How long should we wait ?

benlwatts

Hi All,

As a first time buyer the whole process of purchasing a house is completely new and very daunting. We found our place back in may this year and was told by most that the whole process should take 8-12 weeks on average from the offer acceptance.

We're now on week 17 and still have no idea of an exchange or completion date. We've asked our solicitors and they've been met with no response. So in turn aren't giving us any helpful information.

As our mortgage offer is close to expiration we're getting increasingly worried
Is there anything we could do or or anyone we could contact ?

AlexMac

Sympathies; assuming that your solicitor has at least
- received the 'memo of sale' from the vendor's Estate agent
- ID checked you and asked you for a few hundred quid to fund searches etc
- received some info from the vendor's solicitor?
- sent off for the local authority searches and any others you specify (water/drainage/flood, environmental, enhanced planning search, chancel liability scam...)
- advised you that these have been returned (some can only take a few days- other Councils a few weeks)...
- send standard pre-sale enquiries to the vendor (via their solicitor) and freeholder (if a leasehold)...? (and received the lease if the latter...)?
- but (obviously) not yet reported back to you on title or searches or with a draft contact to sign...?

...you could try asking the Estate Agent to chase.

After all, that's about all the EAs are good for other than advertising the sale and sitting back waiting for their comission on completion; and it's in their interest to chivvy the sale as they only get paid at the end.

Its not clear from your post where you are in the dance- and wheter the vendor or their solicitor (or yours) are causing the hold-up, but having done this a few times we try to choose solicitors who are willing to speed things up a bit by using email (rather than snail mail) to communicate-

but you can't control the other side's - especially if they've cut costs by using a cheap or incompetent conveyancer (like our kids recent seller did; she eventually sacked 'em and started again as the leasehold tenure posed complexities above the original firm's pay-grade!)

And if all that fails- you could threaten to pull out- but be sure you mean it.

Better luck next time; I just looked back at my last purchase; a small leasehold flat. My solicitor used an online tracker service - and I see that it took exactly 2 months from offer to exchange, then (as we were in no hurry) another two weeks to completion. The dates in that dance are set out below, as a cut n paste from the tracker website;

PURCHASE TO EXCHANGE
Quotation & Client care letter sent 02/06/2014
Agent's particulars received
Authority to Proceed Received** 06/06/2014
Client identity check
Draft contract received** 23/06/2014
Monies received for Searches 06/06/2014
Local authority search applied 25/06/2014
Water authority search applied 25/06/2014
Environmental search applied 25/06/2014
Local authority search received 02/07/2014
Water authority search received 30/06/2014
Environmental search received 25/06/2014
Enquiries sent 23/06/2014
Draft Statement prepared 25/07/2014
Contract ready for signature** 25/07/2014
Report to client on contract 25/07/2014
Contract signed by client 29/07/2014
SDLT signed by client 29/07/2014
Purchase exchange ready 06/08/2014
PURCHASE
Exchanged contracts on purchase 06/08/2014
Contract sent to sellers solicitor 06/08/2014
Purchase Completion date fixed for** 20/08/2014
Contract received from sellers solicitor
Draft transfer and requisitions sent 06/08/2014
Official search applied 06/08/2014
Draft transfer and requisitions replied 20/08/2014
Transfer signed by client
Balance received from client 13/08/2014
Completed Purchase** 20/08/2014

So it can go well- but not all of ours were as easy! And our mates have just taken 8 months to sell and buy in a short chain!

Good luck

Surrey_EA

Do you know the extent of the chain you're involved in? This will begin to give an idea of what stage the process is at.

At this stage I would ask your solicitor to notify the solicitors acting for your vendor that your mortgage offer is running out, and request an urgent update on where the other parties involved are.

Also speak to the EA through whom you are buying and get them to do some chasing and update you. After all, if it doesn't go through the EA doesn't get paid, so they have an incentive to make things happen.

Mrs_Cheese

Give them (EA/Solicitor/rest of the chain) a deadline. Tell them your mortgage is expiring and you need to move things along faster. This was us a few weeks back, we had reached week 14 with no light at the end of the tunnel, we told the EA we wanted to exchange by mid sept or we were pulling out. This gave everyone else 4 weeks to sort themselves out and allowed us a buffer of a couple of weeks to hand the notice in on our current rental to co-incide properly with the completion date. It's worked and everyone else is working to our deadline.

benlwatts

All searches have been done, ID checks, draft contracts, title/deeds, and all the pre-sale enquiries have been done and having spoken to the estate agent we're all set. Just the sellers end i think

I have no-idea the extent of the chain that we're in and i'm guessing this is something that the EA will be able to tell us ? or is this something for the solicitors ?

Would applying pressure with a threat to pull out when our mortgage offer expires really help speed things along ?

Surrey_EA

A chain can only move as quickly as its slowest component, and you really need to find out from the EA the extent of the chain to give you an idea how near, or far, an exchange of contracts is.

Definitely apply some pressure, both through your solicitor and with the EA, but only threaten to pull out if you're really prepared to follow through with it.

Right now I'd wait until you know more details and are in a better position to assess the situation.

richy999

Didn't you ask what situation your sellers where in before offering?

Solicitors are next to useless about what's going on in the chain... I speak from recent experience.

Suggest that you speak to the sellers estate agent, mentioning that your mortgage offer is close to expiry and ask them to chase up what's holding up the transaction. Don't threaten to pull out until you have more info... but don't just sit and wait for info from either your solicitors or the estate agent. Be polite but persistent.

benlwatts

Thanks everyone for all your replies.

Turns out after speaking to EA we're in a chain of 5 and that both ourselves and our sellers are ready to exchange just waiting on everyone else