From mortgage offer to completion

NicTin01

First time poster here!
We are in the final stages of buying a house (survey done, searches done, enquiries done, contract pack sorted), our final hurdle is mortgage offer with Platform which is taking ages due to backlog. We had some final queries come from them last week which my mortgage advisor believes will be the final hurdle given valuation was weeks ago and the questions they’ve asked are really simple and we’ve provided documentation back within minutes. We are due out of our apartment on the 1st September and wondered whether anyone could advise on how long from mortgage offer to moving date I can reasonably ask for? So for example, if we received the mortgage offer this week and signed with our solicitor this week, would it be reasonable to ask to move on the 26th July? I’ve heard there is at least a week between transferring money to solicitor etc. There is no chain so the house we are moving into is already empty. I’m unsure of whether to start planning a plan B of couch surfing if we don’t have the mortgage offer by the end of the week! Any advice would be much appreciated!

carriesmonkies

NicTin01 said:

First time poster here!
We are in the final stages of buying a house (survey done, searches done, enquiries done, contract pack sorted), our final hurdle is mortgage offer with Platform which is taking ages due to backlog. We had some final queries come from them last week which my mortgage advisor believes will be the final hurdle given valuation was weeks ago and the questions they’ve asked are really simple and we’ve provided documentation back within minutes. We are due out of our apartment on the 1st September and wondered whether anyone could advise on how long from mortgage offer to moving date I can reasonably ask for? So for example, if we received the mortgage offer this week and signed with our solicitor this week, would it be reasonable to ask to move on the 26th July? I’ve heard there is at least a week between transferring money to solicitor etc. There is no chain so the house we are moving into is already empty. I’m unsure of whether to start planning a plan B of couch surfing if we don’t have the mortgage offer by the end of the week! Any advice would be much appreciated!

I assume you meant 26th August? 

We had our offer in 5th August and are aiming for completion on 21st so I would assume your time line is realistic providing nothing else crops up unexpectedly. 

Competsoph

What am I missing? You’ve got searches and survey done but not got your mortgage offer? I’m confused.

NicTin01

carriesmonkies said:

NicTin01 said:

First time poster here!
We are in the final stages of buying a house (survey done, searches done, enquiries done, contract pack sorted), our final hurdle is mortgage offer with Platform which is taking ages due to backlog. We had some final queries come from them last week which my mortgage advisor believes will be the final hurdle given valuation was weeks ago and the questions they’ve asked are really simple and we’ve provided documentation back within minutes. We are due out of our apartment on the 1st September and wondered whether anyone could advise on how long from mortgage offer to moving date I can reasonably ask for? So for example, if we received the mortgage offer this week and signed with our solicitor this week, would it be reasonable to ask to move on the 26th July? I’ve heard there is at least a week between transferring money to solicitor etc. There is no chain so the house we are moving into is already empty. I’m unsure of whether to start planning a plan B of couch surfing if we don’t have the mortgage offer by the end of the week! Any advice would be much appreciated!

I assume you meant 26th August? 

We had our offer in 5th August and are aiming for completion on 21st so I would assume your time line is realistic providing nothing else crops up unexpectedly. 

Sorry yes definitely meant 26th August! Ok thanks, that’s given me some confidence :-)

NicTin01

Competsoph said:

What am I missing? You’ve got searches and survey done but not got your mortgage offer? I’m confused.

We kicked off the conveyancing process at the same time as our mortgage application due to our timescales and from the advice of our solicitor that the local council had a backlog. We knew paying for both (came to £850 for both) was a risk in case full mortgage application wasn’t approved but decided to take the risk. Those things ended up happening extremely quickly (survey happened a week after we’d had offer accepted and searches were back in a week too) so the only thing we are now waiting on is the mortgage offer.

Competsoph

@NicTin01 oh that is a bit risky but I’m glad it sounds like things are working out for you. I’m also waiting on an exchange date, survey done today so fingers crossed!

NicTin01

@Competsoph yes definitely was a risk but thanks, will look like a right moron if my mortgage application doesn’t come through now haha! Massive fingers crossed for the results of your survey and you get exchanged quickly 😊

Windofchange

For us it has been about 7 months from mortgage offer to completion and still counting. Due to complete next week at last. I guess if your's is a very straight forward no chain purchase then it's not unreasonably to assume that things could move pretty fast, but don't underestimate the amount of faffing about solicitors will put you through in order to make sure everything is 100%. I'm not suggesting for a minute they shouldn't be complete in their work, but we were waiting on things such as can you confirm how the new owners get a parking permit - reply came back apply to the council. Yeah, quite why that needed a week of my life to clear up...

NicTin01

@Windofchange wow 7 months!!! I’m glad you’ve finally got a completion date. It’s a good point around solicitors, I’ll have a think about how to approach that. It’s difficult as we are all (current owner, current owner solicitor, our solicitor and us) just waiting for this mortgage offer and it’s go go go as we’ve moved so quickly up to this point. My solicitor has said she will sort the mortgage papers out the same day she receives them and going to go physically get them and sign there so she’s been really good so far. Fingers crossed she doesn’t spring a ‘parking permit’ question last minute!