The NEW waiting to exchange thread...

Greenglockenspiel

Had an offer accepted on a property on Tuesday - third time lucky!
Have given proof of address and ID documents to agent.
Have contacted a broker and got quotes from solicitors and surveyors.

One of the solicitors I got a quote from phoned me to talk about it and was telling me I should instruct them ASAP even before I’ve got my mortgage sorted to get the ball rolling - does anyone know if this is true or if they were just doing the hard sell? The property we are buying is tenanted until mid October so as future owner-occupiers we can’t complete until then anyway.

nicksfustration

Greenglockenspiel wrote: »

Had an offer accepted on a property on Tuesday - third time lucky!
Have given proof of address and ID documents to agent.
Have contacted a broker and got quotes from solicitors and surveyors.

One of the solicitors I got a quote from phoned me to talk about it and was telling me I should instruct them ASAP even before I’ve got my mortgage sorted to get the ball rolling - does anyone know if this is true or if they were just doing the hard sell? The property we are buying is tenanted until mid October so as future owner-occupiers we can’t complete until then anyway.

Hi Greenlock,

If i was you, if you have found a solicitor you like, instruct them ASAP, however check they can work with any and or all lenders you are considering using.
But if they work with all your lender options i would instruct, as much as October seems like a lifetime away, you would be amazed at how fast that time goes by and also how slow things move with solicitors. The earlier you get the ball rolling the better.

Caitykinss

11/06 - Offer accepted
12/06 - Full mortgage application started
13/06 - Solicitor instructed
24/06 - Formal introductory meeting with solicitor
25/06 - Valuation carried out
26/06 - Valuation report received
29/06 - Mortgage offer received in post
01/07 - Initial report and all documentation received from solicitor and enquiries raised by them sent to sellers solicitor
02/07 - Instructed solicitor to get on with searches
08/07 - Received a response to 1/10 of the enquiries raised.
10/07 - Search results received from solicitor and all looks fine overall
15/07 - Decided I'm being stupid not having a survey done, will instruct one today.
16/07 - Received all but 1 of the solicitors enquiries back
17/07 - Homebuyers survey carried out. my partner went with him and nothing was flagged up that we didn't know about.
25/07 - Homebuyers report received and nothing major on there that we didn't know about

We also had a reply from the solicitor saying that they're still chasing the seller for the final enquiry which is around the new build warranty and documents relating to when it was built from the developer. The seller has said they don't have them, but our solicitor is being persistent. This is all we are waiting for now. I'm hoping it can be sorted quickly.

Dave_606

OK, emailed our solicitors today's and still unsure on if we will exchange & complete next Tuesday as planned. As on 1 hand I'm told they have now applied for the first time buyer ISA bonuses and the release of funds from the mortgage provider etc. But on the other hand they have now late in the day so to speak told us they require a copy of the bank statement to show where the funds from the 2 first time buyer ISA's went after they were closed!. I could have provided them with this yesterday had they said something before yesterday. Better still, had they have provided us with there business account in the first place like we asked for more than once to transfer the deposit funds to they would have a full paper trail on the origin of the deposit funds yesterday. I get that they might have to have a full trail with the funds etc, but there way seems crazy and causing unnecessary work and delays.

But to say we have to provide the closing statements for the ISA's before giving us there business account details to transfer the funds to. And after being provided with that saying they alsothen need a statement of the bank account we transferred the ISA funds to before they will allow us to transfer said deposit to them is causing unnecessary delay and work. As I will now likely have to spend tomorrow (not that the solicitors are open Saturdays) getting the bank statement and travelling to hand deliver this to be sure they get it in time to get there bank details first thing Monday to get the deposit over to them in the hope that everything else might just be in place in the hope that exchange & completion on Tuesday remains feasible.

Just you just hate chasing these things up to try and meet a set completion date lol.

SarahB89

Was hoping to exchange today... Def not happening now. Our solicitor has now decided that we need the sellers to take out indemnity cover or provide certs for the building work done 20 years ago.

Had to put in notice to vacate our rented property today so now fingers crossed we aren't homeless in a month!!

excelwizard

No idea when our exchange and completion dates will be - at the moment I'm quite relaxed about the whole thing even though we need to vacate our rental in 7 weeks time. Our mortgage offer is in place and there is good communication between us and the vendors so that's a positive, but we're waiting on the leasehold management company sending the vendors a copy of the leasehold so that they can send the contract to our solicitors.

We are in limbo at the moment because of that so I shall do some chasing next week to see if there' any progress...

We may end up being like some others on here who are exchanging and completing on the same day at this rate

Yalpsmol

Dave606, our bonses took quite a while to come through and our solicitor said they often can be a bit slow. So you might have to be patient unfortunately (ours definitely weren't back within 10 odd days).

Sammy_J

Hi all,

Our mortgage has just been approved so beyond thrilled to finally be able to join you all on this thread! It will be interesting to see how long the process to exchange takes and I imagine my delight may turn to frustration along the way.

Our timeline so far is listed below. The main thing we need to do next is book our Buildng Survey. All forms and documentation requested by the Solicitor haS been submitted so I imagine the next thing for them will be to query anything and start the searches.

I don't think our situation is the most straight forward. We're still waiting to hear if our sellers have had an offer accepted on the house they want to buy. Plus, our sellers are buying a home with their daughter and her family, so there is another chain that we're linked to relating to the sale of their house too.

13/07 & 15/07: First and second viewings
16/07: Offer made, negotiated and accepted
17/07: Appointed mortgage broker
18/07: Instructed solicitor
22/07: Submitted full mortgage application to Halifax
25/07: Submitted forms and documentation to solicitors
26/07: Mortgage offer confirmed

Greenglockenspiel

nicksfustration wrote: »

Hi Greenlock,

If i was you, if you have found a solicitor you like, instruct them ASAP, however check they can work with any and or all lenders you are considering using.
But if they work with all your lender options i would instruct, as much as October seems like a lifetime away, you would be amazed at how fast that time goes by and also how slow things move with solicitors. The earlier you get the ball rolling the better.

Thanks Nick. I think I will check with them on Monday then if they will work with our lender (likely to be our local building society as my partner's income is slightly unusual so most lenders won't touch it). Having phoned a load of banks this afternoon to check if they would even consider us and had a no from all of them, I think I am going to probably ditch the broker (who said he would call me on Thursday and hasn't), and just go straight to the building society directly. Then I can call them tomorrow morning to set up an appointment which will skip out the broker stage and speed things up too!

Dave_606

Yalpsmol wrote: »

Dave606, our bonses took quite a while to come through and our solicitor said they often can be a bit slow. So you might have to be patient unfortunately (ours definitely weren't back within 10 odd days).

If that turns out to be anything like as you suggest I'd be highly "frustrated" if not annoyed at our solicitors. As I asked them directly over this issue the start of the week about the time it takes to apply for the government ISA bonuses (for which we have 2) when they set the exchange & completion date for next Tuesday and they said the bonuses are often paid the day after claiming them. Chances are the claim only went in today, possibly yesterday but likely today. So if 2 days (and a weekend) is highly unlikely (unless the £60 fee for each ISA bonus claim we are paying includes priority service) time to receive the bonus I'd be justifiably annoyed at any delay as a result of this as the solicitors knew that the bonus needed claiming before they set the date.

Interestingly the completion paperwork is already sorted and we have our final invoice for which will be fully covered by the mortgage cash back.