How long is too long for buyers to instruct Full Structural Survey?!

[Deleted User]

Hi.  As it says in the title really!  When we thought we'd sold our house in January of this year (it's off the market now) our so-called 'buyers' took eleven weeks to make the appointment for a Full Structural Survey to be done (our house is Edwardian).  I had never sold a property before (although my husband had - fifteen years ago  - but that was a very straightforward sale.  We had been trying to sell our current house with a downstairs bathroom and I think this made any sale much more tricky...but that's another story!).  There were no problems as far as we were aware further down our chain and yet it took this amount of time for them to instruct a survey.  Please bear in mind I have never sold a property before and as such, was new to the process at that point; I/we had no idea how long is too long and we had no guidance on this score from anyone; least of all our EA.  I do realise that every chain is different and the selling process can be bumpy but if there are **no problems** below us in the chain (that we're made aware of), is eleven weeks too long to wait please?  And also, should our EA  have nudged our 'buyers' into making the Survey appointment sooner?  We were wanting to renovate a bungalow (which the EA knew; in fact, they were handling the sale of that too) and the time waiting for the Survey cost us financially (not least emotionally); only for the 'buyers' to pull out anyway (because of gaps between the 1980s lounge stairs!!!!!!).  I just ask for future reference as once we've moved the bathroom upstairs, we will look to try and sell in the next couple of years and we don't wish to be caught out in this way again, if possible.  Many thanks for your thoughts.  

Chilli6

From a buyers point of view I've instructed a survey as soon as my mortgage offer came through. Fortunately for me this only took a week from application to offer however at the moment I know 4-6 weeks seems to be the norm in many cases so this could slow things up.
I'd rather get the survey done as if I need to renegotiate or pull out then I won't have spent too much time and money up to that point.
I do know some people decide not to get one done, only to change their mind later on so wonder if that's what happened with your buyers? 

davidmcn

Isn't this a duplicate of your previous thread?

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6175031/too-long-to-instruct-full-structural-survey/p1

[Deleted User]

Hi davidmcn...yes, it kind of is a duplicate thread of mine but with one thing and another, the replies sort of went onto different things (that's not a gripe!).  Just wanted a few confirmation replies to this specific matter.  Thanks Chilli6; I realise I'm quite new to the selling game but your timeline sounds about right, from what I can make out from others.  Our timeline was pre-coronavirus so unless someone else can shed some light on it, it really does seem our buyers did take too long.  We didn't know that at the time but we know that now.  Our 'buyers' also very recently messed a friend of ours around buying his property (after they'd pulled out of ours); turned out that despite selling their property, they apparently 'couldn't prove where they were getting the money from' to pay for our friend's property.  Something not quite right with these people it would seem.  Thanks for your reply.      

macman

How long is too long is however long you are prepared to wait for your purchaser to complete their investigations. There is no set deadline.

macman

How long is too long is however long you are prepared to wait for your purchaser to complete their investigations. There is no set deadline.

[Deleted User]

There may be legitimate reasons. My mortgage took 7 weeks to put in place and I applied for the survey thereafter.
I think your estate agent should become a bit more persistent from this point on.

Hoof_Hearted

When we last sold, we said that we would continue to market the house until there was some evidence of sincerity, like a survey. There are buyers who put in an offer but continue to look at other properties and may find something else, thus wasting our time. Once a survey has been paid for, we felt that it was a good indication that they really wanted the house.

[Deleted User]

Hi macman, thanks for your reply.  I was just sounding out other people's opinions in light of the fact there were apparently no problems from our buyers' end and also the fact that I have never sold a property before.  When we were (trying) to buy a property ourselves, we had a survey done as soon as possible (as soon as our offer on it had been accepted; our surveyor was there within a couple of weeks after that) as it was an old bungalow.  Again, in light of the fact that everything from our buyers' end had gone through up to that point with seemingly no problems, I just thought it was quite a time to have elapsed for them to even make an appointment for a full survey, particularly as our house was built in 1907.  There were no problems reported with their end of investigations.  

[Deleted User]

Thanks brett19852010.  We weren't made aware of any problems their end, so to that end I conclude that there weren't any problems at that point.  As mentioned in previous reply, it just seemed to be a long time to wait to instruct a surveyor given that there supposedly weren't any issues.  I have never sold a property before and I was just putting the feelers out on here for future reference.  Yes, also feel slightly let down by EA that the Sales Progression Team perhaps didn't nudge our buyers sooner; they knew I hadn't sold before and that we were working on plans for renovating bungalow we were going to buy.  When you haven't been through a process before, you have nothing to compare it to, hence why I'm asking people for their thoughts now.  Thank you for your reply.  

[Deleted User]

MrsP1974 said:

Thanks brett19852010.  We weren't made aware of any problems their end, so to that end I conclude that there weren't any problems at that point.  As mentioned in previous reply, it just seemed to be a long time to wait to instruct a surveyor given that there supposedly weren't any issues.  I have never sold a property before and I was just putting the feelers out on here for future reference.  Yes, also feel slightly let down by EA that the Sales Progression Team perhaps didn't nudge our buyers sooner; they knew I hadn't sold before and that we were working on plans for renovating bungalow we were going to buy.  When you haven't been through a process before, you have nothing to compare it to, hence why I'm asking people for their thoughts now.  Thank you for your reply.  

As a current buyer there have been times I have been pulling my hair out with delays in relation to my obligations. At one point the mortgage lender asked me for a bank statement which was not due for another 5 days. My wife was asked to produce evidence of her return from maternity wage adjusted for furlough in a letter format. Naturally the furloughed HR department took 3 weeks to produce that. At the last minute I was asked to have my accountant prepare the accounts usually due by January 31st 2021 - you've guessed it that took several days. Despite these delays things are fine but it was getting increasingly hard to explain whilst I tended to produce documents within my control when requested on the same day.
Despite the above it is perfectly possible that buyers are faffing about and estate agents tend to be best placed to gain an understanding of any delays and timescales liasiing with buyer, their broker, solicitor to cross reference information.