How long to complete and exchange ?

mchale

Remember solicitors are like wheelbarrows, they only work as hard as you push them.

phoebe1989seb

Our most recent purchase took 4 weeks from offer to completion - but it was a repossession, we were cash buyers and had already completed on the sale of our previous house. We also kept very much on top of things wrt our solicitor (who was a star, having never dealt with a repo purchase before), delivering paperwork by hand etc and keeping in daily contact via email.

DS and his partner were recently the middle link in a chain of three. They took 14 weeks from offer to completion on sale and purchase. It would have been quicker but there were a few hold ups such as dealing with the other freeholders (they were selling a share of freehold flat) and stuff to do with listed building consent......

Surrey_EA

RelievedSheff wrote: »

It can be done quicker.

Our recent purchase went through in just under four weeks from reserving our new build plot to completion and moving in. We part exchanged our old home against the new one so no chain involved.

There are obvious advantages when buying a new home and p/x'ing previous home to developer that will not be available to the vast majority of transactions.

dan958

Mine took like 3 months! There was lots of back and forth, and issues further up the chain. Luckily, I wasn't in any rush.

Slithery

Anywhere between 2 weeks and 2 years.

hazyjo

dan958 wrote: »

Mine took like 3 months! There was lots of back and forth, and issues further up the chain. Luckily, I wasn't in any rush.

Three months is the average.


OP - as you can see, that average is obtained by some taking much less, some taking much longer. For some reason, people seem to forget that and think 12 weeks should be the longest it should take. The length of chain doesn't usually make a massive difference to how long it all takes - unless they can't all agree a completion date.


Good luck.

Slinky

Our purchase took 23 weeks for a probate property where probate had been granted. Most of the delay was down to the vendors not getting around to clearing out the property.


Our sale which again was a single property transaction, which was unrelated to the purchase, took 13 weeks.


Edit, just realised the 13 weeks was from the date we put it up for sale. It took 11.5 weeks from acceptance to completion.

jamesh2702

I am in 24th week. No chain. Mortgage approved quickly.

Interestingly the worse your solicitor the more likely it is to go quickly as they won't raise the right enquiries which could cause issues in the future. Furthermore a picky solicitor can raise more enquiries than required. It's luck of the draw.

Great_Pretender

FTB and no chain and it’s taken me 12 weeks from accepted offer to completion.
No dramas and no delays, the searches even came back very quickly.

Best advice I can offer is to hand everything back as soon as you can, but to try and forget about the process in between receiving updates.
It’s a slow process that needs a lot of patience!

PasturesNew

I'm almost at 4 months; short chain, FTBs at the bottom struggling to finance it.... once they've got a signature it'd theoretically fly through.... I somehow don't believe this will end well.

It's only cost me "the best time of year to market", as I've spent £0 as I'm not buying (yet), I'm just selling/vacating.