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

pinkteapot

I’ve done it - changed leaded glass (in modern UPVC windows) to clear. Was so much nicer! Didn’t declare it as new windows when selling. 

OP - don’t worry about that. If/when it’s queried just say it was only a replacement glass unit so didn’t need Fensa.

BigD74

We are FTB and started engaging with the solicitor and commencing searches at the same time as the HTB application was submitted, followed by the mortgage application a week later. We did this because everything is taking a lot longer and removing some of this risk was worth it for us. The searches returned 6 weeks later, but it seems the solicitor wasn’t progressing with them until we got our mortgage offer. 

annetheman

Splatfoot said:

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. 

It depends on the chain - if there is one - and also on the type of property. I am buying a new build so deeply regretting instructing solicitors before I got the mortgage offer, but did so because as with many new builds, there is a 28-day deadline to complete.

This has long since been passed due to EWS1 but that's another story... Because EWS1 is taking so long, mortgage application has been CANCELLED. My broker is trying to resurrect it but he really needs to beg the BDM and they will likely say no... 

So in hindsight, I'd instruct upon offer of mortgage but it depends on many factors, I think!

diggingdude

You also have to be wary of solicitors doing the whole "we haven't heard anything off their solicitors" line. Had it on my sale where the seller had their estate agent complaining to me nothing was happening because their solicitor said so. Didn't like it when I pointed out we had sent enquiries to their solicitor, they had responded, I raised further questions and they had acknowledged seller hadnt been in touch. So it wasn't us it was her solicitor not doing anything and trying to blame others 

AskAsk

firsttimesellerldn said:

Personally I’d check what the time frame was for searches to be returned in my local area and if they’re lengthy I’d be pushing the buyer to request them early on in the process. But that depends on how important it is for you to move within a particular time frame, and I appreciate buyers might well be reluctant to lose the money. But money is always at risk in the house buying/selling process isn’t it. I wish I’d been more pushy about this in my current attempted sale! 

as a seller, i would be asking the estate agent to confirm what the buyer's solicitors has done when 3 weeks have passed.  in particular has he got the searches started yet?  and i would start kicking up a fuss if the searches hadn't already been requested.

i find that as a seller, you need to start hassling the estate agent to get the buyer to move, otherwise it may take a while to get anything done and then the buyer drops out and you would have wasted time waiting for him to snooze.

AskAsk

diggingdude said:

You also have to be wary of solicitors doing the whole "we haven't heard anything off their solicitors" line. Had it on my sale where the seller had their estate agent complaining to me nothing was happening because their solicitor said so. Didn't like it when I pointed out we had sent enquiries to their solicitor, they had responded, I raised further questions and they had acknowledged seller hadnt been in touch. So it wasn't us it was her solicitor not doing anything and trying to blame others 

yes, we had this with our solicitors.  they were really bad and so were the buyer's solicitors.  they both blamed each other but in fact they were both at it.  the estage agent got a timeline of every action done by the buyer's solicitors and sent it across to ours to call them out and when i compared this with the response from our solicitors, i could see that they ignored the other side and did not look at anything until more than a week had passed from receipt.

our solicitor told us every action they made so we had a timeline on our side as well.  i think they just have too much work and so we have to wait in line.  i thought our solicitors were bad until i read other people's posts on this forum and realised that our solicitors were not as bad as we thought when compared to others.

AskAsk

Thrugelmir said:

AskAsk said:

Thrugelmir said:

AskAsk said:

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.

Since when?  

from my experience, the buyer always seem to be starting the legal work straightaway, and as a buyer, i have always started the legal work straightaway, so i thought this was the norm.

i didn't think you could instruct a solicitor and then tell them not to do any work as once you instruct them, they get on with the work.  when we sold a flat recently, we didn't instruct a solicitor so it wasn't as if we had a solicitor but told them not to do any work.

Solicitors normally ask for the funds for the search fees upfront. Once they receive the mortgage offer. They'll commence chargeable work. 

we bought our house 2 years ago and we paid the solicitors the money immediately for the searches.  months later the searches still had not been done, which was a surprise to us.  however, we were quite pleased that it had not been done as we were about to pull out of the purchase because the seller would not give us the money off the property for issues raised from the valuation report.  there was no mortgage involved, so our solicitors were just slow or made the decision not to do the searches.  not sure what on as there wasn't anything that they would be waiting on.