The NEW waiting to exchange thread...

wee_lightning

Good morning everyone,
First post on here.
Had a verbal offer accepted on a property on 06/08/21 but still waiting for the written/qualified acceptance back from the seller's solicitors. It's been nearly 4 weeks now and was told to expect it back within a week or two, so starting to feel rather anxious! 
Anyone with experience of the qualified acceptance taking this long to come back? I'm in Scotland, by the way.

E_D_FTB

SaucySecrets said:

Morning all. 

Ah Cookie, that's great to hear, I'm so pleased you're happy! 

No movement that we're aware of here. Buyer should have had his revaluation yesterday, he had intended to then book his survey here but we've heard nothing yet, and the 3rd person in the chain has threatened to pull out due to slow progress. I'm with them, our buyer has been ridiculously slow and is still awaiting their mortgage offer, and I can't see us getting done in time at this rate... and they've been waiting four months longer than us, and the people previously buying the house we're looking at pulled out. 

I'm feeling a bit lost on what I can do, really. The solicitors are waiting for them to do something... the Estate Agent seems to have got rather irate with us chasing last week (once a week!) so I don't think they'd be overly helpful. 

That's such a pain, I'm so sorry - were they prompt on getting their mortgage application in? When we did ours our broker recommended not starting searches or booking surveys until the offer was official, so that you don't end up wasting money on a house you can't get a mortgage for. It might be they've been advised something similar. And some banks are being incredibly slow at the moment, which your buyer sadly has no control over. Our offer took over 5 weeks to come through.

Saying that, we ended up ordering searches and booking our survey before the full over was approved because it was taking so long. But that was a risk we were willing to take. 

In terms of others in the chain pulling out, sadly there's very little you can do - the process takes as long as it takes, and restarting that with a new chain won't necessarily speed things along. Hopefully they'll realise that being in a complete chain, even if it is a slow one, is better than risking more delays by joining another.

So bad that the EA is being agro with you! Their job is to keep things moving and share information up and down the chain, and once a week is hardly overdoing it! I would keep contacting them, regardless of their reaction as they're the most direct line of contact and should be able to find out what's happening and get things moving. But I get if you don't want to do that because of their reaction.

Hope things start moving for you soon!

WorriedKirkels

mortgage_noob said:

How's everyone doing - anyone aiming to complete on the 10th made progress?

We haven't exchanged yet and our solicitor doesn't seem to have applied for the HTB ISA or given us any info about transfer of funds. 

We were but now in question so not a clue what’s happening….hopefully yours will exchange shortly 🤞x

Tiglet2

SaucySecrets said:

Morning all. 

Ah Cookie, that's great to hear, I'm so pleased you're happy! 

No movement that we're aware of here. Buyer should have had his revaluation yesterday, he had intended to then book his survey here but we've heard nothing yet, and the 3rd person in the chain has threatened to pull out due to slow progress. I'm with them, our buyer has been ridiculously slow and is still awaiting their mortgage offer, and I can't see us getting done in time at this rate... and they've been waiting four months longer than us, and the people previously buying the house we're looking at pulled out. 

I'm feeling a bit lost on what I can do, really. The solicitors are waiting for them to do something... the Estate Agent seems to have got rather irate with us chasing last week (once a week!) so I don't think they'd be overly helpful. 

I replied to your other thread here - it's not just about your buyer - your own transaction hasn't progressed very far:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6293710/who-should-i-be-talking-to-about-this-im-so-lost#latest

The EA can't really help you.  The transactions are in the hands of solicitors now and the EA is not a party to the legal work.  While they can speak to the other parties, they can only pass on what they're told.  They can't speed it up or control how quickly someone responds.

mama4321

wee_lightning said:

Good morning everyone,
First post on here.
Had a verbal offer accepted on a property on 06/08/21 but still waiting for the written/qualified acceptance back from the seller's solicitors. It's been nearly 4 weeks now and was told to expect it back within a week or two, so starting to feel rather anxious! 
Anyone with experience of the qualified acceptance taking this long to come back? I'm in Scotland, by the way.

Hi - we have just bought in Scotland.and we waited just over 3 weeks for the written/qualified acceptance and a further 3 weeks for the title documentation.  Our solicitor was very good at keeping us updated and sending reminders to the vendors' solicitors - have you heard anything from yours?  It is an anxious time.  Good luck!

wee_lightning

mama4321 said:

wee_lightning said:

Good morning everyone,
First post on here.
Had a verbal offer accepted on a property on 06/08/21 but still waiting for the written/qualified acceptance back from the seller's solicitors. It's been nearly 4 weeks now and was told to expect it back within a week or two, so starting to feel rather anxious! 
Anyone with experience of the qualified acceptance taking this long to come back? I'm in Scotland, by the way.

Hi - we have just bought in Scotland.and we waited just over 3 weeks for the written/qualified acceptance and a further 3 weeks for the title documentation.  Our solicitor was very good at keeping us updated and sending reminders to the vendors' solicitors - have you heard anything from yours?  It is an anxious time.  Good luck!

Ahh thank you, that's really reassuring to hear!
My friends who have recently bought houses all had the acceptance back within a week so I've been fearing the worst, but sounds like from your experience it's not out of the ordinary for it to take a while. My solicitor says they have been chasing the seller regularly although when I phoned last week she did say it was 'very unusual' for acceptance to take this long, which only compounded my feelings of anxiousness! It's strange, you have the verbal offer accepted and then don't see anything in writing so it almost doesn't seem real, keen to get the date of entry agreed so we can actually start to make plans and book time off work etc. for moving, both us and the seller are chain free to I'm hoping things can move relatively quickly once the process of the missives begins. Thank you for your reply  

heartofzinc

mortgage_noob said:

How's everyone doing - anyone aiming to complete on the 10th made progress?

We haven't exchanged yet and our solicitor doesn't seem to have applied for the HTB ISA or given us any info about transfer of funds. 

I’ve received the bill from my solicitor and info to transfer funds but have no exchange date sorted either! Not sure whether to give them a chase today see what’s happening.

vixst

Afternoon all, long time lurker here and now my turn to join in!

We are bottom of the chain, currently in rented so has been relatively easy and straight forward. Our chain is short, just us, our sellers and the property they are purchasing.

Today is meant to be exchange day, but the solicitor at the top of the chain hasn't confirmed if they are ready. So frustrating! Especially when our sellers have pushed us to hurry up... Fingers crossed we will have exchanged by the end of the day, but I'm not too hopeful. Even if exchange is delayed, I still hope we will be able to complete next Thurs (09/09).

The fear has been compounded by people coming this morning to view the rental house we currently live in, so worried we will be homeless at the end of the month if we don't complete (but I know we are so early in the month so there is hope).

Can't wait until this is all over!

Oscarboi76

Good luck to everyone completing today...... update on ours, bank have agreed to releasing funds and the plan is to exchange and complete tomorrow, not getting excited yet as don't have faith in our solicitor

HopeAndDriftWood

E_D_FTB said:

SaucySecrets said:

Morning all. 

Ah Cookie, that's great to hear, I'm so pleased you're happy! 

No movement that we're aware of here. Buyer should have had his revaluation yesterday, he had intended to then book his survey here but we've heard nothing yet, and the 3rd person in the chain has threatened to pull out due to slow progress. I'm with them, our buyer has been ridiculously slow and is still awaiting their mortgage offer, and I can't see us getting done in time at this rate... and they've been waiting four months longer than us, and the people previously buying the house we're looking at pulled out. 

I'm feeling a bit lost on what I can do, really. The solicitors are waiting for them to do something... the Estate Agent seems to have got rather irate with us chasing last week (once a week!) so I don't think they'd be overly helpful. 

That's such a pain, I'm so sorry - were they prompt on getting their mortgage application in? When we did ours our broker recommended not starting searches or booking surveys until the offer was official, so that you don't end up wasting money on a house you can't get a mortgage for. It might be they've been advised something similar. And some banks are being incredibly slow at the moment, which your buyer sadly has no control over. Our offer took over 5 weeks to come through.

Saying that, we ended up ordering searches and booking our survey before the full over was approved because it was taking so long. But that was a risk we were willing to take. 

In terms of others in the chain pulling out, sadly there's very little you can do - the process takes as long as it takes, and restarting that with a new chain won't necessarily speed things along. Hopefully they'll realise that being in a complete chain, even if it is a slow one, is better than risking more delays by joining another.

So bad that the EA is being agro with you! Their job is to keep things moving and share information up and down the chain, and once a week is hardly overdoing it! I would keep contacting them, regardless of their reaction as they're the most direct line of contact and should be able to find out what's happening and get things moving. But I get if you don't want to do that because of their reaction.

Hope things start moving for you soon!

Sadly not - there was a strange five-week gap at the start where they refused to do anything. It seems that they were waiting for some renovation work to be completed on the house they are remortgaging... eventually they put the mortgage application in, three weeks ago, and they have now got searches back. Survey isn't booked yet, but I don't know if they intend on doing one, or to what degree. 

I'm very much hoping the rest of the chain is reasonable. Sadly I suspect they think they can get more money for their house if they remarket now, which is probably true where our seller is buying! 

Sorry that your mortgage offer took so long! Ours took four days, so our expectations were definitely that it wouldn't take weeks for them. 

I'll give the EA a friendly call and see if they know anything. Thanks! 

Tiglet2 said:

SaucySecrets said:

Morning all. 

Ah Cookie, that's great to hear, I'm so pleased you're happy! 

No movement that we're aware of here. Buyer should have had his revaluation yesterday, he had intended to then book his survey here but we've heard nothing yet, and the 3rd person in the chain has threatened to pull out due to slow progress. I'm with them, our buyer has been ridiculously slow and is still awaiting their mortgage offer, and I can't see us getting done in time at this rate... and they've been waiting four months longer than us, and the people previously buying the house we're looking at pulled out. 

I'm feeling a bit lost on what I can do, really. The solicitors are waiting for them to do something... the Estate Agent seems to have got rather irate with us chasing last week (once a week!) so I don't think they'd be overly helpful. 

I replied to your other thread here - it's not just about your buyer - your own transaction hasn't progressed very far:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6293710/who-should-i-be-talking-to-about-this-im-so-lost#latest

The EA can't really help you.  The transactions are in the hands of solicitors now and the EA is not a party to the legal work.  While they can speak to the other parties, they can only pass on what they're told.  They can't speed it up or control how quickly someone responds.

I can't see the replies there - Sorry that I haven't responded, I'll try and sort that out 

Our solicitor has confirmed that we've had satisfactory responses to enquiries, and the lender is happy to proceed, so the next step is setting exchange and completion dates and arranging funds. I haven't seen the enquiry responses, but we didn't see the enquiries before they went over either, so that seems to be normal for our solicitor. I don't think there's anything else that we can do until our buyer is ready? 

As far as we've been told, the buyer's solicitor is happy with our enquiry responses and we're now waiting on him sorting a survey, if he wants one, and the results of his valuation on the property he's remortgaging. But we're having to piece together the updates and the seller's EA is very annoyed that the story keeps changing, so I think we're all feeling a bit wary. Last week there were missing bits of paperwork, this week nobody knows what they were...