Trying to exchange - is this normal?!

md492

Hello - we have been trying to exchange on our first home for 3 days now. As in, we were ready on Friday, gave verbal authority and were told solicitor would let us know when it was done.. got to 5pm on Friday no word, we rang up to be told it hadn’t happened because they couldn’t get hold of the sellers solicitor. The repeat this story another 2 times for yesterday and today! Yesterday it was that the sellers solicitor wasn’t in the office, today it’s that they couldn’t get hold of the seller to obtain verbal authority. 

My question is - is this normal?! As in normal to try and fail to exchange multiple times? We have a completion date for this Friday. Having tried 3 days running now to exchange we are getting a little worried and frustrated.

Thank you! 

eddddy

Maybe contact the seller, to find out if it's them that are delaying.

If not, suggest that they contact their solicitor to get things moving.

princeofpounds

No, it's not common, although I suspect it's a more common at the moment as it would be normally, as the solicitors may be disrupted due to Covid-related issues (I'm not excusing it, but furlough-related backlogs and tighter exchange-complete timescales are causing issues).

Normally there is informal agreement between both sides on when to exchange in a few days once all the paperwork is done, or almost done. So when the exchange actually happens, both sides' solicitors already have it in their diary and it tends to run smoothly. From the way you describe it, it sounds like that process hasn't really been followed - instead it's been a 'are you ready? Great - I'll try contacting the other side' kind of situation. i.e. they aren't really 'trying to exchange', they are 'trying to fix a date to exchange', which often can take a few days, especially if the other side weren't quite ready or the solicitors are being a bit sluggish with their email. It's entirely possible that the vendor and their solicitor spent a day playing telephone ping pong.

But you have plenty of time to exchange before Friday, so unless the seller genuinely has cold feet you don't have much to worry about. 

Sorry, I know that's not the complete reassurance that you wanted, but we can't know the mind of your seller. But it's not time to panic yet, and the next step if there is no word by later tomorrow would be to try to get hold of the vendor via the EA first to see where they are.

TWIGLET1234

I tried to exchange every day last week and finally managed to exchange this Monday for completion this Friday. The seller solicitor was being a pain in the butt. The EA helped massively to get it done very late in the day Monday. Good luck. It's such a worry, and I was a mess! Kept telling myself the seller was going to pull out

bucksbloke

You need to speak to the Sales Progressor at the estate agent and get them to find out what is wrong. 

md492

Thanks for your replies everyone - all helpful and reassuring. 

Prince I think you were correct - they were more trying to set a date to exchange rather than actually exchange ...

4th time lucky this morning - had phonecall to provide authority to proceed at 9am and had email confirmation that we had exchanged contracts at 10:30am!  

princeofpounds

Great to hear it was a good outcome.