When will we receive the contract pack

sarahftb

Hi there, 

How long before exchange should you receive your contract pack? 

We haven't received any paperwork from our solicitors yet, but the estate agents are pressing for an exchange date. 

Thanks in advance! 

p00hsticks

My understanding is that you can't even think about exchanging until you;ve receved the draft contract pack. It will contain things like the TA6 and TA10 forms completed by the seller (assuming this isn't a new build) which you might want to raise queries on. Your solicitor should also be carrying out searches which you ought to be seeing the results of. So if you've not yet had any paperwork at all you've a way to go yet. Have you had a survey done ?

Thrugelmir

What stage of the process are you at? Likewise what's the position of the other parties in the chain. 

sarahftb

Thanks for your replies. We've had the survey done, the searches are back, there are just a few outstanding queries which hopefully should be sorted quickly. 

Apparently everyone else has signed their contracts and are ready to exchange. 

We were in the process of applying for a new mortgage but suddenly being pushed exchange quickly to completion before the current offer expires.

I'm concerned that we're going to have questions from the report and then won't be able to meet the exchange date anyway. 

Tiglet2

Your solicitor will not exchange until they are satisfied that all the paperwork and replies to enquiries have been satisfactorily answered.  They will report to you with documents for signing and returning.  Plus they need your authority and deposit (unless coming from the equity of a related sale) to exchange before they can actually do it.  No exchange until this has been done. 

 A buyer's solicitor has to do a lot more due diligence than a seller's solicitor - bit like buying a car:  a salesman is happy to sell you whatever heap of junk they have, but a buyer needs to be sure that the car is fit for purpose.

Receipt of draft contracts is right at the start of the transaction.

Approving the draft contracts, raising enquiries and reviewing all the paperwork, including searches and your mortgage offer is the middle part of the work and takes the longest.

The report on title, signing documents and chasing a few outstanding matters and reviewing the file in preparation for exchange, is the final part of the legal transaction.

Applying to the Land Registry to update the title is after completion and is known as the post completion matters.

p00hsticks

sarahftb said:

I'm concerned that we're going to have questions from the report and then won't be able to meet the exchange date anyway. 

Have you seen the TA6 (Property Information) and TA10 (Fixture and Fittings) forms (or the new build equivalents) for the property you are buying ? THey would have been with the intiial draft contract pack. The actual 'contract' document you sign to exchange can come much later in the process - in my experience some people will get you to sign it early on and put the date in later, and others will wait until you are actually ready to exchange.

sarahftb

p00hsticks said

Have you seen the TA6 (Property Information) and TA10 (Fixture and Fittings) forms (or the new build equivalents) for the property you are buying ? THey would have been with the intiial draft contract pack. The actual 'contract' document you sign to exchange can come much later in the process - in my experience some people will get you to sign it early on and put the date in later, and others will wait until you are actually ready to exchange.

We haven't seen anything, no draft contract, no fixtures and fittings so I assume everything is coming at once

GoogleMeNow

The solicitor should send you a letter early on in the process which encloses the fixtures and contents form together with a Title Plan of the property.  You need to confirm that the title plan matches the land that you see when viewing the property.

You don't receive a draft contract.  You receive the fully approved final copy of the contract for signing shortly before exchange.

I don't think you are very far along to be honest.

GoogleMeNow

When did you instruct your solicitor?

When did your solicitor receive the draft contract pack from the seller's solicitor?

sarahftb

We instructed our solicitor in July and they received the draft contract then. We restarted them in December when the chain fully formed. They have all the searches back, have raised enquiries and have 99% answered. They are hoping to send out the pack by the end of the week. 

I assume we will receive the fixtures and fittings etc with the contract as a whole pack. I thought this was standard but perhaps not. 

GoogleMeNow

sarahftb said:

We instructed our solicitor in July and they received the draft contract then. We restarted them in December when the chain fully formed. They have all the searches back, have raised enquiries and have 99% answered. They are hoping to send out the pack by the end of the week. 

I assume we will receive the fixtures and fittings etc with the contract as a whole pack. I thought this was standard but perhaps not. 

If the chain wasn't fully formed until December, then there will be a fair amount of catching up to do for the last people who only started around 5 weeks ago.  Unless anyone is going into a rental, you will all need to be ready before you can progress to exchange.