FTB- awaiting draft contracts and no chain

Firsttimebuyer1991

Hello all!

We had our offer accepted 3 weeks ago. We have our mortgage offer, the solicitors also have the offer aswell. Our IDs and proof of funds have all been checked, valuation was done 2 weeks ago and that was fine. We are now awaiting the sellers solicitors draft paperwork which was requested a week ago.

There is no chain, our seller has a house ready to move in to and when we viewed the house most things were all in boxes so I assume she’s ready to go! We rent a flat off my partners bosses so there is no notice or anything there.

Just wondered if anyone has been in a similar situation as I’d imagine unless there’s issues with the searches things should go pretty quickly?

How long did yours take with no chain?

Also how often should I chase our solicitors?

Thanks all!

Slithery

Average timescale is 12 weeks so you may still have a month and a half to go at least.


Chasing your solicitor just takes time out of their day when they could be working. They'll contact you when they need something.

Yalpsmol

We just completed on a house. FTBs living with parents so no notice to give. The house was already empty as an ex BTL. Took about 17 weeks.
But 2 weeks of that was probably down to it being a leasehold so waiting on the management pack.

I have a few friends who have been in similar positions in the last few years and most completed within 3 and 4 months.

babyblade41

14 weeks , no chain, empty house and no finance

RelievedSheff

Just under 4 weeks from viewing and reserving our new build to completing and moving in.

This move happened really quickly.

Our last move was about 12 weeks. We were in a similar situation to your own so it should have been quick but our solicitors were useless!

Caitykinss

We completed today after having our offer accepted just over 8 weeks ago. We're FTB and are (as we speak!) moving into an empty property. We didn't really have any issues at all, other than slight delays in the seller getting paperwork to our solicitor. I think it could've been done in 6 weeks if things had moved as quickly as they could have.

Semple

We're in no chain and currently at 13/14 weeks.

I disagree with the above post about not hounding your solicitor. If things aren't moving then you need to nag them.

george4064

For me it took 4 months between offer accepted and exchanging contracts.

With regard to your question around how often you should chase your solicitor, what I did (which worked well) was to request a weekly update from my solicitor and if I didn't receive one I would chase.

This was good because my solicitor (naturally) did not want to report no progress from the previous week's update, so I think this helped moved things along so he could report progress each week.

Good luck!

cattie

I've been lucky enough to never have a chain above or below when buying/selling & each time it's taken an average of 12-14 weeks, so don't set your heart on things being wrapped up in just a few weeks.