The NEW waiting to exchange thread...

fiish

We have exchanged! It has been an action packed past week, our sellers wanted to exchange as soon as possible, and we were working to get our respective solicitors happy and ready, but we got there and have a completion date of 4 August.

Now, it is time to prepare for the move.

Summary of times for process steps:
Mortgage application to offer - 16 days (Coventry BS)
Searches - 21 days
L3 survey turnaround - 3 days
Offer accepted to exchange - 69 days ~ 9 weeks 6 days
Offer accepted to agreed completion date - 92 days ~ 13 weeks 1 day

Up to date timeline:

5th May - offer accepted
9th May - instructed solicitors, obtained mortgage recommendations from broker
10th May - sellers had offer accepted on onward purchase
15th May - mortgage application submitted
23rd May - solicitors received draft papers from seller side
24th May - instructed searches
31st May - mortgage offer received
8th June - Level 3 survey appointment
11th June - L3 survey report, more enquiries through solicitors
13th June - searches back, more enquiries by solicitors
26th June - final report, replies to enquiries, and documents to sign from solicitors
5th July - returned signed paperwork to solicitors
6th July - pre-exchange viewing, met sellers and agreed fittings to purchase/include
12th July - completion date of 4 Aug agreed between solicitors
13th July - paid deposit, contracts exchanged 15 minutes before close of business!
14th July - buildings insurance started (exchange happened too late to start policy on 13th)

badger09

@fiisch
13 weeks from offer acceptance to completion is incredibly quick. 

Enjoy your new home 

Vannaa

Very close to exchange but I thought I'd share my journey.

Moving from renting in London to buying in South Wales. Property I'm buying has no chain - vendor is moving to renting.

19th May - viewed property and made offer (only viewed two in total but had been an avid Right Mover)

23rd May - offer accepted, solicitors instructed and searches requested, mortgage AIP in place, funds for deposit confirmed - last three were required by EA

26th May - mortgage application submitted (through a broker)

14th June - mortgage offer made

19th June - L2 house survey carried out - no issues. Searches back - no issues

29th June - information pack received from sellers

17th July - contract signed, deposit paid, proposed completion date to vendor

21st July - completion date agreed, confirmed happy to exchange, expect to exchange today

18 August - completion date - pushed into August as I need to give one month's notice to landlord

W/C 21st August - move

lis1320

lis1320 said:

Joining the thread, we are very early in the process but have a quick exchange deadline so things should be moving pretty quickly. We are FTB buying a house from a couple who is buying a new build, expected to be built by October. The developers have given us a deadline to exchange within 42 days so that the vendors can exchange with them. Although the early exchange deadline is scary, the developers have done some of the leg work already, e.g. searches as vendors were going to part exchange if they didn't find a buyer.

When putting in our offer we stated we would need a definite long completion deadline as we knew the new build may get delayed and we didn't want to risk a mortgage offer expiring. Vendors agreed to vacate by 30th November. 


26th June - offer accepted
30th June - memorandum of sale issued
4th July - draft contracts received and initial enquires raised
7th July - searches received from developer, all in date 

Next step is the mortgage. We have an offer in place from March (valid until September) with NatWest for a flat we were going to buy. Our mortgage advisor is seeing whether they are willing to extend for a further 3 months, taking us to December, on a new property.  He has noted that they are currently doing this for new builds due to market volatility and thinks we may have a chance as although we are not buying a new build, there is one at the end of our tiny chain. 

We got our mortgage offer! Our magician of a broker managed to get NatWest to agree to reoffer for 6 months with the old rate we had secured back in March for another property which fell through. 

Updated timeline:
26th June - offer accepted
30th June - memorandum of sale issued
4th July - draft contracts received and initial enquires raised
7th July - searches received from developer, all in date

20th July - mortgage offer received, searches report received from solicitor 

Our solicitor is waiting to see an amended contract between our seller and the developer they are buying from, which should state that once we exchange by the given deadline, the developer has so rights to part exchange anymore.

Once we have this, we will get a survey done 

lis1320

We've exchanged!

Updated timeline:
26th June - offer accepted
30th June - memorandum of sale issued
4th July - draft contracts received and initial enquires raised
7th July - searches received from developer, all in date

20th July - mortgage offer received, searches report received from solicitor 
21st July - received report on title and documents for signature
26th July - signed documents returned to solicitor 
27th July - transferred deposit funds
28th July - exchange of contracts 

saucer

lis1320 said:

We've exchanged!

Updated timeline:
26th June - offer accepted
30th June - memorandum of sale issued
4th July - draft contracts received and initial enquires raised
7th July - searches received from developer, all in date

20th July - mortgage offer received, searches report received from solicitor 
21st July - received report on title and documents for signature
26th July - signed documents returned to solicitor 
27th July - transferred deposit funds
28th July - exchange of contracts 

That is nuts quick!  What happened to the survey? 

saucer

We’re selling a 2 bed flat with share of freehold. FTB offered asking price mid May. No apparent issues with survey, at least as far as we have been told and that was ages ago. There was some delay with managing agents providing information to solicitors but everything appeared fine in terms on enquiries. However we cannot get a target exchange date. We’re pressing our side to press theirs but I wonder if the slowness is our solicitor. All the time passing I am concerned buyer will pull out because of the gloomy interest rate and house price news. This process is so stressful.  Any suggestions?

lis1320

saucer said:

lis1320 said:

We've exchanged!

Updated timeline:
26th June - offer accepted
30th June - memorandum of sale issued
4th July - draft contracts received and initial enquires raised
7th July - searches received from developer, all in date

20th July - mortgage offer received, searches report received from solicitor 
21st July - received report on title and documents for signature
26th July - signed documents returned to solicitor 
27th July - transferred deposit funds
28th July - exchange of contracts 

That is nuts quick!  What happened to the survey? 

Yes, we saved masses of time because the developer (who was going to buy the house if the sellers hadn’t found a buyer) had the searches done already. 

We decided to delay the survey until we move in later in the year. We were on a deadline to exchange (pushed by the developer) and due to some contract issues, we didn’t want to instruct a survey too early in case everything fell through. In the end, the contract was amended and everything happened to quickly, the survey report would have arrived after exchange. Since we’d essentially have to buy the property anyway by then, we decided to wait to have it done after the current owners move out. 

saucer

Resurrecting this thread because it was helpful to me at least. 

I am lead to believe we are going to agree dates early next week. Fingers crossed. Estate agent tells me that the market is completely dead, if that can be believed. 

gazfocus

gazfocus said:

gazfocus said:

Thought I’d join this thread for some venting haha. 

17th February - Offer accepted on our sale. 

18th February - Solicitor instructed
24th February - Documents completed and sent back to solicitor. 

14th March to 6th April - Sporadically received enquiries from buyers solicitors and replied same day. 

6th April - Buyers solicitor requested something additional from the council. 

12th May - Up to date redemption figures received by our solicitor and everything ready to go. 

17th May - Discovered our buyers buyers (FTBs) are having to query something with their lender which has had to go back to the valuer.

This is where we are currently. We’ve been waiting 3 weeks now and have had no movement whatsoever.  Emailed our solicitor today and received an autoreply to say our solicitor is now on leave til 19th June! Really hoping one of the other solicitors in the firm can try and push things along as it’s already been 15 weeks since offer accepted, don’t want to be waiting til the end of the month for completion. 

We are still waiting. 19 weeks now 🙄

Our side is all done, as far as I’m aware, our buyers side of our sale is all ready, and all we are waiting for is the resolution to one query to do with the house our buyers are selling which involves a piece of land. 

Spoke to our estate agent and there’s some progress been made today thanks to the estate agent getting involved and doing some of the leg work that solicitors should have been doing, but we’ve now given the chain a deadline of 14th July to agree a completion date otherwise we will put the house back on the market. 

Our estate agent couldn’t guarantee things would move any further in that timeframe but she agreed the deadline was fair. 

We found out on 4th August that our buyers decided to withdraw their house from the market which meant they were unable to continue with their purchase of our house. We relisted the same day and had 4 viewings yesterday but we are now contemplating putting the house back in the rental market instead. 

Did find out that one of the four that viewed our house yesterday has only just put their own house on the market last week so why the EA allowed them to book a viewing is somewhat puzzling but will see what feedback, if any, we get tomorrow.