Buying house - how long for solicitor to receive draft contract?

junglejame911

I'm sure this gets asked a lot but I can't find a thread on this forum so forgive me. . .


We are FTBs with offer accepted on a property 3 weeks ago. Since then we have done what I think we have to do from our end - solicitor appointed same day and details sent to EA, mortgage approved, lender valuation done, our home buyers report done.

I contacted our solicitors office yesterday and was told they are still awaiting word from the vendors solicitor re draft contract/property title etc.

How long does this bit of the process take? I would have hoped my solicitor would have heard something by now.

Richard_Webster

Is there a chain of ytransactions above you?

If your sellers are buying and haven't found aplce to buy or thdeir sellers haven't found somewhere and so on up the chain there is no reason for sellers to instruct their solicitors to start work if the chain might never come together.

When buying it is always worth trying to ask the sellers themeselves (not the estate agents who will tell you anything) why they are moving. Some really need to move andwill bemotiviated to find somehwere quickly. Otheres have a fanciful idea of an ideal property somewhere they will never find.

Another [possible cause of delay is that someone has died and the family have rushed into putting the hosue on the market before getting a grant of probate. Depending on the complexity and value of the persons estate this cvan take months and a sale to you can't go through untilprbate has been obtained.

junglejame911

Apologies - I should have said. . . the property we are buying is empty and there is no chain. The vendor expressed a wish to sell quickly and accepted our (lower) offer as we were FTB and in a position to move quickly.

lindsloo

This is interesting. We are ftb' and our solicitor requested draft contracts over 2 weeks ago and the EA confirmed it had not yet been sent. It was supposed to be a small chain of 3 houses and our vendors vendor wasn't buying. I wonder if they've changed their mind. It would explain despite myself, the EA and our vendor chasing why they're not budging. The EA is involved with whole chain so will be questioning them on Tuesday.

junglejame911

Don't like to bump my own thread but I am becoming increasingly frustrated by this. It is now 6 weeks and still no sign of my solicitor receiving the draft contracts/deeds. My solicitor did has written to the vendors solicitor on several occasions and been assured they would be received imminently.

I guess there is nothing I can do to speed this up but from others experience, how long has this process taken? My solicitor did say that occasionally searches etc will be sent with the contracts so the process can still proceed quickly. . . has anyone experienced this?

Shahni

To assemble the basic contract pack the seller's solicitor will need the property information forms back from the seller, payment on account for the register copies and the memorandum of sale and EPC from the estate agent (EPC is also available online) Even if their client is very slow getting the forms a payment to them it shouldn't take long, certainly not 6 weeks. Does the estate agent have any idea on the reason for the delay?

ellie27

junglejame911 wrote: »

Don't like to bump my own thread but I am becoming increasingly frustrated by this. It is now 6 weeks and still no sign of my solicitor receiving the draft contracts/deeds. My solicitor did has written to the vendors solicitor on several occasions and been assured they would be received imminently.

I guess there is nothing I can do to speed this up but from others experience, how long has this process taken? My solicitor did say that occasionally searches etc will be sent with the contracts so the process can still proceed quickly. . . has anyone experienced this?

Ours took a long time too, it was 3 weeks and 3 days til our solicitor received the first bit of paper regarding our purchase. That did contain a written acceptance of our offer, draft contracts and the title deeds.

junglejame911

Shahni wrote: »

Does the estate agent have any idea on the reason for the delay?

They are in the dark too. I have had informal discussion with the vendor on one occassion who simply said his solicitor "isn't the quickest". (Presumably not the most expensive either or I can see no reason to use them).

Tassotti

A decent solicitor should have the contract pack over within a week.

A cheap online conveyancer is worth every penny.

martin.cat

Our purchase took 7 weeks for the draft contract
It turned out that the property wasn't registered electronically with the land registry and our vender had never collected his deeds from nationwide whom were struggling to find them. It got to the stage where he had instructed his solicitor to start registering title.

I would check the land registry online to see if your property is registered
You then need to speak to vender or his estate agent to get to bottom of problem putting time limits on it if required

Your solicitor needs the title/ plan to start searches etc which if it's registered isn't a problem

oli_ro

It looks like someone needs to chase the seller's solicitors. Typically, it is the role of the EA to this, a phone call rather the e-mails/mail should shed some light as to why they are delaying.