Do buyers normally wait for their mortgage offer before proceeding with the legals?

amandacat

I’m selling to a FTB, I’m moving into rented initially so no chain. 
The timeline is like this: 
Offer accepted about 18 days ago. 
Buyers appointed solicitor and did full mortgage application 14 days ago.
My solicitor sent the draft contract and property forms I completed to their solicitor 12 days ago. 
Visit from surveyor last week, which I believe was only a mortgage valuation survey as he was only here about 25 mins.
EA told me valuation fine and they’re waiting for formal mortgage offer. 
Buyers did second viewing yesterday. 
My solicitor said they’re yet to hear anything back from the buyers solicitor? 
Is this normal? I’m a very nervous seller as I’ve lost 2 buyers so far, both before mortgage survey stage as one had their mortgage rejected and the other lost their buyer so no issue with my house. I’m just finding this selling business stressful and probably worrying over nothing!! Thanks 

AskAsk

they normally start the legal work straightaway.  it may just be their solicitor is slow.  12 days is not a long time for these dozy solicitors, especially in the lockdown when they are all pretending to be working from home.

NatNat77

Our house sold almost 2 months ago to a FTB and they're waiting for their mortgage offer before ordering their searches and any surveys. The searches are taking forever so I'm hoping they'll get their offer this week so they can get their skates on. It's frustrating but I know how long mortgage applications are taking as we had to go through the process ourselves and I wasn't too worried as our sellers vendor hadn't found anywhere, after several weeks. But our sellers pulled out due to their noncommittal and found somewhere else this week, and that should move quite quickly. I wouldn't be panicking after 18 days

AskAsk

NatNat77 said:

Our house sold almost 2 months ago to a FTB and they're waiting for their mortgage offer before ordering their searches and any surveys. The searches are taking forever so I'm hoping they'll get their offer this week so they can get their skates on. It's frustrating but I know how long mortgage applications are taking as we had to go through the process ourselves and I wasn't too worried as our sellers vendor hadn't found anywhere, after several weeks. But our sellers pulled out due to their noncommittal and found somewhere else this week, and that should move quite quickly. I wouldn't be panicking after 18 days

funnily enough we sold to a first time buyer recently and he was very keen and started all the legal work, or wanted to, and we just sat on it as we didn't want to start the legal work until he had his valuation booked in.  the estate agent was criticising me for holding things up, but as we had two buyers pull out before because they couldn't raise the mortgage, i didn't want to start legal fees until i was sure they can raise the capital.

NatNat77

That's understandable. There's so much that can go wrong and once bitten twice shy! I didn't want to be the one to hold things up though so we're proceeding with our purchase and have laid out £2500 already, I just hope nothing goes wrong! Our buyer has instructed conveyancers and they've had our house valued so at least I know there has been some action, and they seem to think their conveyancers will deal with the paperwork quickly but they're all so busy. I don't think there'll be an issue with their finances for their mortgage but I am concerned if the mortgage company have down valued our house and they want to reduce their offer, as we have no wriggle room for that, so I won't relax until they've got that confirmed. Just feels like there are so many hurdles and I hate my fate being in other peoples hands but it is what it is

Splatfoot

Our buyers waited till they'd had their mortgage offer before they instructed their solicitor to do searches etc. I suppose it's a good idea as the searches aren't cheap so you don't want to fork out if your mortgage is declined. 

amandacat

Thank you, it’s good to hear that others are feeling the same worries, makes me realise I’m not the only one.
I’m finding myself worrying about everything lol! My latest worry is because on my property Information form I’ve said I had a replacement window 7 years ago but don’t have the Fensa cert. After speaking to the glazier he told me that because it was just replacing the glass and not the actual window frame, I wouldn’t have been given/needed a Fensa cert and so didn’t need to declare it aaahhh!! 

Beeboo23

I waited for my mortgage offer before letting the solicitor start. Doesn’t make sense (to me) to start incurring legal fees when things are very volatile at the moment and there may be problems with the mortgage/valuation. 

firsttimebuyerhelpme

We recently purchased a house and as FTB we waiting until we had confirmation of our mortgage until beginning with solicitor. We didn’t want to waste money if we weren’t gonna be approved for the mortgage! 

AskAsk

NatNat77 said:

That's understandable. There's so much that can go wrong and once bitten twice shy! I didn't want to be the one to hold things up though so we're proceeding with our purchase and have laid out £2500 already, I just hope nothing goes wrong! Our buyer has instructed conveyancers and they've had our house valued so at least I know there has been some action, and they seem to think their conveyancers will deal with the paperwork quickly but they're all so busy. I don't think there'll be an issue with their finances for their mortgage but I am concerned if the mortgage company have down valued our house and they want to reduce their offer, as we have no wriggle room for that, so I won't relax until they've got that confirmed. Just feels like there are so many hurdles and I hate my fate being in other peoples hands but it is what it is

what's the £2,500 for?  that is a lot of money.

AskAsk

amandacat said:

Thank you, it’s good to hear that others are feeling the same worries, makes me realise I’m not the only one.
I’m finding myself worrying about everything lol! My latest worry is because on my property Information form I’ve said I had a replacement window 7 years ago but don’t have the Fensa cert. After speaking to the glazier he told me that because it was just replacing the glass and not the actual window frame, I wouldn’t have been given/needed a Fensa cert and so didn’t need to declare it aaahhh!! 

you mean you changed the glass to a different pattern glass?  it is unusual to replace glass on so many windows without changing the frame.