From contract signing to completion - how long?

Thrugelmir

Seashell517 said:

Thrugelmir said:

o_johnston said:

WiseOwl00 said:

Have your local searches come back yet? We signed our contract w/c 04/01/21 and still waiting for an exchange/completion date to even be discussed. My solicitor had a lot of enquiries, and they've just been passed back and forth between the solicitors for the last 3/4 weeks. Literally everything else was sorted prior to Christmas (searches, mortgage offer, etc), just waiting on satisfactory replies from the vendors... And this is no chain with motivated buyers and sellers. We all thought that we'd be in by mid-January but here we are! Unfortunately it's such an unpredictable process. 

 then deposit which says 5 working days but I thought CHAPS would speed up the process.

CHAPS will speed up the process, if the alternative is to make daily transfers over a period of time. 

Signing the contract is a formality. 

The pandemic makes getting your signature witnessed a bit more interesting than usual...

Chances are a neighbour will be at home though. 

watermelonspring

Why would you give notice to your landlord without even having exchanged contracts? This sale might even fall through and you’ll have nowhere to live. 

We had an offer accepted on a property in July. We are FTB and the property is empty, so there is no chain. We were guaranteed that we’d get the keys before Christmas but we know that’s all talk. We are renting as well and had no plan to give notice until exchange. We’re due to exchange this week, still haven’t given notice. This process can take months as it has for us. 

o_johnston

watermelonspring said:

Why would you give notice to your landlord without even having exchanged contracts? This sale might even fall through and you’ll have nowhere to live. 

Honest answer I didn't realise how long it would take with no chain involved and thought I could save money on rent. Rather than get a date in a week's time, but pay a month's rent and not live there for 3 weeks, I wanted to save where I could.
Still don't understand why it has to take so long when there has been very little to do in the first place. It just feels like everyone is too busy because they've taken on more work than they could handle, instead of the solicitors or EA saying "we can't take on another client, we're swamped", they just go "yeah, sure" and then every client gets a worse service.
The seller had the house on the market before, so had all the paperwork ready. No chains, assured of a quick sale by all involved and then weeks go by with no update anywhere. What are they doing?!

Also for info, the previous buyer pulled out but nothing to do with the condition of the property. There's a converted attic room I'm using as a gym and they wanted it as a 4th bedroom, which wasn't allowed.

o_johnston

Sotts said:

o_johnston said:

WiseOwl00 said:

o_johnston said:

WiseOwl00 said:

Have your local searches come back yet? We signed our contract w/c 04/01/21 and still waiting for an exchange/completion date to even be discussed. My solicitor had a lot of enquiries, and they've just been passed back and forth between the solicitors for the last 3/4 weeks. Literally everything else was sorted prior to Christmas (searches, mortgage offer, etc), just waiting on satisfactory replies from the vendors... And this is no chain with motivated buyers and sellers. We all thought that we'd be in by mid-January but here we are! Unfortunately it's such an unpredictable process. 

Sounds like a similarly frustrating situation for you. Searches, queries etc. all done. Like I said the only thing left is signing the contracts (solicitor wanted to wait until everything else was sorted) and then deposit which says 5 working days but I thought CHAPS would speed up the process.

It's an absolute nightmare of a process! It feels like your entire life gets put on hold until you've finally exchanged and have a completion date. We're FTBs so have barely any furniture, and now we can't even go into shops to pick it. We've been trying to buy a house for 7 months, it's been so stressful!

Hopefully it won't be long until we're both sorted.

FTBs too. Had lots of furniture picked out from IKEA and now looks like March before we can get it (had no storage space to get it earlier).

Im moving from rented into new build.  We keep looking at the basics we need from day 1 - sofas and bed.   We find what we like available for delivery in 3-5 days, then next time we check its not available till July.  🤬

It's so frustrating and stressful even without the added pandemic! We postponed our wedding twice and got refunded for our honeymoon last year and those were child's play compared to this. I keep thinking "why doesn't everyone involved just schedule a 2 hour zoom meeting, hash it all out and it's done rather than this back and forth 3 or 4 day wait between middle men?"

watermelonspring

o_johnston said:

watermelonspring said:

Why would you give notice to your landlord without even having exchanged contracts? This sale might even fall through and you’ll have nowhere to live. 

Honest answer I didn't realise how long it would take with no chain involved and thought I could save money on rent. Rather than get a date in a week's time, but pay a month's rent and not live there for 3 weeks, I wanted to save where I could.
Still don't understand why it has to take so long when there has been very little to do in the first place. It just feels like everyone is too busy because they've taken on more work than they could handle, instead of the solicitors or EA saying "we can't take on another client, we're swamped", they just go "yeah, sure" and then every client gets a worse service.
The seller had the house on the market before, so had all the paperwork ready. No chains, assured of a quick sale by all involved and then weeks go by with no update anywhere. What are they doing?!

Also for info, the previous buyer pulled out but nothing to do with the condition of the property. There's a converted attic room I'm using as a gym and they wanted it as a 4th bedroom, which wasn't allowed.

We are in a very similar position. Solicitors are swamped, the seller’s solicitor is even slower than ours. We threatened to pull out on Dec 1st (after 4 months) and we were assured that we’d exchange and complete by Dec 18th. It’s really crazy at the moment. We’re adults but naive FTB so we did get my Dad involved and he called the solicitor and we were given a very clear explanation of what was holding things up and an apology. 

Slithery

watermelonspring said:

Why would you give notice to your landlord without even having exchanged contracts? This sale might even fall through and you’ll have nowhere to live.

In this case the OP is actually OK as it turns out they haven't even given their notice yet.

Tiglet2

Slithery said:

watermelonspring said:

Why would you give notice to your landlord without even having exchanged contracts? This sale might even fall through and you’ll have nowhere to live.

In this case the OP is actually OK as it turns out they haven't even given their notice yet.

According to the first post on this thread, they have given notice.....

Slithery

They thought they had, but see post #9 from greatcrested.

No formal notice has been given, just a text to the LL saying they will be leaving at some undecided point in the future.

Tiglet2

Ah yes thanks for pointing that out!  Bit of luck for the OP then.

mroseb1

WiseOwl00 said:

Have your local searches come back yet? We signed our contract w/c 04/01/21 and still waiting for an exchange/completion date to even be discussed. My solicitor had a lot of enquiries, and they've just been passed back and forth between the solicitors for the last 3/4 weeks. Literally everything else was sorted prior to Christmas (searches, mortgage offer, etc), just waiting on satisfactory replies from the vendors... And this is no chain with motivated buyers and sellers. We all thought that we'd be in by mid-January but here we are! Unfortunately it's such an unpredictable process. 

May I ask when you offered? We’re FTB in a similar position with no chain, everyone we’ve spoken to seems to think it should be a quick and easy process but reading the forum is making me think we better prepare for a longer journey!