Moving next week

ScottishKev17

Hi MSE,

Due to sell and move into a new (not brand new) home next Friday, the 27th of March.

I’m interested to hear your thoughts on wether solicitors, estate agents, removal vans etc will still be operating next week.

I’ve called my solicitor and he thinks in about a week and a half to 2 weeks any house sales would likely be postponed until end of April at the earliest so I should be ok to see next Friday through.

MovingForwards

My solicitors have been spending a lot of time setting staff up to work from home, only thing he said is there may be a slight delay with lenders / solicitors due to the drain on their servers / IT systems and not working at full capacity due to staff shortages. Which could happen at any time during the winter bugs.

I got the impression the ones who have exchanged / concluded missives are being prioritised over those of us waiting to exchange / conclude missives.

If it boils down to it, do you have a mate or two with a van? Or a couple of mates and a hired van?

Have you exchanged yet?

davidmcn

I doubt things will be much different next week in relation to property transactions. Solicitors are to a large extent working from home from this week, with skeleton staff at the office dealing with mail etc. So expect a bit of disruption but nothing fundamental. Even the countries already under "lockdown" seem to be really just enforcing the requirement for you to have a good reason to go out, and if it's a job which can't really be done from home (like a removal company) I suspect that will be permissible.

ScottishKev17

Yeah missives are concluded between solicitors I need sign the documents on Monday.
I phoned the solicitor as I’m looking at hiring a van and didn’t want to make arrangements if he knew something I didn’t. He did mention the buyers solicitor contacted them last week to say they were good to go, it’s the mortgage funds being released on time and any closures I’m particularly worried about.

The new place is £400 cheaper a month, I’m desperate to move in ASAP.

i also got the impression that any house sale in the pipeline would be later in the spring, he used words to the effect that it’s only light admin some firms will be doing when working from home, that is just his opinion though.

if all else fails the house move is only 2 streets away I will walk the heavy furniture over if I need to

Dancer11

I work for a removal & storage company in SE Kent and we are still working at full capacity. In fact, it’s very busy at the moment and we have removal dates booked up throughout April. 

Unless we are forced to, which is unlikely, we will still be operating as normal.