Purchase of leasehold flat

Kate98

I wanted some advice on whether to see if my experience with my solicitors is normal.
October 1st 2019 our offer was accepted on a leasehold flat and we instructed our solicitors to start on that day. It has no chains on either side so I thought it would be relatively straight forward. But it is now 4 months since then and the solicitors seem to be taking things very slowly, when we try to ring them they never answer and end up calling us or emailing us back when it suits them.
We were expecting to be moved in before Christmas but it’s now nearly the end of January and they are now carrying out searches and we got an invoice in for the “search pack” which from googling I thought was done at the beginning of buying a property. They said the reason they hadn’t done this yet is because our mortgage lender didn’t get back to them in regards of our service charge being more expensive than what we initially told them, yet they never chased up the mortgage lender, how can it take the bank 4 months to respond to this?
I’m frustrated as we still don’t have a move in date and it’s close to being 5 months into this.
Do you think I should go through a complaint procedure with them once this is finished? As the seller is also not happy with them and we’re worried they may pull out

hazyjo

How long did you think it'd take?

Average freehold purchase takes 3 months. Leasehold often longer. Note the word 'average'! That is made up of a combination of times from days to months (year even!). I had one take 5 weeks, another take 5 months.

Read some of the stories on the waiting to exchange thread. You won't feel so alone.

Tiglet2

Your solicitor would have been unable to start any work on the day you instructed them, other than the usual form filling, ID checks and placing them in funds.

The two solicitors write introductory "instructed" letters to each other and then the seller's solicitor compiles the draft contract pack which he sends to your solicitor. Once your solicitor receives the draft contract pack, he will then start work and order your searches. The seller's solicitor will also need to obtain a leasehold management pack which the seller has to pay for. This can take a while to receive as Management Companies are notoriously slow at dealing with these requests. This pack and all the other information gets sent to your solicitor for them to review, raise enquiries and report to you. This can take a couple of months.

Leasehold transactions take longer because there are other third parties involved (i.e. freeholder/management company etc). Realistically, moving in by Christmas was very unlikely and your solicitor should have told you that, so that you were not frustrated that things were not moving as quickly as you wanted.

The seller's solicitor should also be managing the seller's expectations. Your solicitor can raise as many enquiries as they see fit and it is the seller and their solicitor who have to answer those enquiries to your solicitor's satisfaction. Only when your solicitor is satisfied with all the responses, will he proceed to an exchange of contracts.

So, you could find out when the draft contract pack was received, when the management pack was received and what, if any, enquiries are still outstanding. That will give a better picture for how much longer it is likely to be.

AdrianC

Kate98 wrote: »

...they are now carrying out searches and we got an invoice in for the “search pack” which from googling I thought was done at the beginning of buying a property. They said the reason they hadn’t done this yet is because our mortgage lender didn’t get back to them in regards of our service charge being more expensive than what we initially told them, yet they never chased up the mortgage lender, how can it take the bank 4 months to respond to this?

Perhaps they know damn well that chasing the lender won't actually speed them up? Your ire seems mis-directed. If your lender is being slow, you have two choices - adjust your timescale or find another lender.

Anyway, would you rather have paid for the searches then been unable to progress because you couldn't finance the purchase? Doing things in parallel can speed the process up, but makes an abortive purchase more expensive. Is time or money the priority for you? Did you express that preference to them?

We are only two working weeks past your "in by Xmas" perceived deadline. The reality of any purchase is that you're not going to be in until all the ducks are in a row.