The NEW waiting to exchange thread...

datlex

It's very frustrating waiting for answers or even replies from solicitors. Survey has been done, mortgage offered. Solicitors are holding things up- they take over 24 hours to respond to emails and don't return calls on same day. Not impressed at all.

SG27

TamsinC wrote: »

That's ridiculous! Gosh I hope you get it sorted out. I think I would like your house (old AND listed - my kind of thing)

Yes mine too! I think i would like the one you are buying sounds fascinating.

Ideally I want to exchange and have a month to completion so we can relax and enjoy our last few weeks here instead of stressing!

TamsinC

SG27 wrote: »

Yes mine too! I think i would like the one you are buying sounds fascinating.

Ideally I want to exchange and have a month to completion so we can relax and enjoy our last few weeks here instead of stressing!

send me a link so I can drool (if you have one) and I shall reciprocate

Surrey_EA

datlex wrote: »

It's very frustrating waiting for answers or even replies from solicitors. Survey has been done, mortgage offered. Solicitors are holding things up- they take over 24 hours to respond to emails and don't return calls on same day. Not impressed at all.

It would not be unusual for a conveyancing solicitor to be dealing with 150 active transactions at any one time, it could easily be more. As such it may not always be possible to respond to emails/telephone calls during the same working day.

Magnus91

Hello,

FTB here and very impatient with it all, I just want to move in now
The property I'm buying is currently empty and there is no chain.

My timeline -
Flat viewed - 8/5/18
Offer made and accepted - 9/5/18
Solicitors instructed - 9/5/18
Welcome pack received from solicitor - 10/5/18
Signed welcome pack/ID sent to solicitor and searches ordered- 11/5/18
Mortgage application made - 14/5/18
Mortgage valuation - 22/5/18
Mortgage offer received - 23/5/18

We're now just waiting for the vendor's solicitor to send over the draft contracts, no idea what the hold up is as my solicitor first mentioned she was chasing it up back on 11/5/18. I've also spoken to the estate agent and he's also trying to chase it up.

My solicitor is away until next week so nothing more will happen until then.

TamsinC

Magnus91 wrote: »

Hello,

FTB here and very impatient with it all, I just want to move in now
The property I'm buying is currently empty and there is no chain.

My timeline -
Flat viewed - 8/5/18
Offer made and accepted - 9/5/18
Solicitors instructed - 9/5/18
Welcome pack received from solicitor - 10/5/18
Signed welcome pack/ID sent to solicitor and searches ordered- 11/5/18
Mortgage application made - 14/5/18
Mortgage valuation - 22/5/18
Mortgage offer received - 23/5/18

We're now just waiting for the vendor's solicitor to send over the draft contracts, no idea what the hold up is as my solicitor first mentioned she was chasing it up back on 11/5/18. I've also spoken to the estate agent and he's also trying to chase it up.

My solicitor is away until next week so nothing more will happen until then.

Welcome, it's such a stressful waiting game. I've used up about 5 years worth of patience in the first 5 months of this year I feel. Lets all say OMMMMMMMM now.

deuxchatsnoirs

Surrey_EA wrote: »

It would not be unusual for a conveyancing solicitor to be dealing with 150 active transactions at any one time, it could easily be more. As such it may not always be possible to respond to emails/telephone calls during the same working day.

If I was running a business and my volume of clients was stopping me from providing a good service, I'd limit the amount of clients I accept OR hire more staff to cover it. Solicitors aren't exempt from needing to provide a good, or even acceptable level of customer communication/service.

In my case, I have found them to be quite rude and condescending, as well as snail-like in their communication and progress. I really dislike the attitude they seem to have that as they deal with the law that they are somehow above their clients - I say this being from a family of lawyers!

Next time I instruct a conveyancing solicitor, I won't be a 'naive' FTB, and I'll be asking them what their client workload is like, and if they can ensure a well communicated, quick as possible process. I'm fed up of being treated like an afterthought in my solicitor's view.

Rant over!

Surrey_EA

deuxchatsnoirs wrote: »

If I was running a business and my volume of clients was stopping me from providing a good service, I'd limit the amount of clients I accept OR hire more staff to cover it. Solicitors aren't exempt from needing to provide a good, or even acceptable level of customer communication/service.

In my case, I have found them to be quite rude and condescending, as well as snail-like in their communication and progress. I really dislike the attitude they seem to have that as they deal with the law that they are somehow above their clients - I say this being from a family of lawyers!

Next time I instruct a conveyancing solicitor, I won't be a 'naive' FTB, and I'll be asking them what their client workload is like, and if they can ensure a well communicated, quick as possible process. I'm fed up of being treated like an afterthought in my solicitor's view.

Rant over!

I agree with much of what you say.

However, the downward pressure on fees has meant that many (most?) solicitors have to take on more clients than they can realistically cope with at one time in order to make a profit.

You can have good service, or you can have cheap - you cannot have both, imho.

SophieP2000

SophieP2000 wrote: »

My first post here!

So we got our mortgage offer today.. After 13 workings I'm so chuffed!

We instructed our solicitors straight away over 2 weeks ago now, and searches have already been requested, we have received the contract to sign, land registry docs to sign, our solicitors have sent off questions to our sellers solicitors to be answered. We have FTB buying our house, they offered about 7 weeks ago now and they are ready to exchange and waiting for us. And our sellers are buying an empty house so not much of a chain! We have direct contact with the sellers too as they are lovely and really on the ball and acting on everything fast to get things moving which I'm pleased about. Hoping to complete by the end of next month! :beer:

Further to my above post, we are now 2.5 weeks on and things are moving very smoothly! My solicitor has said this week she is hoping to exchange on our purchase (our sale will be exchanged at the same time, our buyers are FTB and have been ready to exchange since 1st May), to complete on 29th June. Our sellers purchase needs to catch up a little bit, we are in regular contact with our sellers directly which helps! Their mortgage valuation is booked for this Friday 8th June, took an age because the company their lender are using are so busy! Their searches were requested nearly 2 weeks ago, so hopefully these are now back, or this week sometime. They have received their contract, deeds to sign, fixture and fittings form, property info form, and their solicitors have raised 9 queries to their sellers solicitors. Our sellers actually know 1 of the sellers (it's 3 sisters) which is going in our favour to speed things up a bit!


So once the mortgage valuation is done Friday, our sellers should get their mortgage offer hopefully Monday or Tuesday at latest, hopefully the searches come back this week (hopefully no more queries based on the searches), and the 9 queries are answered this week/next week, is the likeliness of this being all finished and signed off by 29th June possible? So just over 3 weeks away? it's been 6 weeks this Friday since our offer was accepted, so going quite quickly so far, and if we complete on 29th June it would have been 9 weeks in total - which is about average isn't it?


It will have been 14 weeks since we accepted an offer on the house we selling to 29th June, we sadly had a house fall through at the start hence why they are so ahead of us!

SophieP2000

Also forgot to say... The house we are purchasing was built in the early 80s, apparently there is a restrictive covenant on the title stating that any works need to be approved by the original builder first. A conservatory has been added to the property (prior to our sellers ownership), no approval was requested, nothing of this was mentioned when our sellers brought the house, but our solicitors have picked this up and asked for our sellers to pay for an indemnity policy to cover this should anyone come to chase us about no approval for the conservatory. Our sellers have refused to pay for this, they said their solicitor never brought this up when they paid for it, and didn't ask for an indemnity insurance to be purchased.


Our solicitor has said this isn't needed to complete, however, when we come to sell in the future it will potentially be a question that's asked again.


We are choosing not to purchase this insurance, on the basis of what's the likely chance of the building coming to inspect? Apparently the builder has gone bust anyway according to our sellers solicitors. Other houses on the road have conservatories etc.


What's everyone's thoughts and experiences on this?


Thanks