Draft Contracts / Conveyancing

curly2210

Help! Feel like I'm ripping my hair out. I had my offer accepted for a flat on 11th April. I instructed my solicitor on 21st April. My mortgage has recently been approved but the solicitor still has not received the draft contract to start doing the searches. I'm a solo first time buyer and the process is so confusing. 
When I email my solicitor for an update, all he does is say I've not received draft contract pack to start any of the work and then cc's the estate agent in asking where it is. The estate agent then says 'I'll send tomorrow' but never does. The only update I got was last week to say I'm now in a chain.
I'm not sure what's happening, does it normally take this long to receive the draft contract? Should my solicitor be doing more to represent me and get more answers? I don't know if I should be concerned or if this is to be expected.

Slithery

Until the chain is complete there is no point in your vendors solicitor sending out a draft contract.

It's also never a good idea to apply for your mortgage or spend any money on solicitors until you have a completed chain.

housebuyer143

As above. The seller has probably told the solicitor to not start work until the chain is complete. Saves them spending money until everyone is ready to go. 
You should do no more work on the purchase until the entire chain is complete.

Tiglet2

curly2210 said:

Help! Feel like I'm ripping my hair out. I had my offer accepted for a flat on 11th April. I instructed my solicitor on 21st April. My mortgage has recently been approved but the solicitor still has not received the draft contract to start doing the searches. I'm a solo first time buyer and the process is so confusing. 
When I email my solicitor for an update, all he does is say I've not received draft contract pack to start any of the work and then cc's the estate agent in asking where it is. The estate agent then says 'I'll send tomorrow' but never does. The only update I got was last week to say I'm now in a chain.
I'm not sure what's happening, does it normally take this long to receive the draft contract? Should my solicitor be doing more to represent me and get more answers? I don't know if I should be concerned or if this is to be expected.

The vendor's solicitor sends out the draft contract pack, not the estate agent.  The estate agent can contact the vendor and their solicitor to enquire what the hold up is, but the hold up appears to be that your vendor has an onward purchase and there are possibly further onward purchases following on.

It is confirmed that you are in a chain, so, as others have pointed out, until that chain is complete there is no point doing any work as not much progress can be made.

curly2210

Thank you! No-one has actually explained that to me and to be honest it's really frustrating, i'm sat here thinking of pulling out because it seems that the seller isn't serious. 

trakky14

Keep hassling the estate agent to find out what the hold up is...you'll get nowhere unless you chase everyone in my experience! It's so frustrating 😫  that is a long time though for them to not be sure what they are doing. We put an offer in on a house 27th May, appointed solicitors the next day. Nothing happened the week of Jubilee of course. Since then draft contract has been received and our solicitor has sent for searches this week. That was quicker than I expected to be honest!

SlinkyWeevil

We are in the same situation, except we are tenants buying our rented house, so no chain at all, no other buyers or property involved and we’re still here 5 weeks later with no draft contracts! 

trakky14

Seems so variable!! Our vendors were apparently looking for a house to buy, does the fact that we have received draft contracts suggest they have found something? I was going to ask the EA but didn't want to start nagging this early on! Ha!