Conveyancing nightmare, how long should it take and how easy is it to change solicitors?

Olivercat

We are currently selling our flat and buying a house. The chain is pretty short, we have cash buyers for our flat and the house we are buying is ex-rental and currently empty. We started proceedings with a solicitor recommended to us by our estate agent just over 3 weeks ago. When we signed up to use them, they said about 4 weeks for new builds and 8 weeks from starting the process to exchanging for easy sales (I assume ours is in this category?). They quoted us the reduced stamp duty price (july-september price) and we were pretty happy with this. We have received an email from the solicitor this evening stating it will be around another 22 weeks until we exchange. To put this in perspective, all surveys and searches for both properties are done. Our mortgage is all sorted and we have buildings insurance lined up. The enquiries from the buyers are with our solicitor as well. 
My questions are, am I being unreasonable in thinking 22 weeks is ridiculous considering they have quoted us the stamp duty price till the end of September? The 22 weeks will take us well into November. 

and also how easy is it to change solicitors when we are this far in? We aren't bothered about paying for the search fees etc again. 

Thanks 

firsttimesellerldn

I would assume this was a typo if I received it, unless there’s a specific reason why they think it will take that long - have you asked them to confirm that is really what they mean? I agree that is ridiculous. Of course it can take that long if things get complicated, but it shouldn’t be what they’ve aiming for! 

Thrugelmir

Rather than jumping straight to conclusions. Pick up the telephone tomorrow morning and a have a conversation with the conveyancers. Speculation is pointless. Get the facts first. 

[Deleted User]

I'm with @firsttimesellerldn - this surely has to be a typo? Especially given what they've said to you previously?
I know our estate agents gave a warning to us that 'some solicitors are advising 16-20 weeks total' but even that would be from day 1, not this stage in!

LWP

As above, sounds like an error. Call your solicitor tomorrow and find out. From what you said you should be exchanging pretty soon unless there are some serious complications you didn't know about.

Slithery

I reckon it's a typo too.

2 weeks sounds about right.

Tiglet2

Olivercat said:

We are currently selling our flat and buying a house. The chain is pretty short, we have cash buyers for our flat and the house we are buying is ex-rental and currently empty. We started proceedings with a solicitor recommended to us by our estate agent just over 3 weeks ago. When we signed up to use them, they said about 4 weeks for new builds and 8 weeks from starting the process to exchanging for easy sales (I assume ours is in this category?). They quoted us the reduced stamp duty price (july-september price) and we were pretty happy with this. We have received an email from the solicitor this evening stating it will be around another 22 weeks until we exchange. To put this in perspective, all surveys and searches for both properties are done. Our mortgage is all sorted and we have buildings insurance lined up. The enquiries from the buyers are with our solicitor as well. 
My questions are, am I being unreasonable in thinking 22 weeks is ridiculous considering they have quoted us the stamp duty price till the end of September? The 22 weeks will take us well into November. 

and also how easy is it to change solicitors when we are this far in? We aren't bothered about paying for the search fees etc again. 

Thanks 

Well, there's a typo somewhere, but I'm not sure it is the 22 weeks they state.  Perhaps they meant 12 weeks, but I wouldn't expect any less than this. 

Easy sales are not usually leasehold flats, even if the buyer is paying with cash, so no, your flat is not in this category, though the empty house might be. 

I've also not heard of any new build sales taking 4 weeks - developers sometimes want a 4 week exchange but this is only an indicative guesstimate, very rarely happens. 

Have you paid for and received the management pack for your sale?  Has the buyer's solicitor raised enquiries on the management pack yet?

If you only instructed 3 weeks ago, having searches and enquiries back already is pretty good going.  If that is true, then I don't know why you think changing solicitors would be better.

julicorn

22 weeks would also be an oddly specific time period for an estimate. 

Kazzam1984

We would have sold our leasehold flat and bought  a 3 bed semi in 9 weeks, if someone hadn't pulled out this week at the top of the chain. But we were on the case replying asap to queries/paperwork, chasing via email and phone twice a weeks etc 

mcpitman

Some people have been lucky, but average transaction length is currently close to 20 weeks in conveyancing.

Exchange within 4 weeks on a New Build is a contractual desire form the developers.

In normal times, you could get to exchange in 8-10 weeks.

Looking at the history of search return times and queries reply times from other posts 22 weeks wouldn't be a completely wild estimate if current timescales stay the same. (but they won't as things get back to normal).

Plus there's the fact that there are more transactions in the market than solicitors to transact them.