Very slow house sale

Lollllly

I'm looking for some advice/ words of encouragement!

We accepted an offer on our house 9 weeks ago. We are going on to rent somewhere bigger in the same area in which we live, although we haven't found anywhere yet as we want to do this when we've exchanged as we don't want to risk having a  rental contract and a mortgage to pay.  We have a hard deadline to be in a new place of 15 January as that is the local area schools' application deadline and we want to be able to apply on time for our child's school place.Our buyers are first time buyers who are currently living with their parents. Essentially, ours is a chain-free sale!

However...our buyers' solicitors have not permitted our buyers to go ahead with a survey, nor have they started searches, until they are satisfied with the enquiries responses. We are about 30 enquiries in now and we've really had enough - is it standard for a solicitor to not start searches / permit their buyers to go ahead with a survey until enquiries are complete to this extent / time frame? Our solicitors are very good and respond in a timely way (well, they are now - we stopped working with our previous solicitors 4 weeks ago as they weren't responding to emails or phone calls. Our new solicitors are much speedier and professional). 

We are considering whether we should say we're going to put the house back on the market although I feel we might be shooting ourselves in the foot there because we're desperate to get out (context: we've wanted to sell for a long, long time. We had a previous sale that fell through earlier in the year). Our estate agents aren't being very helpful or sympathetic and told us they don't want to tell the buyers to speed things along as they don't want to appear aggressive. 

Does anyone have any advice - is this fairly standard frustration? To be 9 weeks under offer and not to have started searches or have booked a survey in a chain free purchase seems a bit unusual and is definitely frustrating. We are wondering if the buyers have cold feet. Is there anything we can do to speed this up now? We feel we have told our estate agents (who don't seem to care or be working for us at this point) our situation, and our lawyers too. Our lawyers said the buyers' solicitors are being unreasonable. 

TheJP

The buyer can get the survey done when they want, the solicitor cant stop them. Usually enquiries take place at the end specifically after a survey and searches.

I would push this back onto your buyers to ask that things start to take pace.

Surrey_EA

This does seem to be quite a frustrating situation, with limited progress made during the past 9 weeks.

Typically solicitors don't forbid their clients from having a survey carried out, solicitors generally take instructions from their clients, rather than the other way round!

I would be inclined to have a firm and frank chat with your agent, that if they do not begin to act in accordance with your wishes you will seriously consider taking your business elsewhere.

Slithery

Lollllly said:

However...our buyers' solicitors have not permitted our buyers to go ahead with a survey 

They may have advised them to not get the survey yet, but they can't not permit it.
Solicitors work under the instructions of their client, not the other way round.

peterhjohnson

Certainly in normal times this would be slow and I'd be advising you to rattle your buyers cage.
However in the current climate, my worry as a buyer/solicitor would be that you might not be able to rent somewhere to move into. Even in normal times, a lot of people say they'll move into rental but change their mind. 

The buyers solicitor cannot stop the buyers getting a survey but they could be advising them not to until there's a bit more certainty about your onward move. 

I know it's extra expense but I'd get your rental sorted ASAP.  Assuming your current property is reasonably saleable, you could then risk upsetting your current buyers with ultimatums, etc.

Surrey_EA

peterhjohnson said:

I know it's extra expense but I'd get your rental sorted ASAP.  

I definitely wouldn't suggest a client of mine did this. Don't commit to a rental until exchange. To avoid the possibility of being left running two properties.

sammyjammy

Surrey_EA said:

peterhjohnson said:

I know it's extra expense but I'd get your rental sorted ASAP.  

I definitely wouldn't suggest a client of mine did this. Don't commit to a rental until exchange. To avoid the possibility of being left running two properties.

On the flip side given the rarity of rentals at the moment you also risk being homeless once your transaction has gone through!

GoogleMeNow

Lollllly said:

Our solicitors are very good and respond in a timely way (well, they are now - we stopped working with our previous solicitors 4 weeks ago as they weren't responding to emails or phone calls. Our new solicitors are much speedier and professional). 

Your sale started again from the beginning 4 weeks ago when you instructed new solicitors.

RS2OOO

Surely the results of the searches determine what some of the enquiries are likely to be. I've always done searches before any enquiries are raised.

The estate agent for the house I'm currently buying refused to list it as SSTC until I'd shown commitment in the form of paying for searches and instructing survey. 

As for overall timescales, we accepted first offer around 11th August, those buyers pulled out. Iaccepted the current buyers offer around 3 weeks ago and estate agent only sent memorandum of sale to my conveyancer today! I have saved my entire 2021 annual leave for this move and getting worried it will expire before we move!

You could try going back to estate agent to tell the buyers of they don't show financial commitment in the form of arranging survey or applying for searches by a deadline date then you will request the property is re-marketed.

Another thing to be aware of is once back on market it will be on the last page of Rightmove and interest will likely be a lot slower than when it first went on (it was for us - 13 viewings arranged in first 24 hours of first listing but only 3 viewings after 5 days second time round.

TBG01

Please provide proof that the buyers' solicitor isn't allowing them to get a survey.

lookstraightahead

I wouldn't exchange until I knew a completion date if I were your buyer - how will you find rental so quickly after exchange?