Conveyancing - how long to send the contract

urban469

I instructed MyHomeMove conveyancing 6 weeks ago for a house purchase. The vendor's solicitor sent the draft contract one month ago. The searches and survey are now all complete, but I still haven't got the draft contract from MyHomeMove. My conveyancer keeps saying she'll give her legal team a nudge, but nothing. Is one month a reasonable amount of time to hold a contract? 

GoogleMeNow

The draft contract goes to your solicitor to approve and raise enquiries.

You don't receive a draft contract at all.  You receive the final version for your signature and that will be when all the enquiries are satisfied and the solicitor is ready to send their report to you with all the documents to sign.

urban469

I have some enquiries of my own to send. But my conveyancer told me to wait until she sends me the draft contract, so they can send their enquiries plus mine together. Does that sound wrong then?

urban469

She also said she's waiting for the legal team to write their report - does that imply that they have received all the responses to the enquiries and we're at the last step?

user1977

I'm a bit concerned that your conveyancer doesn't consider herself to be part of your legal team!

GoogleMeNow

I think you need to speak to your conveyancer and ask them if they've had responses to enquiries and are preparing the report to send to you, or have they not yet raised any.  Until you know what stage your transaction is at, we cannot really advise.

Some solicitors wait for all the paperwork to come in before raising enquiries and some solicitors will start to raise initial enquiries as soon as they receive the draft contract pack from the seller's solicitor.

urban469

I wish it was easy to speak to my conveyancer. I send emails and don't get replies. I call and get put through to someone else, then I ask for her to call me back, and instead I get a one line email.

This week, their phone lines and website have been down, so I can't speak to anyone.

But no, she doesn't do the searches or the work on the contract, or send the enquiries. Apparently that's all done by other teams.

GoogleMeNow

So, what does the one line email say?

user1977

urban469 said:

But no, she doesn't do the searches or the work on the contract, or send the enquiries.

So what does she do?

urban469

I genuinely don't know. She always seems to be typing furiously when she's speaking to me, on the rare occasion that I can get through to her. Maybe she coordinates the whole process?

urban469

GoogleMeNow said:

So, what does the one line email say?

Usually answers a question I didn't ask No seriously: usually something like, please send x document (and I have already sent it).