The NEW waiting to exchange thread...

babyblade41

Surrey_EA wrote: »

As with many things in life, it is impossible to generalise.

Sometimes the vendor is the cause of the problem, and only the presence of a middleman makes anything happen.

Seemingly in your case you have been fortunate enough to be buying from a sensible and motivated vendor, and direct communication is proving beneficial. This is not always the case.


Sometimes it can, but don't make the mistake of believing it always does. There are on average around 100,000 property transactions each month, each one is a little different, you can't generalise.

I concur with this, of the many properties I have bought and sold in over 35 years there were 2 where I conversed with the buyer and both times a bit further on down it bit me in the rear

It's something I'd never do again.


My last buyer did have my landline as they needed guiding into the property and I could screen the number on occasions , but at least on completion that was the last I heard from them .. thankfully

Rhuey46

Surrey_EA wrote: »

As with many things in life, it is impossible to generalise.

Sometimes the vendor is the cause of the problem, and only the presence of a middleman makes anything happen.

Seemingly in your case you have been fortunate enough to be buying from a sensible and motivated vendor, and direct communication is proving beneficial. This is not always the case.


Sometimes it can, but don't make the mistake of believing it always does. There are on average around 100,000 property transactions each month, each one is a little different, you can't generalise.

I agree, with you, I have generalised based on what I have read on the forums and obviously can't take into account the hundreds of thousands of transactions occurring every month. It was merely based on my own personal experience.

Didymus

Miracles do happen and we have exchanged today with a completion date next Wednesday 13th!

Our timeline, for anyone else who is going mad in limbo land is below!

21/11 - AIP from Halifax
12/12 - Offer accepted and property taken off the market.
12/12 evening - made full application by telephone, passed credit checks and affordability and paid valuation fee.
13/12 - uploaded requested documents (payslips and proof of maintenance).
14/12 - answer some questions regarding extra income on payslips. Valuation is booked for 17th.
17/12 - Valuation completed. Call Halifax in the evening on the offchance it's been uploaded and find it has and all is well.
18/12 - MA tells us he has sent our application and valuation over for final checks.
20/12 - MA calls to say we have an offer in the post! Update solicitors that we're good to go on the mortgage front.
02/01- solicitor received mem of sale and sent letter of instruction over to vendors solicitor and is awaiting draft contracts etc.

21/01- Just under six weeks since our offer was accepted and our solicitor is still waiting for draft contracts from the vendors solicitor and we’re all very frustrated as the vendor hasn’t even completed the initial instruction paperwork for their solicitor!!!

31/01 - Our solicitor has finally received the draft contracts etc from the vendors solicitor, 7 weeks after our offer was accepted. Our searches are finally now ordered and paid for and we’ve done everything possible at our end. All proof of funds, money laundering checks done, mortgage offer received by solicitor and mortgage deed signed and returned etc etc etc.

08/02 - All searches received back with no issues. We’ve just signed contracts, TR1 etc. Now we’re waiting on enquiries to come back and a query over the lease extension which was advertised as being already extended by the estate agents, but is in fact being extended as part of the sale.

26/02 - Bankruptcy check comes back showing matches against both our names. Had to send form signed stating the entries had no relation to us by email.

27/02 - Received completion statement. Solicitor expecting exchange tomorrow.

28/02 - Transfer deposit and solicitors bill. Exchange doesn’t happen as solicitor doesn’t hear back from the vendors side.

01/03 - Exchange has still not happened. There are two sets of solicitors involved on the vendors side, one dealing with the sale and the other with the lease extension. The lease one is not ready and we don’t know why.

04/03 - Still no movement. Our solicitor thinks delay tactics are being employed by the other side but can’t shed any light on why that might be....

07/03 - Finally receive word the other side are ready and EXCHANGE! Completion initially requested for the 14th by the vendor, we went back with the 13th as we’re already on rest days from work that day and it’s agreed.

12 weeks and 1 day from offer to exchange, with completion exactly 13 weeks after offer. This was a leasehold purchase with no chain, we are first time buyers and the vendor was a landlord, the property has been empty since January.

So glad to finally be nearing the finish line, won’t completely rest until the keys are in our hands!

Good luck to everyone else who is going through this, it’s tough! To be fair though, it was probably made more stressful for us as I am currently going through a divorce, just went through a promotion process at work and attempting to buy for the first time all in one go! I wouldn’t recommend it!

:j:beer::j:beer:

CarrieVS

CarrieVS wrote: »

Timeline:
- 05/01: first viewing
- 14/01: mortgage AIP comes through with perfect timing to make my first offer
- 15/01: final offer accepted
- 17/01: solicitor instructed
- 21/01: mortgage application completed
- 24/01: mortgage offer received
- 04/02: satisfactory survey report
- 13/02: draft contract, queries raised with vendor's solicitor
- 28/02: queries resolved; final contract, TR1, and solicitor's bill
- 01/03: panicking and trying to work out how and when to do all the things I need to do now

We're proposing a week Monday (18/03) for completion. Two months and three days from offer accepted.

My solicitor refuses to be definite on when we will exchange until he has my insurance policy to start from date of exchange: is that normal? I'm not quite sure how I'm supposed to arrange it to start on a date I won't know until after I've arranged it but I'm sure I'll figure something out.

JadeC93

Didymus wrote: »

Miracles do happen and we have exchanged today with a completion date next Wednesday 13th!

Our timeline, for anyone else who is going mad in limbo land is below!

21/11 - AIP from Halifax
12/12 - Offer accepted and property taken off the market.
12/12 evening - made full application by telephone, passed credit checks and affordability and paid valuation fee.
13/12 - uploaded requested documents (payslips and proof of maintenance).
14/12 - answer some questions regarding extra income on payslips. Valuation is booked for 17th.
17/12 - Valuation completed. Call Halifax in the evening on the offchance it's been uploaded and find it has and all is well.
18/12 - MA tells us he has sent our application and valuation over for final checks.
20/12 - MA calls to say we have an offer in the post! Update solicitors that we're good to go on the mortgage front.
02/01- solicitor received mem of sale and sent letter of instruction over to vendors solicitor and is awaiting draft contracts etc.

21/01- Just under six weeks since our offer was accepted and our solicitor is still waiting for draft contracts from the vendors solicitor and we’re all very frustrated as the vendor hasn’t even completed the initial instruction paperwork for their solicitor!!!

31/01 - Our solicitor has finally received the draft contracts etc from the vendors solicitor, 7 weeks after our offer was accepted. Our searches are finally now ordered and paid for and we’ve done everything possible at our end. All proof of funds, money laundering checks done, mortgage offer received by solicitor and mortgage deed signed and returned etc etc etc.

08/02 - All searches received back with no issues. We’ve just signed contracts, TR1 etc. Now we’re waiting on enquiries to come back and a query over the lease extension which was advertised as being already extended by the estate agents, but is in fact being extended as part of the sale.

26/02 - Bankruptcy check comes back showing matches against both our names. Had to send form signed stating the entries had no relation to us by email.

27/02 - Received completion statement. Solicitor expecting exchange tomorrow.

28/02 - Transfer deposit and solicitors bill. Exchange doesn’t happen as solicitor doesn’t hear back from the vendors side.

01/03 - Exchange has still not happened. There are two sets of solicitors involved on the vendors side, one dealing with the sale and the other with the lease extension. The lease one is not ready and we don’t know why.

04/03 - Still no movement. Our solicitor thinks delay tactics are being employed by the other side but can’t shed any light on why that might be....

07/03 - Finally receive word the other side are ready and EXCHANGE! Completion initially requested for the 14th by the vendor, we went back with the 13th as we’re already on rest days from work that day and it’s agreed.

12 weeks and 1 day from offer to exchange, with completion exactly 13 weeks after offer. This was a leasehold purchase with no chain, we are first time buyers and the vendor was a landlord, the property has been empty since January.

So glad to finally be nearing the finish line, won’t completely rest until the keys are in our hands!

Good luck to everyone else who is going through this, it’s tough! To be fair though, it was probably made more stressful for us as I am currently going through a divorce, just went through a promotion process at work and attempting to buy for the first time all in one go! I wouldn’t recommend it!

:j:beer::j:beer:

I'm so jealous!!!! We are STILL waiting to hear back from the sellers' solicitor! EA has spoken with the sellers and they want to exchange soon just like us so they are chasing their solicitor as well! - My solicitor has chased them up again yesterday, I haven't heard anything from her today so I suspect she hasn't got any update!


So fed up with chasing and waiting around! I wish they could just let us know what's holding up then at least we know what's going on and get a rough timescale! - It's been 11 weeks since we've had our offer accepted, although did not start the searches until the sellers have found a property until mid of January!

hobnobgti

Well from 'hopefully' exchanging today, we are now 'hopefully' exchanging tomorrow! This is driving me mad...

CarrieVS wrote: »

My solicitor refuses to be definite on when we will exchange until he has my insurance policy to start from date of exchange: is that normal? I'm not quite sure how I'm supposed to arrange it to start on a date I won't know until after I've arranged it but I'm sure I'll figure something out.

I had a similar argument with my solicitor who wanted me to take insurance out but the insurance company said I couldn't have it until after we had exchanged! I ended up sending a contract quote so they could confirm the policy was good enough and will then take the policy out as soon as we do exchange.

loonywitch

Almost all set to move out tomorrow.

Solicitor has been in touch with completion statement today and advised we’ve still not had confirmation of completion for 15th (for our purchase) from top of the chain. Our solicitor and vendor’s solicitor have agreed to prepare the files for the 15th and our solicitor has requested the funds be made available for then. What’s the likelihood of this going pear shaped?

DanielleJH

Thanks for the advice everyone. I chased up the estate agent again and they finally bad an update this morning, although not a positive one sadly! The vendors are out of the country until next week and have told the estate agent that there's a "complication" with the solicitor that they can't sort until they're home. I have no idea what that complication would be as they've told us multiple times that they're as keen to love quickly as we are.

Olliejoe

Still waiting. Our vendors have now gone from wanting 4 weeks between exchange and completion for finding a rental property to not wanting to exchange until they’ve found a rental property.

Our mortgage offer runs out beginning of May and the mortgage company won’t extend and we’ll have to pay out again which we don’t really have the money too.

CarrieVS

hobnobgti wrote: »

I had a similar argument with my solicitor who wanted me to take insurance out but the insurance company said I couldn't have it until after we had exchanged! I ended up sending a contract quote so they could confirm the policy was good enough and will then take the policy out as soon as we do exchange.

I think my solicitor is more inflexible than yours. I finally got a "next week" from them, and so I scrambled to arrange cover starting Monday - I will deal with the possibility of exchange being later than Monday when I get to that point.

However, the insurer doesn't do digital policy schedules and I have to wait for it in the post. I got them to email me a Confirmation of Insurance showing the amount of cover, the start date, the property address, the policy reference, and the lender's interest, but this is apparently not good enough.

I've gone back to them with the policy booklet and one other document from which, if they care to do so, they can match up what the confirmation document says with the exact risks covered. And if that's not enough... we wait.

But at the same time, my solicitor's suggested we could exchange this afternoon if I was happy with that... having told him it's not insured until next week.