How to Speed Up Solicitor Enquiries?

RachP87

Hi All
I had my offer accepted on my first house on 12th March, due to various issues I had to change solicitor in April and so did the seller which delayed it slightly. The searches didn't come back until May 18th but My solicitor raised the enquiries the next day, however as of today they have still not received any responses. I understand that there's no time limit and the Sellers could potentially take weeks to respond, but I was just a little concerned that my solicitors have said yesterday that none of the enquiries have been answered at all. 

One of the enquiries is for a gas safe certificate, I had a look yesterday to see if a copy can be obtained in case the seller had lost it and it looks like they are fairly simple to get so I am just a little worried that they haven't answered any, when the sellers themselves were extremely responsive and quick to complete all the relevant docs at the initial stages (Based on the date of the forms received within the draft contract). Would they wait until they have all the answers to respond or would the sellers solicitors usually send the answers to the enquiries as and when they get them?

I may just be panicking, I am a FTB so not really experienced with the hole procedure but as I cant get the exchange date until the enquiries are answered I am just concerned that the chain may fall through if its not completed before the stamp duty holiday - it doesn't affect me as a FTB as I have until September, but I just don't want further up the chain to then decide the additional cost is too much!

I have asked the estate agents to see if they can also chase up the sellers, however they have set a pre recorded message and auto response to emails stating they are extremely busy (understandable) and will be prioritising enquiries based on exchange dates and as I dont have an exchange date I am guessing I wont even come in to their list of priorities!

Is there any other way I can try to speed this up, I feel like I am nagging my solicitors by calling each week for an update but I am just so worried it is going to fall through.

sw7

RachP87 said:

 I am just concerned that the chain may fall through if its not completed before the stamp duty holiday - it doesn't affect me as a FTB as I have until September, but I just don't want further up the chain to then decide the additional cost is too much!

Sorry, I don't have any answer to your question, but this bit confused me.

As a First Time Buyer I don't believe the September change relates to you at all. Either your property is under £300k and will continue to be zero anyway, or it's over £300k and Stamp Duty will be payable above that from July 1st.

The July-September period only benefits those who wouldn't get the standard FTB benefit, i.e. everyone else.

Edited to add: or is September just your personal deadline? I may have misunderstood.

eddddy

RachP87 said:

I have asked the estate agents to see if they can also chase up the sellers, however they have set a pre recorded message and auto response to emails stating they are extremely busy (understandable) and will be prioritising enquiries based on exchange dates and as I dont have an exchange date I am guessing I wont even come in to their list of priorities!

 That's a very strange sounding estate agent. Is it some kind of online estate agent or budget estate agent - who was paid in advance maybe?

If the estate agent is really refusing to do any sales progression (as they call it), I guess the only other option is for you to do it yourself. i.e. You contact the sellers yourself and try to find out what the hold-up is, and see if you and the sellers can work out a way of moving stuff forward between you.

steampowered

There is a good chance that the sellers' solicitor is waiting for information from the seller.

Conveyancers will generally only share responses when they are complete, as sending over responses piecemeal is not efficient.

I would suggest getting your EA to contact the seller to find out what's going on.

moneysavinghero

Solicitors tend to work on a large number of cases at any one time. Imagine if all those clients each rang up every week asking for an update. Would probably take at least half a day of their time. Time they could have spent on conveyancing. Just let them get on with it, they will contact you when there are any updates.

Only way to speed it up would be to find who is working on your case on deliver a big brown envelope to them and ask that they always keep your file on the top of their list.

RachP87

eddddy said:

 That's a very strange sounding estate agent. Is it some kind of online estate agent or budget estate agent - who was paid in advance maybe?

If the estate agent is really refusing to do any sales progression (as they call it), I guess the only other option is for you to do it yourself. i.e. You contact the sellers yourself and try to find out what the hold-up is, and see if you and the sellers can work out a way of moving stuff forward between you.

Thanks for the reply - it’s not an online estate agent and don’t think it’s a budget one but I’m not too sure really? It’s a different area to where I live now and found the house on right move so not sure.

They haven’t outright refused to help it’s just I can’t get through to an actual person in the sales progression division, it keeps going to voicemail with the message about priorities. I just assumed it was because of the stamp duty holiday that they were busy so I’m hoping they will answer at some point. I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to contact the sellers directly but thank you I will try this

RachP87

sw7 said:

As a First Time Buyer I don't believe the September change relates to you at all. Either your property is under £300k and will continue to be zero anyway, or it's over £300k and Stamp Duty will be payable above that from July 1st.

The July-September period only benefits those who wouldn't get the standard FTB benefit, i.e. everyone else.

Edited to add: or is September just your personal deadline? I may have misunderstood.

No sorry that’s my mistake, I thought the FTB relief was only running until end September, so thought I would have paid standard rate over £125K etc after this

RachP87

moneysavinghero said:

Solicitors tend to work on a large number of cases at any one time. Imagine if all those clients each rang up every week asking for an update. Would probably take at least half a day of their time. Time they could have spent on conveyancing. Just let them get on with it, they will contact you when there are any updates.

Only way to speed it up would be to find who is working on your case on deliver a big brown envelope to them and ask that they always keep your file on the top of their list.

I understand they have a large number of cases but if I hadn't been phoning them they wouldn't have done anything so far! It was 4 weeks before I heard anything from them after I had paid a deposit (No forms, deposit proof or even ID request etc) and this was only because I called them so I get they are busy but I don't want to keep leaving it and they just not bother.

Tiglet2

RachP87 said:

Hi All
I had my offer accepted on my first house on 12th March, due to various issues I had to change solicitor in April and so did the seller which delayed it slightly. The searches didn't come back until May 18th but My solicitor raised the enquiries the next day, however as of today they have still not received any responses. I understand that there's no time limit and the Sellers could potentially take weeks to respond, but I was just a little concerned that my solicitors have said yesterday that none of the enquiries have been answered at all. 

One of the enquiries is for a gas safe certificate, I had a look yesterday to see if a copy can be obtained in case the seller had lost it and it looks like they are fairly simple to get so I am just a little worried that they haven't answered any, when the sellers themselves were extremely responsive and quick to complete all the relevant docs at the initial stages (Based on the date of the forms received within the draft contract). Would they wait until they have all the answers to respond or would the sellers solicitors usually send the answers to the enquiries as and when they get them?

I may just be panicking, I am a FTB so not really experienced with the hole procedure but as I cant get the exchange date until the enquiries are answered I am just concerned that the chain may fall through if its not completed before the stamp duty holiday - it doesn't affect me as a FTB as I have until September, but I just don't want further up the chain to then decide the additional cost is too much!

I have asked the estate agents to see if they can also chase up the sellers, however they have set a pre recorded message and auto response to emails stating they are extremely busy (understandable) and will be prioritising enquiries based on exchange dates and as I dont have an exchange date I am guessing I wont even come in to their list of priorities!

Is there any other way I can try to speed this up, I feel like I am nagging my solicitors by calling each week for an update but I am just so worried it is going to fall through.

With both you and the seller changing solicitors, the transaction has started again twice, meaning it has been delayed considerably more than "slightly".  Your solicitor raised enquiries on 19th May (by post? email?), but the seller's solicitor would have had to forward those enquiries to various third parties i.e. their client (the seller), Land Registry, Management Company, The Council etc).  How quickly each third party respond cannot be dictated, so if one of them takes weeks to respond, the solicitor won't reply to your solicitor until all third parties have replied.

 Would they wait until they have all the answers to respond or would the sellers solicitors usually send the answers to the enquiries as and when they get them?
Yes, otherwise they are adding needlessly to their workload.

It's not just the Estate Agents, every business involved in conveyancing is extremely busy.  Until the enquiries are answered, there cannot be much progress so it is a waste of everyone's time constantly picking up the phone to explain that they are still waiting for responses to enquiries.

Is there any other way I can try to speed this up, I feel like I am nagging my solicitors by calling each week for an update 
No, you cannot influence when third parties respond. 

Do your sellers' have an onward purchase?

RachP87

Hi @Tiglet2
Thank you for that response, I didn't realise this was how the enquiries worked so it was very helpful.

I'm not sure if they have raised enquiries that they haven't listed/let me know about though then as my property report shows they have only raised enquiries requesting they amend my name as it was spelt incorrectly, then requesting Gas Safe certificate, boiler Service record and for them to confirm all items sold within the property are free from third party finance and loans so just assumed this would all be down to the seller to answer (and obviously their solicitor to amend my name)

I don't expect my solicitors to call me to tell me they are still waiting, but I would have thought they would have chased it after 3 weeks but maybe that's a standard timeline within conveyancing. 

Yes sellers found their house 3 days after my offer was accepted (15th March) and the chain was completed on 26th March. Also just to confirm we both changed solicitors due to the end of chain new build contractor refusing to continue the chain if we used our current solicitors so was changed at end of March (29th March new solicitors instructed both sides)

BunnyME

Hi, how long after your initial question on 11th June was the enquiries answered? Then how long did it take for you to exchange? In a similar boat now where our solicitors are waiting on responses from the sellers solicitor!