What to b careful of between exchange and completion

Stultus

You seem to be in a very similar position to me. FTB buying a vacant house so no chain at all.

We’ve set an completion date for Thursday (we specified not a Friday) and haven’t yet exchanged as our solicitor suggested it was better protection for us to request the mortgage money from the lender first and ensure that it lands in their account before we are committed to buying the house.

The only thing I would recommend checking is that your solicitor won’t charge you a fee for having less than a week between exchange and completion. Our solicitor has a standard fee for it, but because it’s her recommendation to wait we’re not being charged it, in reality it seems although it says less than one week it’s actually aimed at those who do exchange and completion on one day as that’s a lot of work for the solicitor all at once.

bopsybunny

We exchanged and completed on the same day. The last working day before Christmas. It was possibly the most stressful day of my life! The only thing outstanding was our vendor's mortgage funds needed to be released for their purchase. Their conveyancer properly dropped the ball and only requested them the day before completion!! I was absolutely livid - ours had been arranged far in advance. We got so lucky that the funds were released and the sale could go ahead.

So if you have got a short time between exchange and completion, I'd suggest asking your conveyancer to ensure your mortgage funds are requested in good time and to check with your vendor's solicitor that they are doing the same. Ours was done before exchange.

Albala

The risk of anything going wrong between exchange and completion is extremely small. I have known it happen, and the conveyancer had never had it happen to them before, despite many years' experience. Compensation would be involved for a seller if the buyer pulled out (they'd get the deposit). If the seller pulls out, the buyer can force the sale through legal means, and/or claim compensation from the seller for any costs or losses.


It's a far bigger risk that the transaction will fail (and that would be with no redress at all) before exchange if you push the two dates together. And the complications of organising the move get worse the closer together the two dates are.