McCarthy and Stone? Delays?

CampingCathy

We had an offer accepted on a property at the beginning of October. We are not selling a property so there is no chain below us. We are cash buyers and the money laundering requirements were completed satisfactorily at the beginning of the process.

We instructed our solicitor and surveyor immediately, and all of our enquiries and searches were completed quickly. We were ready to exchange at the beginning of December.

Our vendor is buying a retirement property (McCarthy and Stone). McCarthy and Stone have been very slow in providing the (2) necessary “Management packs”.

These were not received by our vendor's solicitor until the end of January. Unfortunately they were incomplete, so a further request was made for the missing information. As far as I can ascertain, this information is still outstanding. It would also appear that the solicitors acting for the vendor(s) of the retirement flat are slow to respond to enquiries. I appreciate that, Given the circumstances, the vendor(s) for this property could be either executors or Attorneys, so that will probably add an extra layer of delay

It is now 5 months since our offer was accepted. I know house buying is not a quick process, but in theory this could have been a relatively straightforward and speedy process.

We are now beginning to get somewhat frustrated with the delay.

At our request, our solicitors have been in touch with our vendor’s solicitors to ask them to hurry matters along, but so far this seems to have had no effect.

We are unsure what else we can do. We are continuing to look out for properties, but do not want to withdraw from this purchase as we were looking for 18 months and this is the only property that meets our requirements in the area we want to live.

Has anyone else bought from (or sold) McCarthy and Stone, and if so is this delay typical?

Is there anything else we can do, or do we need to just sit it out and wait?

G_M

CampingCathy wrote: »

We are unsure what else we can do.



We are continuing to look out for properties, but do not want to withdraw from this purchase
Is there anything else we can do, or do we need to just sit it out and wait?

So keep looking esewhere and make sure that your vendors, their estate agents etc know you are looking elsewhere.


But do not withdraw.

Larac

We are trying to sell our my late Mum's Mcarthy Stone apartment - my brother got hold of a 'conveyancer' who knows how to deal with Mcarthy Stone as they are 'notoriously' difficult to deal with- not that we have sold - but they insist on a 'sellers pack' being prepared which is basically 'extortion' as they are around £2K - what the hell is in them - god only knows - most of these flats are 'empty' so would question with the vendor what the hold up is. Could be the 'sellers pack' - validation on whether they can purchase as MS do need to verify that peeps are suitable for the development.

Alter_ego

Sold a Mc & S flat a couple of years ago. Yes, such delays are typical.

CampingCathy

Thanks for your replies and advice.

We have let all parties know that we are looking at other properties. We don't expect to find anything anytime soon that compares with the property for which we have had our offer accepted, though of course we have not told them that!

Our vendor's estate agent appears very proactive and does seem to be doing her best to progress things:

She has been in touch with the agent selling the McC&S apartment, and the solicitors for both our vendor and the vendor for McC&S.

She has informed all parties that we are looking elsewhere, and asked them all to chase and put pressure on the management company to respond to the enquiries.

So far this has had no impact, and both ourselves and our vendor are getting very frustrated and despondent. (I also read between the lines that the estate agent for our vendor is getting pretty cheesed off too!)

There seems little else we can do until either McC&S provide the necessary info, or we see another property that meets the very specific criteria we have for our "forever" home