First time buyers..

sten93

Hi,
me and my boyfriend are both first time buyers but starting to feel as though our solicitors are passing the blame! Both solicitors are saying they are waiting for a response from the other side and it’s getting really annoying now! We know the vendors we are buying from, so we are keeping intouch with them but there’s only so many snotty emails we can both send To our solicitors.. there’s such a small chain, literally us as first time buyers and them moving in with parents until they find somewhere so thought it would go threw quickly, but it’s been 6 weeks now and so fed up of ‘we are waiting for replies to enquiries’... apparently we are waiting for some more searches too.. had a long report through from ‘groundsure’ think we are just waiting for the local authority one??? If so, on there website it says 5 days turn around - we paid and ordered them 4 weeks ago..
does anybody have any hints or tips to help speed up the process!? 

cooltt

sten93 said:

Hi,
me and my boyfriend are both first time buyers but starting to feel as though our solicitors are passing the blame! Both solicitors are saying they are waiting for a response from the other side and it’s getting really annoying now! We know the vendors we are buying from, so we are keeping intouch with them but there’s only so many snotty emails we can both send To our solicitors.. there’s such a small chain, literally us as first time buyers and them moving in with parents until they find somewhere so thought it would go threw quickly, but it’s been 6 weeks now and so fed up of ‘we are waiting for replies to enquiries’... apparently we are waiting for some more searches too.. had a long report through from ‘groundsure’ think we are just waiting for the local authority one??? If so, on there website it says 5 days turn around - we paid and ordered them 4 weeks ago..
does anybody have any hints or tips to help speed up the process!? 

I think your being a little optimistic with the timescales. A property purchase is anything from 8-12 weeks and that's without a pandemic and half the country working from home. It's likely they are waiting on enquiries to return everything is much slower at the moment. We just remortgaged and it dragged on for nearly 3 months instead of 4 weeks so we can all empathize especially as you can't wait to move in. 

An update email a week is enough and although you want to throttle them be polite, they'll have more than one property transaction going through right now, likley 60-100 with the back log. Everything stopped for nearly 3 months don't forget.

dimbo61

Have you tried to contact council departments yourself.
Good Luck getting through 
Your not buying a six pack from Sainsburys so you need to wait.
Are you paying a set fee to your solicitors or do they charge you to reply to every email ?

SameOldRoundabout

I also think you’re being overly optimistic. I’d estimate a rough 12 weeks for a purchase even with a small chain. Local authorities are snowed under and most staff are not in or are redeployed to The benefits side so the searches will take a good while. Enquiries are quick to deal with but searches are out of everyone’s hands. You’re going to have to be a bit more patient and just wait.