The NEW waiting to exchange thread...

JadeC93

We are first time buyers! Had our offer accepted just before Christmas and received our mortgage offer in early January.


Didn't instruct the solicitor to start on the work until the vendors have found a property to buy - which happened in the mid of January.


Searches came back and all enquires have been answered, went to see our solicitor early this week to sign the contract and other paperwork, transferred our deposit to the solicitor ready for exchange; however, haven't heard from the sellers on how they are getting on with their purchase (they are buying a house which is empty)! Currently chasing them through the estate agent and our solicitor!! Fingers crossed we will be exchanging soon, we are so fed up with the process already!!!

cathy_s_93

I'm having an absolute NIGHTMARE with waiting to exchange and complete.

Offer accepted 16th November. Went through all the usual quibbling and hoop jumping of the entire process. There's four properties in the chain and our EA is managing all of them.

Told in early February that the top of the chain are pushing for a completion date of 22nd February. We were put under loads of pressure to get a move on as everybody else is ready to exchange. OK, no problem, we hand in notice on our rental property, send all of our documents off, pay our deposit on time... But contracts have not yet been exchanged.

It gets to 2pm on Thursday 21st and I get a call from our EA. I'm expecting to hear, great, contracts have been exchanged and everything is good to go! Know immediately from her tone of voice that something has gone wrong. Apparently the solicitor at the top of the chain has !!!!ed up massively. There is a party wall agreement on the property 3rd up the chain and their mortgage lender needs to consent to this before the purchase can go ahead. !!!!!!. HOW HAS THIS NOT COME TO LIGHT UNTIL THE DAY BEFORE COMPLETION?

ANYWAY. We're told that completion 'may not go ahead tomorrow' and that they're going to have to push it back to Wednesday. I'm gutted. 5 days feels like such a long time to wait when your entire life is packed up in boxes. But what can you do?

Little did I know that's just the beginning of it. It's now been a week and none the wiser as to what's happening. Every day I'm glued to my phone waiting to hear a phone call or anything. Even though I'm speaking to my solicitor and the EA every day trying to find out if there's any update, there's absolutely nothing they can tell me. It even got to Wednesday morning and they were still planning on completing that day (HOW?!?) before getting a sheepish phone call from the EA in the afternoon saying there's still no updates, but hopefully Friday!

I tell my EA that's not going to be possible as our mortgage was released by our lender on the Thursday and must be returned to them if the purchase has not completed within 7 days. And our mortgage has now gone back to the lender and our solicitor will have to ask for it to be sent back, costing us another transfer fee, plus a week's worth of interest.

We're due to move out of our rented property on Monday 11th March. Can't believe we were so smug thinking we'd have over two weeks to move all of our stuff over and clean the house. We're now supposed to be out a week on Monday and STILL have no effing clue what's going on.

The worst part is everybody else I've spoken to about it is so blas! about it. "Oh it will be fine!" That's easy for you to say when you are already in your own home. At least let me feel stressed and upset over it.

babyblade41

cathy_s_93 wrote: »

I'm having an absolute NIGHTMARE with waiting to exchange and complete.

Offer accepted 16th November. Went through all the usual quibbling and hoop jumping of the entire process. There's four properties in the chain and our EA is managing all of them.

Told in early February that the top of the chain are pushing for a completion date of 22nd February. We were put under loads of pressure to get a move on as everybody else is ready to exchange. OK, no problem, we hand in notice on our rental property, send all of our documents off, pay our deposit on time... But contracts have not yet been exchanged.

It gets to 2pm on Thursday 21st and I get a call from our EA. I'm expecting to hear, great, contracts have been exchanged and everything is good to go! Know immediately from her tone of voice that something has gone wrong. Apparently the solicitor at the top of the chain has !!!!ed up massively. There is a party wall agreement on the property 3rd up the chain and their mortgage lender needs to consent to this before the purchase can go ahead. !!!!!!. HOW HAS THIS NOT COME TO LIGHT UNTIL THE DAY BEFORE COMPLETION?

ANYWAY. We're told that completion 'may not go ahead tomorrow' and that they're going to have to push it back to Wednesday. I'm gutted. 5 days feels like such a long time to wait when your entire life is packed up in boxes. But what can you do?

Little did I know that's just the beginning of it. It's now been a week and none the wiser as to what's happening. Every day I'm glued to my phone waiting to hear a phone call or anything. Even though I'm speaking to my solicitor and the EA every day trying to find out if there's any update, there's absolutely nothing they can tell me. It even got to Wednesday morning and they were still planning on completing that day (HOW?!?) before getting a sheepish phone call from the EA in the afternoon saying there's still no updates, but hopefully Friday!

I tell my EA that's not going to be possible as our mortgage was released by our lender on the Thursday and must be returned to them if the purchase has not completed within 7 days. And our mortgage has now gone back to the lender and our solicitor will have to ask for it to be sent back, costing us another transfer fee, plus a week's worth of interest.

We're due to move out of our rented property on Monday 11th March. Can't believe we were so smug thinking we'd have over two weeks to move all of our stuff over and clean the house. We're now supposed to be out a week on Monday and STILL have no effing clue what's going on.

The worst part is everybody else I've spoken to about it is so blas! about it. "Oh it will be fine!" That's easy for you to say when you are already in your own home. At least let me feel stressed and upset over it.

Firstly don't panic... without stating the obvious you should not give notice on your rental before exchange has happened.. Someone may pull out on the day ..but as you have then it will take months to get you out of the property so a couple of weeks delay won't affect you staying.

Sadly things do get held up and yours isn't that long but try and get some more help with EA and solicitor to find out where things are. A good EA will communicate with everyone ..

Hope the stress eases soon and all this will be forgotten

Have a word with your LL and put him in the picture out of courtesy first ...

FairyPrincessk

nickyrowlands1 wrote: »

you are close (er) than you were... but in my experience the time is taken when you get to the enquiry stage- ie your sol will be asking the vendors sol about the house, legal certificates etc. These questions take time to be answered depending on what type of house it is... its not always just on the searches either- have you had a survey done?

Thanks! I might have to go back to being patient then. We have had a survey and an electrical report, and we're still awaiting the results of a drains survey (all done on the basis of the survey). The house is 60s, but has had little done to it since then.

Chimpy9

loonywitch wrote: »

Nightmare day yesterday for us. Started by receiving an email from the EA saying the vendor suspects the onward chain hasn't found a property at all (suspicions raised as seemed to have disappeared off the radar) which completely contradicted info our solicitor had been given.


Responded saying this and expressing our frustration that we're 4 months down the line and the picture is as clear as mud. Advised we would be breaking the chain to allow our sale to go through and that we would be living with family in the short term but this wasn't viable long term.


Fast forward through stress and panic to receive a phone call from EA advising vendor had managed to speak to onward chain who explained situation but verbally mutually agreed completion of 15th March! I shall not hold my breath but currently awaiting confirmation from solicitor that 8th March agreed for our sale and 15th March agreed for purchase. As soon as contracts are exchanged, I can start ringing people to make arrangements!

Hopefully it will come to an end soon. It’s so frustrating, the moving part was the easy bit for me the legal stuff was the worst bit. Only completed over a week ago and we’re already paying out for a new boiler. We knew the house had a very old style hot water tank and we would need to get a new boiler but it started overflowing after the first week.

loonywitch

Hopefully it will come to an end soon. It’s so frustrating, the moving part was the easy bit for me the legal stuff was the worst bit. Only completed over a week ago and we’re already paying out for a new boiler. We knew the house had a very old style hot water tank and we would need to get a new boiler but it started overflowing after the first week.

Thanks! I’ll be on at the solicitor tomorrow if we’ve not at a confirmed completion from our buyers as a bare minimum. I’ve yet to feel the need to ring our EA but that will be on the cards too.

Shame the boiler couldn’t hold out a bit longer for you! I suppose there’s an upside that it’ll be done before you want to decorate?

Cat_Mum

Hello all. I can join now . We have a very nervous wait until exchange as we are exchanging/completing simultaneously as our seller is in poor health. We plan to complete next thurs which is just 6 weeks from when we had our offer accepted (we are in a chain of 3). It hasn’t completely straight forward getting a mortgage on the house we want to buy (had to get a couple of specialist reports) ans so it’s been a stressful few weeks. Hoping to have a more firm commitment to exchange/complete on Thursday tomorrow so that we can book removals and pack the rest of the house up.

Didymus

We transferred our deposit and solicitors bill today and were hoping to exchange, but our solicitor didn’t hear back from the vendors. Fingers crossed for tomorrow!

If completion is agreed for next week, which is what our solicitor is pushing for, we’ll be bang on the 12 week average from offer to completion.... it feels like a lifetime!

I’m excited but I can’t wait for the anxiety to be over!

[Deleted User]

Ours continues to go seemingly smoothly.

My last update was offers accepted on sale and purchase, mortgage applied for and solicitors instructed on 15th Feb.

21st Feb valuation done and mortgage offer text received

22nd Feb mortgage offer received in post

25th Feb searches requested

28th Feb searches returned.

2 week process so far. My sol said it isn't beyond the realms of possibility that this could be a 4 or 5 week completion from beginning to end. I, on the other hand, had my fingers burnt in the past so am just waiting for something to go wrong!

JadeC93

Didymus wrote: »

We transferred our deposit and solicitors bill today and were hoping to exchange, but our solicitor didn’t hear back from the vendors. Fingers crossed for tomorrow!

If completion is agreed for next week, which is what our solicitor is pushing for, we’ll be bang on the 12 week average from offer to completion.... it feels like a lifetime!

I’m excited but I can’t wait for the anxiety to be over!

We are in the same situation as you! Transferred our deposit and paid our solicitor ready to exchange but haven't managed to get hold of our sellers' solicitor to get an update on the house they are purchasing (it's empty)


Hopefully will hear something soon!!!!!! We are so fed up with waiting around!!!