When should I chase?

Abigail1990

Hi all

I am in the process of buying a house. Mortgage has been agreed and I have instructed solicitors to start searches. My solicitors have received the draft pack from seller's solicitors and we are first time buyers, and the house we are buying is currently empty (it was being rented). Basically there is no chain at all.

Now i know it is very early days but i have read again and again that buyers should chase solicitors. We received confirmation they'd received draft contract from sellers sols on 24th June and from there they have requested certain information from us which we have provided . I don't want to bug them but when should i be looking to chase the solicitors? I know it won't be yet but wanted to have an idea incase i dont hear by then as ideally we would like to move by end of September.

Thank u

Slithery

Relax, it's still early days.

Your solicitor will be in touch when they next need something from you, constant badgering from their clients just takes away time that they could be working on your case.

need_an_answer

So you need to wait for the searches to come back,your solicitor will let you have the results when they are complete...it can take around a month for this to happen.

then the solicitor together with yourselves can raise any queries resulting from the searches or fixture and fittings/property forms....this can be as long as you wish those queries to take...simple and theres not much,more complex and it could take a while.

Theres no point chasing,just for the sake of chasing let things go at the speed they go.You could ask your solicitor if they feel that the end of september is a realistic date and ask that things work towards that.

george4064

A nice middle ground which I did was to request regular updates from your solicitor, this keeps you informed and also allows you to track the progress of everything.


Worked well for me with my first house purchase, we had regular email/telephone updates and if I wasn't happy with the speed of something I would get in touch with whoever (e.g. mortgage broker, estate agent or sellers) to chase to get it sorted.


EDIT: My flat purchase took about 6 months from offer accepted to completion.

Cakeguts

Abigail1990 wrote: »

Hi all

I am in the process of buying a house. Mortgage has been agreed and I have instructed solicitors to start searches. My solicitors have received the draft pack from seller's solicitors and we are first time buyers, and the house we are buying is currently empty (it was being rented). Basically there is no chain at all.

Now i know it is very early days but i have read again and again that buyers should chase solicitors. We received confirmation they'd received draft contract from sellers sols on 24th June and from there they have requested certain information from us which we have provided . I don't want to bug them but when should i be looking to chase the solicitors? I know it won't be yet but wanted to have an idea incase i dont hear by then as ideally we would like to move by end of September.

Thank u

We bought a vacant house like this with no chain and with no mortgage and it took 5 months so you could have several months to go.

Abigail1990

Cakeguts, I can't seem to quote but if you see this was there any particular reason yours took so long ? Was there a hold up of some sorts or is 5 months normal? Really hope we don't have to wait that long!

Thank you for all the other replies also. So general rule of thumb is to leave them to it. That was my instinct but after reading threads on here where people were advising to chase their solicitors every week or so I got worried as I don't want to delay matters.

need_an_answer

5 months is quite a standard purchase time...my last purchase last year was just short of 5 months and it actually seemed to fly by.

My quickest purchase was many years ago when it was done and dusted in5 weeks and my longest one was 11 months at which point I pulled out,they were just in no hurry and still quite a way to go.

Between 4 and 5 months and youre doing well...

Smodlet

5 months is average, in my experience. Why so impatient? It must be this "instant everything, all the time" mentality which is considered "normal" these days. Learn patience. It used to be a virtue; now, it seems, it is a skill. Some things move at the pace of the slowest in the chain, be that the vendor, your solicitor, the EA or whoever.

Sometimes, these delays can work in a buyer's favour; give them the chance to consider whether they really are making the right decision. Whatever happens, it will be a useful learning experience.

diggingdude

Smodlet wrote: »

5 months is average, in my experience. Why so impatient? It must be this "instant everything, all the time" mentality which is considered "normal" these days. Learn patience. It used to be a virtue; now, it seems, it is a skill. Some things move at the pace of the slowest in the chain, be that the vendor, your solicitor, the EA or whoever.

Sometimes, these delays can work in a buyer's favour; give them the chance to consider whether they really are making the right decision. Whatever happens, it will be a useful learning experience.

I think its less that and more Estate Agents telling inexperienced buyers that house purchases should only take 6-8 weeks total which makes people panic

Smodlet

diggingdude wrote: »

I think its less that and more Estate Agents telling inexperienced buyers that house purchases should only take 6-8 weeks total which makes people panic

Then perhaps they should take a pinch or ten of (virtual?) salt with them before they approach same.

Abigail1990

Hi diggingdude, yes it's exactly that. The first thing the estate agent told me was that the seller was keen to complete as soon as possible and asked me about my timescales so I got paranoid after reading one too many horror solicitor stories on here saying to ensure you always chase them etc. I just didn't want to be seen by the seller as stalling if it takes too long so wanted to know what a reasonable time would be to elapse before I contact them.
I *was* shocked at the time scale of 5 months for a property with no chain as I think I had heard 6-10 weeks bandied around somewhere, perhaps from the estate agent come to think of it!

Thank you for the replies