House Completion & Exchange Timeframe

FTB_crossed

Hi,

Being a FTB, I have no idea about what is coming. Can someone throw a light on a time frame for a sale to be completed and what does it involve from searches & checks etc.

We had a mortgage offer from HSBC on 9th October and had solicitors instructed on 28th September. I am just curious about the time it will take to get to completion and exchange of contracts stage.

Property is freehold & chain free and neither us have to sell or buy another property. Vendors are moving to a small property that they already had and we are moving in as FTB. I need to plan for notice period of rented property and plan to do some work at our new property but not sure about any time frame. Will it take 2-3 weeks or 4-6 weeks.
Spoke to local council today and they said that they have no searches requested by solicitors. Solicitors are local office based with conveyancing service and hefty price tag who have not responded for past whole week.

I have left emails and waiting for response. May be I'm too eager but just want to know if there's anything else I need to provide or anything I can do to speed things up.


Any comments will be appreciated. 

DIP - 22/09/20
Full Application - 25/09/20
Mortgage Offer - 09/10/20
Solicitors Instructed - 28/09/20
Draft Contract Received  - 3/10/20
Searches Requested - 3/10/20 - According to initial email exchange
No further update since 3/10/20

greatcrested

Timescales can vary so much, depending on somany variables, that is almost pointless giving you numbers. 2 weeks? 2 months? 6 months?

Have a look at this or similar:

https://www.waterstones.com/book/buying-and-selling-a-home-for-dummies/melanie-bien/9780470994481

The one piece of useful advice I can give is that you need patience. Open a bottle, relax, and let your professionals (plus all the others in the chain) get on with it.

bravotango

Yep, I agree just let them to get on with it.

As a former FTB, it is stressful especially as I was also buying during this Coronavirus pandemic to..

Give them until middle of November, and if nothing, then just give a gentle nudge email/phone to see where they are.

Ohfeelya

My (FTB) purchase eariler this year took 4 months from offer to getting the keys. There was nothing tricky about my purchase (besides Covid lol), it was also a chain of 2. The longest time was for the searches, i think they alone took 4 weeks. I would keep on your solicitor for updates but still have several steps to go through.
Also I would recommend NOT giving notice to your landlord until you have exchanged. How much notice do you have to give? I checked my lease and it was only 30 days -- not even a calendar month.
We exchanged/completed on the same day because it was during the 1st lockdown in April. We had planned to redo the floors before we moved in but that didn't work out. However it was so inconvenient to have to redo floors when you are living there also. Plus we are all WFH so I had to take some holiday. So you having a gap to do refurb is a great idea!

FTB_crossed

Ohfeelya said:

My (FTB) purchase eariler this year took 4 months from offer to getting the keys. There was nothing tricky about my purchase (besides Covid lol), it was also a chain of 2. The longest time was for the searches, i think they alone took 4 weeks. I would keep on your solicitor for updates but still have several steps to go through.
Also I would recommend NOT giving notice to your landlord until you have exchanged. How much notice do you have to give? I checked my lease and it was only 30 days -- not even a calendar month.
We exchanged/completed on the same day because it was during the 1st lockdown in April. We had planned to redo the floors before we moved in but that didn't work out. However it was so inconvenient to have to redo floors when you are living there also. Plus we are all WFH so I had to take some holiday. So you having a gap to do refurb is a great idea!

Hi, Yes the key is patience and ill stick to it for now. Notice period is only a month so that's not a problem. 
I just wanted to plan so I can get someone to go there and get things done before we actually move across fully specially with kids.

It does not awful amount of work but I'm going to need some quotes on the flooring, carpeting and furniture etc.

Cant wait for all of it but I think ill just have to stay in loop for now.

lika_86

When I worked in conveyancing I always thought it was around 12 weeks for a straightforward transaction. A lot is out of your hands in terms of searches and the other side responding to enquiries. 

FTB_crossed

That's a life time for a completion then. I don't understand which searches take this long like over 4 weeks and then what are inquiries? This day and age, everything is online and everything is out there. I checked with my local council and their turnaround time for search is 3 working days max. I thought the biggest delay would be your mortgage otherwise I would have instructed my solicitor right after the property offer was accepted. I almost waited till I go the mortgage offer literally weeks before I received the offer by the lender.

Drawingaline

Took seven weeks for our mortgage offer, then four weeks for searches. Our buyers solicitors sent five enquiries and then one further one. Our solicitor sent 25 enquiries to our vendors! 

Enquiries are normally easy tick boxing stuff, but searches will throw up issues. The garage conversion in the house we are buying does not have building regs and breaks a covenant. We are not concerned about this but solicitors are doing due diligence. Our buyers solicitors have queries about our conservatory which has planning but breaks a covenant. The back and forth on these have taken the best part of six weeks!

And at the last minute our buyers have changed lenders due to a product issue. They are landlords and wanted a better interest rate. So another four week delay. We are at 14weeks now, we are selling to landlords and buying a property from a couple who are now in mainland Europe. 

And removals are backed up three weeks atm here too! Hoping to get in by mid Nov, chain was complete end of July.

Jamaicanmelaff

My offer was accepted just before lockdown in March. Should have been relatively simple - no ongoing chain, first time buyer with 20% deposit, but self-employed. Absolute nightmare from start to (almost) finish - I'm due to complete on Friday

Flugelhorn

I have bought and sold assorted houses, mainly chain free / cash - speediest was 4 weeks to buy, 5 weeks to sell- having said that recent sale took 10 weeks and purchase 16 weeks (ahem prolonged process for deed of variation with management company)