Painfully slow conveyancing

201717

We had an offer accepted on a property on 5th November, mortgage DIP by the 7th and solicitor instructed at the same time. (Mortgage offer has since been received). The solicitor seems to be really slow though and I wonder if the best course of action is lots of pestering or just leave them to it?

I have asked several times for an update and just get back one liners with very little info and not even any punctuation or full stops. The most recent email just said 'I have contacted the search company myself as we don’t have a EDA for the local just yet'. Does anyone know what this means? Having read similar posts there seems to be a trend for conveyancing to take ages. (FYI, we are not selling a house and are building a new build).

brightonman123

set them a deadline, with notice of intention to seek other conveyancer?

hazyjo

5 November? Only a month back. The whole process is likely to take around 12 weeks-ish.


By all means turn everything round by return, but I expect at this time of year the solicitor will be busy with everyone wanting to 'be in for Christmas' and with them prob being closed for a couple of weeks over the festive period.


I'll bet on you not completing by end of Jan... it takes a long time!


I wouldn't say it's a 'trend'. It's always been that way. At least these days most don't want a month between exchange and completion (although there's always one...).

pinkteapot

Offer accepted to exchange of contracts (not completion) is typically 8-12 weeks and I think that's been the case for a long time. It *can* be done quicker but if that's what you want you need to chat it through with solicitors when you ring for quotes.

Your solicitor is saying the local searches aren't back yet. They're something that often holds everything up. Your solicitor asks the local council for 'searches' which give them information on the house - things like what planning permissions have been sought in the surrounding area, if there are any environmental problems with the land, etc.

Your local council will have a 'current waiting time' for those. Mine's about 5 weeks, but they vary considerably.

ginger_chocolate

Doesn't sound that slow tbh. I had an offer accepted on 2nd October and only had searches back this week, looks hopeful we'll complete just before Christmas. Most people I've spoken to have told me that's pretty standard timescales.

martin1959

Not sure if you still can, but you used to be able to pay a bit extra for personal searches.....

Personally I would keep chasing. The last solicitor I used was terribly slow, but he got fed up of me ringing and in the end he pushed it through to get rid of me.

If he said he was waiting for something from the other solicitor, my estate agent would ring the other solicitor to chase it.

I also kept in regular contact with my purchaser.....

ironmanjason

You are not alone in this! I suppose this is how a majority of them work (no offence to anyone on this board who is one but this is based on my experience).

I made offer 30th Oct and accepted 31st.. Solicitor instructed the same day.. we received the Memorandum of sale by 2nd and I am pretty sure the Solicitors did too but I had to chase them up on 6th for them to then say yeah we have received and will request draft contracts.. its been progressing very slowly.. the searches were returned and questions raised with sellers solicitors on 23rd and they responded by 29th..but mine are still reviewing those answers! I would like to wrap it up quickly even though I am not keen on completion until middle of Jan which is when sellers would also prefer.. I asked a lot of my friends if they would recommend their solicitor and none of them said yes I will.. and probably i will say the same too seeing how slow they work.. maybe the sellers solicitors are more motivated to respond to all enquiries within 3-4 working days whereas my emails take 3 days to be answered by my own solicitors!