The NEW waiting to exchange thread...

Wes121708

Finally joining this thread! Everything seems to be moving quickly for us, the longest part was to actually finding a mortgage suitable so we held off getting a survey and searches until we had our mortgage offer.
We managed to get a surveyor in as they had one cancelled and no major issues raised.
Luckily our searches we're requested the Friday before the last bank holiday and came back yesterday. Enquires have been raised but not many and fortunately we bumped into the seller yesterday whilst paying a quick visit to the property! Found out lots of useful information from them. 
They had a sale fall through the day before exchange so have everything ready to be answered by their solicitors. They have no mortgage and there is no chain so we're keeping everything crossed to exchange and complete before the end of the month.
So mortgage was approved 28th May and and everything back accept enquires answered!
Our solicitor did say that they usually have to give a weeks notice to the lender for funds to be released? we're using NatWest. But I have read somewhere that NatWest release funds the day before completion so it doesn't hold thing's up?

oneilld3

Wes121708 said:

Finally joining this thread! Everything seems to be moving quickly for us, the longest part was to actually finding a mortgage suitable so we held off getting a survey and searches until we had our mortgage offer.
We managed to get a surveyor in as they had one cancelled and no major issues raised.
Luckily our searches we're requested the Friday before the last bank holiday and came back yesterday. Enquires have been raised but not many and fortunately we bumped into the seller yesterday whilst paying a quick visit to the property! Found out lots of useful information from them. 
They had a sale fall through the day before exchange so have everything ready to be answered by their solicitors. They have no mortgage and there is no chain so we're keeping everything crossed to exchange and complete before the end of the month.
So mortgage was approved 28th May and and everything back accept enquires answered!
Our solicitor did say that they usually have to give a weeks notice to the lender for funds to be released? we're using NatWest. But I have read somewhere that NatWest release funds the day before completion so it doesn't hold thing's up?

I was always told 5 working days/1 week for funds too.
However, I exchanged yesterday (10/06/21) (admittedly I took a gamble and told my solicitor to begin the fund request yesterday morning) and by lunchtime, I had a text & email from Nationwide saying my funds will be with my solicitor by 14/06/21, so anything can happen!

Louise.H

Sometimes I think this thread is basically waiting to hear from my solicitor. 

This is where I am at, is it unreasonable to expect a reply to a really simple question quicker than 2+ days? My mum gets replies from them in hours (same solicitors firm, difference is her purchases are a lot more £).

sw7

laura_lau said:

Good morning everyone. Aaaand it's Friday again... Sending good vibes and wishing good luck to everyone who is awaiting news. I know we can do it, as so many good examples in recent days are showing us, so I'm very hopeful! Now, Just had my coffee, I can start pestering the EA agent to see if they have finally been able to get hold of the seller's solicitor!

Good luck and positive thinking your way too.

I'm taking a break from chasing today after yesterday's failure to exchange. With our long chain and solicitors presumably being busy completing, I can't see it happening on a Friday.

So if it happens, it happens. But for you... go and chase them!

asbear

laura_lau said:

Good morning everyone. Aaaand it's Friday again... Sending good vibes and wishing good luck to everyone who is awaiting news. I know we can do it, as so many good examples in recent days are showing us, so I'm very hopeful! Now, Just had my coffee, I can start pestering the EA agent to see if they have finally been able to get hold of the seller's solicitor!

I am not sure if I understand your fully story but has your side been ready to exchange and the completion date is set already? Then I think what you could try is pushing your solicitor to chase the seller's solicitor. I think you've done this already but wanted to mention this because of my experience.

A day before our exchange, I called my solicitor and suggested 18 June for the completion date and my solicitor sent an email to the seller's solicitor for setting the agreed completion date. However the seller's solicitor didn't respond until the next day. EA checked that out and it turned out that she was off. I anyway transferred the whole money to my solicitor to prevent any delay but didn't get any news. It was not really hopeful. I called the solicitor firm more than 5 times to chase the progress - couldn't talk to my solicitor directly but left my messages to the person on the phone.

In the next morning, my solicitor gave me a call, told me that he hadn't got any response yet but he will contact the firm directly and find someone else to get the deal done with him. We didn't have the completion date until this moment. But got a call about the confirmation of the exchange of contract around 2pm with the completion date I suggested.

My point is that you could still try pushing your solicitor, for setting the completion date and send the required fund as early as possible once the solicitor agrees with it. To me it looks like the exchange could be done really quickly if your solicitor pushes it really hard.

Hope this helps.

trance_abbey

@Justonemorecupoftea - it sounds like you've been incredibly patient. Fingers crossed that your house gets snapped up quickly this time around!

@Sacher50 - the solicitor has asked me all sorts of questions that I don't know the answer to and got me to draw on a map where the boundary line was in dispute and is taking it _very_ seriously

Hurrah for everyone who is seeing progress... so many exchanges happening this week

sw7

Louise.H said:

Sometimes I think this thread is basically waiting to hear from my solicitor. 

This is where I am at, is it unreasonable to expect a reply to a really simple question quicker than 2+ days? My mum gets replies from them in hours (same solicitors firm, difference is her purchases are a lot more £).

Our solicitor have added a load of disclaimers to their email about delays due to Covid (really?) and the SDLT deadline, amongst other things. One basically says "emails will be printed out, treated as post and dealt with in the order they arrive. Replies can take up to 48 hours".

I understand dealing with things in order and not expecting emails to be read the minute you send them, but printing them out... in this day and age...?

Wes121708

We want to try and exchange on or before the 23 of June so we can give our months notice to move out our rental. That way we have until the end of July to get things sorted out at the house and tidy up any loose ends here. If we go past the 23rd we'll have our rental until the end of August which is fine but would be nice not to have to pay the extra rent!
Not sure if we're confident enough to hand our notice in before we actually exchange even if our solicitors give us a date or are we being over cautious?!

laura_lau

asbear said:

laura_lau said:

Good morning everyone. Aaaand it's Friday again... Sending good vibes and wishing good luck to everyone who is awaiting news. I know we can do it, as so many good examples in recent days are showing us, so I'm very hopeful! Now, Just had my coffee, I can start pestering the EA agent to see if they have finally been able to get hold of the seller's solicitor!

I am not sure if I understand your fully story but has your side been ready to exchange and the completion date is set already? Then I think what you could try is pushing your solicitor to chase the seller's solicitor. I think you've done this already but wanted to mention this because of my experience.

A day before our exchange, I called my solicitor and suggested 18 June for the completion date and my solicitor sent an email to the seller's solicitor for setting the agreed completion date. However the seller's solicitor didn't respond until the next day. EA checked that out and it turned out that she was off. I anyway transferred the whole money to my solicitor to prevent any delay but didn't get any news. It was not really hopeful. I called the solicitor firm more than 5 times to chase the progress - couldn't talk to my solicitor directly but left my messages to the person on the phone.

In the next morning, my solicitor gave me a call, told me that he hadn't got any response yet but he will contact the firm directly and find someone else to get the deal done with him. We didn't have the completion date until this moment. But got a call about the confirmation of the exchange of contract around 2pm with the completion date I suggested.

My point is that you could still try pushing your solicitor, for setting the completion date and send the required fund as early as possible once the solicitor agrees with it. To me it looks like the exchange could be done really quickly if your solicitor pushes it really hard.

Hope this helps.

I've done all that, but no one has been able to get a response from the seller's solicitor, not even the seller herself. About 2 weeks ago I told my solicitor to suggest exchange and completion dates, as the final enquiries had finally been satisfied. I suggested 2nd of June as exchange and 9th June as completion. My solicitor sent an email to the seller's solicitor to propose the dates, this was on the Thursday before the bank holiday. I then agreed with my solicitor to send my deposit in readiness for exchange, which I did last Wednesday (2nd June). And that's pretty much it. Since the Thursday 2 weeks ago, when my solicitor proposed dates, we haven't heard back from the seller's solicitor. Last Thursday, since a week had passed and my solicitor said they were chasing but they were receiving no reply, I started calling the EA. They called me back Thursday afternoon saying they had spoken with the seller solicitor who said their IT systems had been down for 3 days and they were catching up, and they wouldn't be able to answer my solicitor's enquiry until early this week. On Tuesday, after my solicitor confirmed she had chased again and had received no response, I called the EA again, and they again called me back repeating what the solicitor had said the week before, but admitting they hadn't been able to speak with the solicitor. They said they called the seller to ask if she had any pending enquires to answer, and she said no, but she also hadn't heard from her solicitor in a while. I told the EA that there are no enquiries, and what the seller's solicitor is calling an "enquiry" is actually our request to exchange and complete. Yesterday, same thing, I called and this time the agent didn't even call me back. I called just now, and they didn't even answer this time, I got redirected to another branch! They said they will let me be called back, but I'll call them if within 2 hours they don't call me back! My solicitor confirmed yesterday evening she chased again in the morning but got no reply.
So It's ridiculous that after 2 weeks we still have received no reply about dates, and, according to the EA, the vendor doesn't know anything! I'm even starting to think that someone is lying here, and maybe the vendor changed her mind and is trying to secure a higher offer? That would be incredibly stupid, considering my offer was accepted on 22nd January, so it's been almost 6 months, why running away literally days before proposed completion?

sw7

Wes121708 said:

We want to try and exchange on or before the 23 of June so we can give our months notice to move out our rental. That way we have until the end of July to get things sorted out at the house and tidy up any loose ends here. If we go past the 23rd we'll have our rental until the end of August which is fine but would be nice not to have to pay the extra rent!
Not sure if we're confident enough to hand our notice in before we actually exchange even if our solicitors give us a date or are we being over cautious?!

We're in exactly the same boat, except our deadline to give notice is today!

I think the two questions to ask yourself are, if you give notice before exchange:

• What happens if completion is delayed beyond your move-out date? Could you stay with family/friends or AirBnb (although demand is high for those during summer in some places)? Some removals companies offer a storage service which can tide you over a few weeks in terms of belongings.
• What happens if the sale fell through entirely?

Nobody wants to think about the second one, but for us it's the only thing keeping us handing in our notice. We have a toddler and while we could manage with family over the period of a short delay, we couldn't make it work if things fell through and we were committed to vacating our rental.

Edited to add: there have been a few stories recently on this forum of people giving notice and the sale/exchange being delayed. In most cases they've been able to extend with their landlord being understanding, but the general rule is not to give notice before exchange!