For how long can they keep radio silence?

Veromartos

We were expecting to exchange on Monday 11th October.
We are in a chain of 4 and Monday the bottom of the chain saidto my solicitor that they have to draw down their help to buy funds . The account has been closed but they are awaiting a letter in the post which was expected on Monday 11th. Once received they will be ready to exchange.
My solicitor emailed them  Tuesday and today again, also EA is chasing them but complete silence.
For how long can they ignore the whole thing?

Slithery

As long as they want.

canaldumidi

Or longer.

davilown

Veromartos said:

We were expecting to exchange on Monday 11th October.
We are in a chain of 4 and Monday the bottom of the chain saidto my solicitor that they have to draw down their help to buy funds . The account has been closed but they are awaiting a letter in the post which was expected on Monday 11th. Once received they will be ready to exchange.
My solicitor emailed them  Tuesday and today again, also EA is chasing them but complete silence.
For how long can they ignore the whole thing?

Not sure what your actually asking - it’s only the 13th and solicitors will have other things to than just this one property sale. I’d be looking at next Friday for completion for this sale

Veromartos

davilown 

Not sure what your actually asking 

I am asking for the moral/legal part ot it.
They are obviously having some kind of problem and that is why they are ignoring my solicitor. I hope it can be solved.
On the other hand,
The top of the chain asked for 2 weeks between exchange and completion (suggested completion day 25th October) the deadline was Monday 11th, that is not going yo happen anymore.

ele_91

Setting ‘deadlines’ is mostly pointless when the chain isn’t ready to exchange, which yours is not. Hopefully the issue can soon be resolved.  

Thrugelmir

Veromartos said:

Once received they will be ready to exchange.

Seems little point in responding until they are. When prople say expect it's more of a hope. Not a certainty.  

The solicitors meanwhile will have more productive ways of spending their time. Plenty of other clients. Only a limited number of hours in the working day. 

GoogleMeNow

Veromartos said:

We were expecting to exchange on Monday 11th October.
We are in a chain of 4 and Monday the bottom of the chain saidto my solicitor that they have to draw down their help to buy funds . The account has been closed but they are awaiting a letter in the post which was expected on Monday 11th. Once received they will be ready to exchange.
My solicitor emailed them  Tuesday and today again, also EA is chasing them but complete silence.
For how long can they ignore the whole thing?

Without this letter, they cannot exchange, so they wait for it to arrive, which could be today, tomorrow or next week or the week after.  What are the bottom of the chain ignoring?  It is pointless for them to be speaking to all the people chasing, when there is nothing they can update until the letter arrives.  I assume they do have other clients' work to do in the meantime.

TheJP

Veromartos said:

davilown 

Not sure what your actually asking 

I am asking for the moral/legal part ot it.
They are obviously having some kind of problem and that is why they are ignoring my solicitor. I hope it can be solved.
On the other hand,
The top of the chain asked for 2 weeks between exchange and completion (suggested completion day 25th October) the deadline was Monday 11th, that is not going yo happen anymore.

There is no legal part assuming you mean by not communicating you can have some form of claim against this.

Morally again it depends on what the situation is, if they are still waiting for a letter then morally no issue. These things take time, expected by a certain date doesn't mean it will arrive by that date.

I would hold off until Friday and then ask your solicitor to chase again.

firebubble

If they are waiting on a letter there's nothing they or anyone else can do. I assume that they've checked whether they can be sent a PDF copy by email for speed, but if that's not possible, it's down to Royal Mail. You'll know when the letter arrives because the silence will end and they will confirm they are ready to complete. 

If your EA is confident that everyone in the chain is still keen to proceed (and you could ask them this, if you haven't already - it's not a question for the solicitor, the EAs will be in touch with all the EAs in the chain if they are any good at their jobs), then this delay and silence isn't deliberate, but there is nothing more to be done. There's no point the solicitors up and down the chain 'chasing' and incurring fees with calls and emails and wasting everyone's time. Email chasers aren't going to speed up the arrival of a postal letter. 

TripleH

We are awaiting searches to come back before we can exchange (no chain property). Well all but one have come back tomorrow and our solicitor doesn't envisage there being a problem but can't say officially.

I have been a miserable pain in the bum about this because everything else is done, we have been sat quiting for searches for weeks without knowing when they'll arrive.

There us no point us asking for an update over the last 3 weeks because we were told the deadline is tomorrow and our solicitor is good at updating us when things change.

From what you've been told, it all sounds reasonable, you may take to grit your teeth and wait a little longer. Good luck.