Contract queries raised piecemeal?

proformance

Hi guys

With our deadline for exchange looming ever closer, our EA is prompting us to ask our solicitor's to start raising "enquiries" against the draft contracts piecemeal, notwithstanding TWO key pieces of the puzzle are still missing; 1) Local searches are not back yet, although imminent, and; 2) "management pack for the freehold" has not yet been returned from the seller's solicitor to ours.

With those two items outstanding do you think it's reasonable to ask our solicitor to kick off their contract questions/queries now, piecemeal? 

I'm pretty sure if I were in their shoes, I'd rather wait until I had everything in front of me, but I can see why doing it piecemeal COULD speed up the process.

Just wanted to know how hard I should press the solicitor at this stage without being unreasonable..

Thanks,

Z

davidmcn

Why is there a "deadline for exchange"? If it's been imposed by the vendors then obviously it's reasonable to point out that you're still waiting for the management pack from them. Your solicitors can figure out how to handle this for themselves, but I expect they'd regard it as more efficient to raise everything in one go (as might the other solicitors).

Doodlebugs

Our solicitor raised some enquiries prior to getting the local searches back. Meant we could iron out any issues on those while we were waiting. But it is up to the individual solicitor as to how they feel best to manage it. 

Our buyers have raised nearly 20 enquiries so far, all piecemeal. Now they’ve had the searches back I’m hoping that we’ve answered all their concerns. I’m guess I’m glad they came in bit by bit rather than being faced with a large list to respond to! 

proformance

davidmcn said:

Why is there a "deadline for exchange"? If it's been imposed by the vendors then obviously it's reasonable to point out that you're still waiting for the management pack from them. Your solicitors can figure out how to handle this for themselves, but I expect they'd regard it as more efficient to raise everything in one go (as might the other solicitors).

We have a deadline for exchange/completion as our rental lease is up mid-Feb. So upon instructing them, we challenged the solicitors to exchange by end of Jan, completion the following week. They did initially say that they'd be happy to work piecemeal, but I don't want to keep nagging them really.....

Also, the offer has been sent from my lender to the solicitors as of Thursday last week, but the lender hasn't yet received the "certificate of title" or the "vendor's solicitor details" yet from my solicitor. How long would that bit usually take?

davidmcn

proformance said:

davidmcn said:

Why is there a "deadline for exchange"? If it's been imposed by the vendors then obviously it's reasonable to point out that you're still waiting for the management pack from them. Your solicitors can figure out how to handle this for themselves, but I expect they'd regard it as more efficient to raise everything in one go (as might the other solicitors).

We have a deadline for exchange/completion as our rental lease is up mid-Feb.

Ok, but bear in mind that doesn't mean you're getting kicked out on that date. You can stay longer if you need to.

Also, the offer has been sent from my lender to the solicitors as of Thursday last week, but the lender hasn't yet received the "certificate of title" or the "vendor's solicitor details" yet from my solicitor. How long would that bit usually take?

The certificate of title is the confirmation from your solicitor that they've completed their due diligence and the property is safe to lend on. They're obviously some way off that stage yet, it'll come after they've got searches / management pack / acceptable answers to enquiries / an agreed completion date. In any event, they can't possible complete it until they've actually received the mortgage papers and had a chance to look at them.