offer

Rang the Ea last week & she contacted the buyers broker, apparently they have changed mortgage companies

Ea rang with an update today, broker awaiting some paperwork from buyer supposedly posted at the weekend so was hoping to receive it today & then get the mortage app in & valuation to follow

Obviously we are pretty worried that the buyer isn't going to be able to get the mortgage, plus as we have been in this situation b4 it's even more stressful

At least you're getting updates - we still have no idea what they area up to.

I think it's time to insist on an update or remarket it.

miss_sparkle

We have only had updates because we kept on at the estate agent, the first time round when it fell through we didn't hear anything from anyone.
We changed our solicitor to a better one who are more on the ball.

You have to keep on at them all the time otherwise you don't get anywhere

phoebe1989seb

We sold at the end of 2014 and our buyers (not FTB though) had their survey done within the first two weeks. Their searches otoh, took four weeks to come back. Different parts of the country vary for search results as our own - different location entirely - took only a fortnight.

Overall the process - selling and buying - was fairly quick (offer accepted 7th Oct, completed 16th Dec) but we didn't bother with a survey and it was a short chain of four.

The house we sold before that - 2011 - our buyers' survey was carried out late in the process and I remember then being concerned that they were going to pull out.

This time we kept a much tighter rein on things - chasing where possible as often as we could. We also were in contact with our buyers via email which all concerned agreed kept us sane

martin1959

The moral of this story, which I told sellers time and time again.....


Do not take you property off the market until the 'purchaser' has a survey carried out, as this is the first point they put their money where their mouth is....


If you make this clear to the buyer, and they are serious, they can get a survey done within a week, especially currently as surveyors do not have a great deal of work on......

samba

Well our buyer's sprang into life shortly after this post, and have had their mortgage valuation and searches done, however they have now gone quiet again, and although they do reply to our queries, their answers are always vague and lacking in detail.

We are getting pretty frustrated really, as we have been ready to exchange for several weeks.