memorandum of sale

Kop1906

We have had an offer on a house accepted (almost 4 weeks ago) we still haven’t had the memorandum of sale and there has been no movement. Is this something we should be worried about? And will this delay have slowed the process down or can the sellers solicitors be working on the draft contract without it?

Tiglet2

Have your sellers found somewhere to buy?  Just wondering if they've even instructed solicitors yet.  Have you instructed a solicitor?  The sales memorandum is issued when both your solicitor and the seller's solicitors are known because their details would need to be on the sales memorandum.  Without these details, the seller's solicitors can't issue the draft contracts if they don't know who is acting for you.  Don't forget that the sellers have to fill in various forms, get their ID sorted out and pay some monies to their solicitor so that the work can begin.  If they haven't done this yet, that would explain the delay.

hazyjo

Is the entire chain complete?

OldMusicGuy

Potentially yes. When we sold last year we had a buyer who faffed around over providing solicitor's details for the memorandum of sale and he pulled out after more than two weeks of delaying us. It does not take long to get a solicitor instructed so that the memorandum of sale can be issued. I would be chasing the EA to push the buyer to get this sorted asap. 

Kop1906

Thanks for the replies.
we have been told that the vendors instructed their solicitor the day our offer was accepted (as did we). We were also told the the vendors are happy to move into their parents. I will contact the EA and see what the delay is. It doesn’t seem like a positive start. 

Caramac

Yes contact the estate agent. We accepted an offer from someone who had an offer on their house but they a couple of more viewings booked the following day (they were selling through the same estate agent) but the EA promised to keep us updated. At the end of the following week we rang the estate agent as we hadn’t heard anything further and apparently they were waiting for details of our solicitor.

Slinky

We never ever had a memorandum of sale for our purchase. We were just provided with details of their solicitors and we gave the EA our solicitors details. Didn't think much of it at the time but I wondered later when it all dragged on for months and months, whether the EA was hiding the fact the vendor didn't want to complete in anything like the timescale we had suggested. It was a one property (probate had been obtained) transaction.

sujsuj

Yes this is strange. We got draft mou with in a week after offer acceptance. 

Kop1906

Thanks for all your replies / help. We have now received the memo and things seem to moving along.