No chain either side - how long could it take?

pinkteapot

I've done two chain-free moves. One took 5 weeks, one took 3 months.

If you want to move as fast as possible, get your solicitor working alongside the mortgage application rather than waiting for the survey to come back (main wait during the legal process is for the local authority searches to come back from the council after your solicitor has requested them - waiting time in our area is a few weeks). You'll also need to chase the EA and solicitor regularly to keep things moving along.

For my 3 month one both I and the seller were relaxed and kicked back and let the solicitors do their thing with no chasing.

Ellen016

Thank you again So I should call the solicitors and get them to start the searches now rather than waiting for the survey to be done?

stator

When it's chain free often there is probate involved? Did the last owner die?

As others have said, keep on the ball and it could be done in 2 months but there can still be problems without a chain.

Ellen016 wrote: »

Thank you again So I should call the solicitors and get them to start the searches now rather than waiting for the survey to be done?

Depends if you want to risk the money. The searches have to be paid for. IF the bank refuse to lend you wasted your money on the searches. If the survey is OK then you didn't waste your money
Unless there is some specific reason youare in a hurry (Eg eviction) then it's better to wait, the survey doesn't take long

Ellen016

no, no probate involved. The guy who owns it was renting it out but he's now moved down south so wants to sell it.

HouseBuyer77

My purchase was a very small chain involving only two transactions (me FTB, vendor buying property with no onward chain) both of which were being run by the same EA (small local agent, not large chain). It took around 12 weeks. There were complications around insurance as it was a leasehold. I suspect we'd have been 3/4 weeks quicker if those hadn't occurred.

Reggie256

I recommend caution in general anyway.

We progressed as far as discussing exchange on a house we had intended to buy, only to find out that, despite having been advertised as having no chain, the vendor (still living there) hadn't found anywhere else to live. And it had taken four months to reach that point, so it isn't as if she didn't have time.

Us = out of pocket by significant amount of money.
Her = still living there
House = back on the market

ThePants999

We were in the middle of a 2-transaction chain. 9 weeks from offer to completion on the sale. We offered on the purchase 2 weeks after accepting on the sale, so that was 7 weeks offer to completion. The sale was the critical path, so the purchase could have been even quicker if we weren't dependent on the sale - 6, maybe even 5 weeks.

Prothet_of_Doom

Are you sure there is no chain?

We recently bought a house, which was empty and we were told by the EA there was no chain.

Turned out at the final point of trying to exchange that actually, they had negative equity in the house they were selling to us, and were also selling another house (the house they actually lived in) to release equity for our sale, to move to a third house. And that was in a chain.

It might be that they would not have been in negative equity at the original asking price that they started their advertising at some 8 months earlier, so I won't blame the EA for blatant lying.

Debtslayer

We were no chain and it still took 11 weeks from acceptance of offer to moving in; so I would consider 12 weeks as the norm

lemontart

I am in a no chain situation . now 4 weeks in from accepting offer and completing all forms as seller ta3 or what ever it is called and as yet no word from buyers lender re survey etc. Though have heard from his solicitor asking questions that had already been answered on the sellers paperwork I completed! worse that watching paint dry the waiting game of for others to pull their finger out and get on with things