FTB - Vendor Taking So Long

ashleighduguid

swingaloo2 said:

We are buying a house with exactly the same situation. Our offer was accepted 3 months before yours back in June, its cash purchase and the house has been unoccupied since March. We have finally exchanged and got a completion date for the end of November. So 6 months for the same reasons, probate issues, one of the family living abroad, sellers lack of enthusiasm for getting the house emptied. Add to this a touch of 'vendor awkwardness' and what could have been a fast sale with no chain has still taken 6 months.
I was like you at the beginning as we had an 'anticipated completion date' of 24th July on the first lot of paperwork so I built my expectations way too high thinking I would be moving in time to still have light nights, nice weather etc but soon came down to earth.

Wow, thanks for this. Good to hear from someone in a similar situation. Its good to note that there is a light at the end of the (seemingly) unnecessarily long tunnel!

Out of interest, how often were you chasing for updates?

Tiglet2

Another thought - you cannot count the weeks from 1st or 7th September - that's only when your offer was being considered and eventually accepted.  

As a PP said above, there are three vendors who have to all sign paperwork, and one of them lives in Spain.  If they are not particularly IT proficient, you will need to be patient as everything may have to be posted to them and posted back, which is obviously going to impact on response times.  You haven't even got to the enquiry stage yet - you will need to be particularly patient then!  I do think you need to allow sufficient time for everyone to do their bit otherwise you will be stressing out before the real work actually begins.  You don't say if you are also selling.

ashleighduguid

@Tiglet2
Nope, we have received no draft contracts. That is what we are waiting for. I have asked the EA several times to ask them what forms are being returned by they never do! They just say either "forms" or "paperwork" which doesn't give me any real clarity? And its always accompanied with "shortly" or "hopefully" which also gives me no definitive answer. 
I guess because my partner and I are pretty tech savvy so we are able to complete everything the same day it is sent (or within a couple of days at most) so the contrast of someone not being able to do this is more apparent to us? 

Tiglet2

ashleighduguid said:

@Tiglet2
Nope, we have received no draft contracts. That is what we are waiting for. I have asked the EA several times to ask them what forms are being returned by they never do! They just say either "forms" or "paperwork" which doesn't give me any real clarity? And its always accompanied with "shortly" or "hopefully" which also gives me no definitive answer. 
I guess because my partner and I are pretty tech savvy so we are able to complete everything the same day it is sent (or within a couple of days at most) so the contrast of someone not being able to do this is more apparent to us? 

"YOU" don't receive them, your solicitor does.  If what you are saying is that your solicitor hasn't received draft contracts, then any conveyancing work on this transaction hasn't started yet.

ashleighduguid

Tiglet2 said:

ashleighduguid said:

@Tiglet2
Nope, we have received no draft contracts. That is what we are waiting for. I have asked the EA several times to ask them what forms are being returned by they never do! They just say either "forms" or "paperwork" which doesn't give me any real clarity? And its always accompanied with "shortly" or "hopefully" which also gives me no definitive answer. 
I guess because my partner and I are pretty tech savvy so we are able to complete everything the same day it is sent (or within a couple of days at most) so the contrast of someone not being able to do this is more apparent to us? 

"YOU" don't receive them, your solicitor does.  If what you are saying is that your solicitor hasn't received draft contracts, then any conveyancing work on this transaction hasn't started yet.

Yes, thank you. The "we" included my solicitor in that but thanks for your presumption of my inferior knowledge. I am aware that they conveyancing work hasn't started yet, that wasn't my question. My main question is how often should I be poking my EA to try and speed the vendors up? Considering they have had the forms back from Spain for well over a week; live in the same town as their solicitor and also minutes away from the last person to sign the documentation and still haven't taken them in? Is it a case of me chasing daily for updates, weekly, monthly?

Tiglet2

To be honest, the EA is working for the sellers and they can push as much as they are able to get the sellers to complete and return their initial forms to their solicitor, but the EA cannot force them to do it in a timely manner.  The updates you have had are probably as much as the EA knows.  Have your solicitors contacted the sellers solicitors to chase up draft contracts?  I am not sure how you've managed to obtain searches without the draft contracts - most solicitors will not order them before receipt.

ashleighduguid

@Tiglet2
No I can appreciate that no one can force anyone to do anything. The EA has said that the vendors are conscious of "not holding anything up". I do just think they are old-school and do things in that fashion so are happy to amble along as it is inconsequential (other than receiving the money from the sale) to them as they are not moving anywhere. In terms of the searches our solicitor ordered them once our mortgage offer was back and then independently from this the EA told us to get on with the searches too. 

Falafels

The only advice I can give you, for your own sanity, is to reflect that you've done everything you possibly can for the time being - so you can afford to sit back. You do need to manage your own expectations.

The estate agent is working for the vendor, not you, and it seems they'll tell you things to fob you off because they're being chased about matters which are beyond their control.

Rather than chasing the EA, I don't see anything wrong with contacting your solicitor, say, once a fortnight to touch base and if anything significant has happened then contact the EA. Sometimes this CAN help things along, and you'll probably find that there will be more contact once things have started to move.

House buying and selling is a drawn-out, stressful and frustrating business unless you're very lucky; you only have to look at threads on here to see how apparently simple transactions can take ages. You have all the disadvantages you've outlined above, so it's going to take longer than usual. It's not that you're being unreasonable by wanting to speed things up - totally understandable, in fact! - but you do need to be realistic. There may be very good reasons why the vendors do not respond to voicemails until the following day, for example.

Good luck!

swingaloo2

ashleighduguid said:

swingaloo2 said:

We are buying a house with exactly the same situation. Our offer was accepted 3 months before yours back in June, its cash purchase and the house has been unoccupied since March. We have finally exchanged and got a completion date for the end of November. So 6 months for the same reasons, probate issues, one of the family living abroad, sellers lack of enthusiasm for getting the house emptied. Add to this a touch of 'vendor awkwardness' and what could have been a fast sale with no chain has still taken 6 months.
I was like you at the beginning as we had an 'anticipated completion date' of 24th July on the first lot of paperwork so I built my expectations way too high thinking I would be moving in time to still have light nights, nice weather etc but soon came down to earth.

Wow, thanks for this. Good to hear from someone in a similar situation. Its good to note that there is a light at the end of the (seemingly) unnecessarily long tunnel!

Out of interest, how often were you chasing for updates?

At first I was in contact with the agent and solicitor every other week. One of the problems was that the seller was not honest when we viewed and offered. She said she wanted completion asap and within 6 weeks if possible so we thought we were in a good position. It was like a roller coaster where nothing seemed to be happening and I would feel deflated and then I would see someone taking items out of the house and I saw a skip arrive when they cleared the garage so I would convince myself we were close. The vendor also messaged me at one point (I had bought some of the furniture in the house) and told me she was just waiting for one report to come back but she didn't tell me she had not yet obtained probate.  Over the last month or 2 I have been told twice by the agent that 'We are close' but after being exited and almost ready to go in July I had got to the point where I just resigned myself to 'It will happen when it happens' as my hubby said I was like a coiled spring and I was getting quite stressed with it. Once I sat back and said I don't care any more it happened and now I'm back at the 'counting the days' stage.

davidmcn

Tiglet2 said:

I am not sure how you've managed to obtain searches without the draft contracts - most solicitors will not order them before receipt.

This seems to be just one of the excuses solicitors use to slow down the process - all you (usually) need is the property address to order the searches, there's nothing magic contained in the draft contract.