Taking too long to get answers

mummyflesh

Morning All

We are in the process of buying our first house. Our offer was accepted in the last week in March and we still have not yet exchanged. The sellers solicitor is taking over 4 weeks to answer queries and they are simple ones like who owns the boundaries etc.
Am I being impatient or is this normal can I do anything.

Many thanks

goathead

sounds like you are dealing with our solicitors, who are take an age to reply to anything we ask.. I would have thought info like that could be provided within a couple of days but the delay may be because of the vendor rather than their solicitors. We were asked about our boundaries and I replied to our solicitor within 24 hours so assume they passed it on to our buyers as quickly.

wesleyad

Welcome to the glorious world of house buying! Over paid solicitors who seem to do nothing for months and then cram it all in the last week. But in all seriousness the process is long, frustrating and you just have to be patient.

The average is 9 weeks from offer to exchange so you aren't anywhere near the realms of it being unusually long. In another 9 weeks maybe!

Just to add, the only thing you can really do is get the EA to put pressure on the seller to, in turn, put pressure on their solicitors (start saying stuff like "cold feet", "brexit" etc.)

mummyflesh

This is going on our 18th week since offer as it was the last week Feb not March my mistake!

eddddy

mummyflesh wrote: »

The sellers solicitor is taking over 4 weeks to answer queries and they are simple ones like who owns the boundaries etc.

Are these questions that your solicitor says need to be asked?

Or or they questions that you have devised?

(If so, are they 'reasonable' pre-contract enquiries - things that you want included in a contract, and things that a seller is likely to agree to having in a contract.)

If they are more general questions, you could just ask the seller (maybe via the EA).

You mention the boundary, the question 1 on the TA6 Property Information form is usually:

1 Boundaries

Looking towards the property from the road, who owns or accepts responsibility to maintain or repair the boundary features:

(a) on the left?
(b) on the right?
(c) across the back?
(d) across the front?

davidmcn

Is it the answering of these enquiries which is actually slowing down the transaction, or (more likely) are the sellers just trying to go slow for other reasons? As above, "who owns the boundary features" isn't critical, and often the answer is "we don't know".

mummyflesh

We are asking the questions as on the Property info it’s states not known to lots of questions even though they do.

foxy-stoat

mummyflesh wrote: »

We are asking the questions as on the Property info it’s states not known to lots of questions even though they do.

Probably so you don't sue them if they put down the wrong information.

firsttimeworrywart

Hey mummyflesh,

You're in the same boat as we are, our offer was accepted at around the same time as yours and we haven't exchanged yet either.

The only thing I've found that seems to help push things along a little is getting the estate agent involved. I've kept in close contact with the EA for the house we're buying and every time we've had an issue, she's stepped in and pulled everything back together.

I hope you start to see some progress soon!

eddddy

mummyflesh wrote: »

We are asking the questions as on the Property info it’s states not known to lots of questions even though they do.

So perhaps a quicker route is to tell the EA that you are concerned that many answers are not known - and it's delaying the progress of the sale.

And ask the EA to contact the seller and ask why.

And if appropriate, you could ask the EA to tell the seller that you won't continue with the purchase, unless they fill in a more complete version of the form and send it to their solicitors.

The EA might be able to get things moving with a couple of phone calls.

(Or the EA might tell you that the seller is refusing to update the form - so you have to make a decision whether you want to move forward with the current form, or walk away.)

davidmcn

mummyflesh wrote: »

We are asking the questions as on the Property info it’s states not known to lots of questions even though they do.

Ok, but if they wanted to get on with the transaction without answering those questions, they'd say so rather than just go quiet.