No Missives and one week to handover

barry1234

We accepted an offer on our house 8 weeks ago and date of entry is set for the 31st of this month so we really need to be packed up and moving out in the next few days to allow time to clean house etc. My concern is with no missives concluded it could all fall through and were left needing to move back in. Our solicitor says its nothing to worry about as our buyer now have there loan papers through. When asked if this is the case then why cant it all be signed and sealed they have no answer other than I will chase up there solicitor which leads to assurances but nothing signed. Question is should we be worried? How long before DOE is it normal to have missives concluded? would it be unreasonable to ask for the date of entry to be changed to a week after whenever missives are concluded? Our house purchasers have sold there house to buy ours so that would have a knock on affect to there buyers. We are in Scotland if it makes any differance.

Thanks for any advice

davidmcn

You can certainly insist on a minimum period between conclusion of missives and the date of entry if you want, I wouldn't assume that the originally proposed date of entry is set in stone in any way, particularly not in current circumstances. I presume your buyers' sale missives aren't concluded yet either, or do you have not have information?

Not really normal to need to move out several days in advance, people generally can cope with doing the whole move in one day - you don't need to leave the place particularly clean!

JakeHallAgain

My sister bought in Scotland and the missives were concluded two days before the date of entry. She was informed it's not uncommon for it to be concluded within the week leading up to the date of entry (although consider David's point above that the market is now different and entry dates may be quite uncertain and subject to movement).

I like the Scottish system and it has many advantages, but I find that aspect and how relaxed the solicitors were very strange. It wasn't a cleaning or logistics issue in her case, but she was renting and it meant she could only give notice to terminate once missives had been concluded, which effectively meant paying another month's rent for no reason because they were concluded so late.

barry1234

I do not no if there missives are signed, if they are not then that puts them in the same situation as us. It would be nice if the solicitors would talk to each other and let us no where we stand. Its not so much the moving out its the packing up of a 4 bedroom house and then we are moving into a static caravan so the majority of our belongings are going into storage, and we would like to leave the house as clean as we would expect to receive it.