Conditional Exchange Before Christmas

davisaj22

Hi all, I could do with some advice. We accepted an offer on our house on 20th November, a first time buyer is purchasing our buyers house who are close to exchange and completion. We are buying a house that is ready from a well known national house builder.

Things are moving. We have our mortgage offer through (which was through within 4 days thanks to Halifax!), buyers solicitors have received draft contracts and are raising the usual enquiries and we have a date this week for our buyers mortgage valuation.

The developer we are buying from informed us on Friday that progress is too slow. They are aware of all of the above. They sent me an email saying that they were talking to our solicitor about a 'conditional exchange' to take place this week - Friday 18th December. This is something I have not come across before, but a quick google tells me it is 'fraught with risk'. I emailed my solicitor on Friday expressing concern about this and are yet to receive a reply. Not just from our point of view, but it is not something I would wish my buyers to enter into either (and not put them off). I would go as far as saying that if I am pushed into such a thing by our house builder - I would look at buying elsewhere. I would be understanding if there hadn't been any progress, but considering the pandemic I think we are doing ok. 

Any thoughts?

Thrugelmir

You mention your buyers activity but not your own. What progress has been made on that front?  That's probably the cause of the agitation. 

davisaj22

Thanks for the reply, on our front our mortgage offer is received, mortgage deed signed and returned to solicitor. Searches complete. Any request for us to do a task has been actioned and returned the same day.

Slinky

Does this not smack of the builder having a year end target to hit rather than there being any actual real cause for the builder to be piling on the pressure?

AdrianC

Conditional on what...?

anselld

You have made very good progress.  It is normal for developers to be pushy, just stand your ground.  Hopefully you are not using the developers "recommended" solicitors.

davisaj22

Thanks all
My thoughts exactly regarding the end of year target. We are not using the developers 'recommended' solicitors, but it is a firm local to the development and I am really not keen on some of the conversations clearly going on between developer and solicitor - it does feel that the solicitor is not acting for us sometimes.  I guess that I wanted some reassurance that I am acting reasonably in standing my ground on this. That said, and as Adrian C asks - as it stands i'm not sure what it is conditional on.

BigD74

When did you reserve your house? We are also in the process of buying a house from a national builder, and are currently 39 days over our required exchange date, which in itself was 42 days after reservation. We moved as fast as we could, but everything was just taking much longer due to the current situation - end of stamp duty holiday, end of current Help to Buy scheme, COVID, etc. As long as we showed progress, they were OK. They did start to apply pressure from last week, I think similarly because of end of year targets. But we are hoping to exchange on Friday, and I think they would struggle to find anyone else that could move as quick as we can now. Plus the house has our choices of kitchen, tiling, etc. 

I have not heard of "conditional exchange". 

davisaj22

We only reserved on 20th November. The developer is emailing and phoning me daily, sometimes twice and trying to contact my agent daily, to the point he has had to tell them he can't talk to them anymore unless he has something to report. Then on Friday two representatives asked my solicitor to plan for a conditional exchange this friday - which I found out via my agent who says the developer needs to be 'far more understanding'. I tried to chase my solicitor on Friday but I am yet to hear from them.

mrschaucer

I'm sure your solicitor has better things to do than engage with two representatives from the developer with whom he has no legal relationship at all.  You are his client, and it is to you that he owes duty of care.  Please stop worrying.

BigD74

I wouldn't worry with those timelines, you are moving really fast. Let them chase you if they want, and just ignore it. They will never find a buyer that can move quicker than you can at this point.