Awaiting exchange..

Firsttimebuyer1991

Hello All,

We are at the last stages now of our house purchase now. Some enquires were raised by our solicitor to the seller and the EA called my partner yesterday stating that the owner of the house has had some support answering them (she was struggling with them) and our solicitor should now have all the answers and that we should be exchanging within two weeks.
I emailed our solicitor who stated they have them and they need to review them and revert back to the solicitor.. a bit vague to say the least!
I have emailed the solicitor back asking for more information and timescales but as it’s the weekend they obviously aren’t open and my head is driving me mad wondering if we are actually going to exchange or not.. I think what I don’t quite understand is what do they need to revert back to them about if they haven’t even reviewed the answers yet?

Tiglet2

The EA really will have no idea whether or not you will be exchanging within two weeks, since they do not have access to the legal work, therefore won't know whether the answers to the enquiries will be satisfactory.

The solicitor has to be fairly vague on providing you with more information since until they actually look at the answers to enquiries, they don't know if the responses are acceptable or not. In some instances, they may seek further clarification and information, or they have to indicate to the sellers that they are happy with the responses and can proceed further. Firstly, they have to review the responses and then secondly, they revert to the seller's solicitor with more enquiries or to state they are ready to proceed further.

Once your solicitor is happy with answers to enquiries, the next stage would be reporting to you with documents to sign and lots of information for you to read and understand. It doesn't appear that you have reached this stage yet, which would indicate that you won't be exchanging yet.

Cakeguts

Ignore what the EA says. What counts is what your solicitor says and it sounds as if they are not ready yet. Forget about the 2 weeks bit it came from the EA.

AdrianC

Firsttimebuyer1991 wrote: »

I emailed our solicitor who stated they have them and they need to review them and revert back to the solicitor..

I think what I don’t quite understand is what do they need to revert back to them about if they haven’t even reviewed the answers yet?

Perhaps there's some information that should be present, but doesn't seem to be.
Perhaps there's an implicit "may" before the "need to review".

Remember - the solicitor doesn't drive what information is required. Ultimately, you and the lender do. If both you and the lender are happy to not bother with whatever information is missing, then it's not needed. But if either you or the lender do insist on it...

Firsttimebuyer1991

Thank you everyone! I wonder why the estate agent says that if they don’t actually know!
The contract is already signed and we have all the paperwork, deposit has also been transferred across it’s just these few enquires left to answer and then we can exchange