The NEW waiting to exchange thread...

laura_lau

climbthatwallseegar said:

Natbag said:

Thank you @climbthatwallseegar - I hope I can put us all out of our misery soon! Hope you get some progress on those outstanding points soon, yours has been dragging on as well hasn't it?
@Josephgousto - ah, how exciting! Pleased for some positive momentum on your side  

@Natbag I feel like a bit of a fraud on this thread as I have had it a lot easier than many, I've 'only' been in this process since mid-March.

It just feels like an eternity as I had an offer above asking price within 2 days of listing from the perfect FTB with everything in order and in those early weeks I truly thought this would be done and dusted within a 2 months or so. How delusional. I've only ever bought a New Build before (over a decade ago) and it was very straightforward so I was not prepared for all this back and forth. The frustrating thing is the lack of transparency. I didn't realise my solicitor had been waiting so long for a reply to her enquiries until a couple of weeks ago when she casually mentioned she hadn't received a response since sending them at the beginning of April. So for the whole of April when I thought things were progressing they were not. In the past week, with me relentlessly stalking the Freeholder daily we've managed to get answers to most questions. I wonder how frequently my solicitor was chasing before then?

She seems very laid back about the whole thing even though I've tried to convey to her the stress of not knowing when I can sign a rental tenancy or get my removal van booked. She replies to e-mails  but never, ever picks up the phone. I have never spoken to or seen her. When she was sending her stock one line answers "I will update you in due course" for weeks on end I began to think she was actually an automated robot.

@climbthatwallseegar I can relate, as you saying that your solicitor seems really laid back about it all really hit home with me! My latest pending enquiries were pending since she raised them in February, and, since my mortgage took quite a while to get approved ( approved 30th April and I had submitted my application on 4th Feb) I spent most of April writing to the solicitor with the excuse of updating her on the mortgage and always asking if everything was sorted from the legal side. Never got an answer. Now I'm pretty convinced she didn't do much of the work she was supposed to with enquiries and putting together documents until after she received the mortgage offer from my lender! Reason why a whole month after that, I still haven't got a single date agreed. I really hope these solicitors just get on with it! What annoys me, is that I will have to pay her fees very punctually when the time comes, which really sounds like a bad joke to me!

GioSan

caz_cardiff87 said:

GioSan said:

How long does the Lender takes to review the final report from solicitor to give a green light to agree thats it's all fine and they are happy to release funds...so that we can xchange! It's been 3 days and counting!!!

Mine says it's confirmed for release on the 1st June ready for completion on the 2nd - they received the paperwork yesterday from my solicitor. Depends which lender you are with I suppose and if anything has been thrown up in the searches / enquiries. I was lucky with my purchase as all searches came back fine and my solicitor only had to raise one enquiry about the cavity wall guarantee which the vendors solicitor promptly sent to her. 

Thats really awesome...I had past subsidence 20+years and this was picked up in the valuation too and the valuer from the Lender suggested it's fine and not ongoing etc and values at the sale price. Anyway, it's difficult to know whether the solicitor is actually waiting on Lender confirmation or they are busy anyway.

laurey0301

baileykxo said:

Newbie here! 

I’m currently in the ‘long’ wait part of the process, waiting for the searches to come back before we can proceed! 

It sounds like a daft question but it’s estimated 20 days for the searches to come back has anyone for their back before this? And is it actually 20 days or just Monday-Friday they count as ‘days’. 

Also, what comes next? 

The wait is awful and being a FTB I want to chase up and get updates everyday 

We waited 3 weeks for the searches, but each local authority is different.. sadly only mon-fri count as days.
Are you buying a leasehold property? Have you received your mortgage offer?
Its so frustrating isn't it, we are FTB too and i'm far too impatient with all this limbo waiting!!

Natbag

@GioSan - not long I hope, as I think that's what we are waiting for from our buyers to be able to actually get that exchange done. Hope you get it soon.
@baileykxo - welcome! Hope those searches are back soon for you. I'd expect it to take the full time, and anything sooner is a bonus. You can only go as fast as the slowest party in your chain though. There's a handy timeline here: https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/mortgages/buying-a-home-timeline/
@caz_cardiff87 - definitely keep calling and pushing, nothing gets done otherwise I've found! Hope they call with good news very soon!

baileykxo

laurey0301 said:

baileykxo said:

Newbie here! 

I’m currently in the ‘long’ wait part of the process, waiting for the searches to come back before we can proceed! 

It sounds like a daft question but it’s estimated 20 days for the searches to come back has anyone for their back before this? And is it actually 20 days or just Monday-Friday they count as ‘days’. 

Also, what comes next? 

The wait is awful and being a FTB I want to chase up and get updates everyday 

We waited 3 weeks for the searches, but each local authority is different.. sadly only mon-fri count as days.
Are you buying a leasehold property? Have you received your mortgage offer?
Its so frustrating isn't it, we are FTB too and i'm far too impatient with all this limbo waiting!!

Damn, I thought that could be the case! So frustrating!!
 Yep, we have our mortgage offer. No it’s a freehold. So, everything else is pretty much back and done on our part so just waiting on these damn searches!! Me too, it’s the worst!! 

ZSC

ZSC said:

ZSC said:

ZSC said:

Going to eventually post on this thread after being a long-time lurker! 

I’ll not bore anyone with the previous house we tried to buy where the chain collapsed 3 times and now we are living at parents 😩

26/3 - offer on property accepted
29/3 - mortgage application submitted with Virgin 
29/3 - searches submitted 
29/3 - homebuyers survey booked for 28th April
07/4 - all searches back
08/4 - mortgage offer received 

Now we are just waiting on the draft contract from our sellers so we can get going with all the enquiries which I hope can be done pretty quickly if everything looks ok!

Thought I would add my update on here since everyone else has been so helpful 

27/04 Draft contract received 
28/04 Homebuyers survey 
29/04 Report received - a few things on there but happy to resolve ourselves 
07/05 First lot of enquiries raised with sellers solicitor - however no report on title yet due to it being an unregistered property and title hasn’t been sent to solicitor yet. All other reports have been sent (minus anything from enquiries!) 

So now I guess it is just a wait to see how quickly the sellers solicitor responds to mine! Hoping for an early June completion but not overly optimistic!

Good luck to everyone hoping to complete today!! Following you all closely keeping my fingers crossed! 

We sent all of our signed docs back last week, but waiting for responses to enquiries. Really hoping we get them next week so we can still aim for the 4th June... tight, but fingers crossed!

Popping back in with an update! Just been onto our solicitors portal and it states ‘responses to enquiries received, proposed completion 11th June!’ 

Eeek! Is it too push to email her and ask when the report on everything will be?! 😂 I know she was chasing enquiries on Tuesday, so must have received them today... 

I need this deposit out of my bank account ... it’s burning a hole 😂

Natbag

ZSC said:

ZSC said:

ZSC said:

ZSC said:

Going to eventually post on this thread after being a long-time lurker! 

I’ll not bore anyone with the previous house we tried to buy where the chain collapsed 3 times and now we are living at parents 😩

26/3 - offer on property accepted
29/3 - mortgage application submitted with Virgin 
29/3 - searches submitted 
29/3 - homebuyers survey booked for 28th April
07/4 - all searches back
08/4 - mortgage offer received 

Now we are just waiting on the draft contract from our sellers so we can get going with all the enquiries which I hope can be done pretty quickly if everything looks ok!

Thought I would add my update on here since everyone else has been so helpful 

27/04 Draft contract received 
28/04 Homebuyers survey 
29/04 Report received - a few things on there but happy to resolve ourselves 
07/05 First lot of enquiries raised with sellers solicitor - however no report on title yet due to it being an unregistered property and title hasn’t been sent to solicitor yet. All other reports have been sent (minus anything from enquiries!) 

So now I guess it is just a wait to see how quickly the sellers solicitor responds to mine! Hoping for an early June completion but not overly optimistic!

Good luck to everyone hoping to complete today!! Following you all closely keeping my fingers crossed! 

We sent all of our signed docs back last week, but waiting for responses to enquiries. Really hoping we get them next week so we can still aim for the 4th June... tight, but fingers crossed!

Popping back in with an update! Just been onto our solicitors portal and it states ‘responses to enquiries received, proposed completion 11th June!’ 

Eeek! Is it too push to email her and ask when the report on everything will be?! 😂 I know she was chasing enquiries on Tuesday, so must have received them today... 

I need this deposit out of my bank account ... it’s burning a hole 😂

Yes I'd call, you need your title report and contracts to read, sign and have witnessed - if you could get those by tomorrow you'd have the bank holiday weekend to sort it and get a head start. Great news though, how exciting!

laurey0301

@baileykxo
once your searches are back you should be pretty much there. Just the mortgage deed, deed of transfer etc to sign. As long as there are no enquiries on the searches

caz_cardiff87

Natbag said:

@GioSan - not long I hope, as I think that's what we are waiting for from our buyers to be able to actually get that exchange done. Hope you get it soon.
@baileykxo - welcome! Hope those searches are back soon for you. I'd expect it to take the full time, and anything sooner is a bonus. You can only go as fast as the slowest party in your chain though. There's a handy timeline here: https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/mortgages/buying-a-home-timeline/
@caz_cardiff87 - definitely keep calling and pushing, nothing gets done otherwise I've found! Hope they call with good news very soon!

All sorted! She e-mailed the new completion doc and i sent the deposit and fees straight over - never have i checked anything as many times as I checked their sort code and account number, my hands are still sweating. 

All set to exchange tomorrow, she just asked me to email her in the morning to give her permission to go ahead and she will call when it's done.
Scuse me while i go poo myself.

Justonemorecupoftea

Back on track! Solicitors re-instructed and here we go again...

Expecting the survey on the house we're (hopefully-taking nothing for granted) buying tomorrow, weirdly looking forward to it, even though I'm sure it'll be full of alarming yet heavily caveated statements.

Glad to see other people are progressing well!!