Selling mixed use property

user1977

Sallibee said:

user1977 said:

Sallibee said:

GDB2222 said:

It’s not just up to your solicitor. The buyer has to be happy. The buyer’s lender has to be happy. It sounds like the buyer is continuing to ask questions about the property, and that process can go on for a long time. 

You could simply decide to remarket the property and see what other offers you get. If you don’t want to do that, I can’t see any incentive for the buyer to hurry things along. 

This solicitor and mine are in the same firm...

How did you end up with that suboptimal situation? You really want properly independent advice, but sounds a bit late to sort that out now...

I found it hard to find another firm to deal with a commercial property, though I did try.

That sounds odd - it's hardly a particularly esoteric area of legal practice. Hundreds (if not thousands) of firms deal with commercial property.

Sallibee

user1977 said:

Sallibee said:

user1977 said:

Sallibee said:

GDB2222 said:

It’s not just up to your solicitor. The buyer has to be happy. The buyer’s lender has to be happy. It sounds like the buyer is continuing to ask questions about the property, and that process can go on for a long time. 

You could simply decide to remarket the property and see what other offers you get. If you don’t want to do that, I can’t see any incentive for the buyer to hurry things along. 

This solicitor and mine are in the same firm...

How did you end up with that suboptimal situation? You really want properly independent advice, but sounds a bit late to sort that out now...

I found it hard to find another firm to deal with a commercial property, though I did try.

That sounds odd - it's hardly a particularly esoteric area of legal practice. Hundreds (if not thousands) of firms deal with commercial property.

Well, that just shows that I'm a property idiot. Being a medical professional isn't of much help. It's also odd that no one in this 'unesoteric area of legal practice' has commented on my actual question about whether it's normal for the sale to progress so slowly. Maybe you'd care to do so.

eddddy

Sallibee said:

...whether it's normal for the sale to progress so slowly.

I'm not sure that you can look at it that simply.

It's more a case of asking the buyer questions like:

• How far along the purchase process are you?
• Why has the process taken so long to get this far?
• What things do you still need to do before you're ready to exchange contracts?
• How confident are you that you can solve whatever problems you have?
• When do you expect to be ready to exchange contracts?

And you have to make a judgement, on things like:

• Do the buyer's answers sound credible?
• Is the buyer's timeline acceptable to you?
• If you suspect that the buyer is lying to you, what would be their motive?

And then you have to decide whether to:

• Leave the buyer to proceed as they are.
• Leave the buyer to proceed as they are, but with a threat that you'll put the property back on the market, if they don't speed up
• Put the property back on the market now

To be honest, a good estate agent should be doing all the above on the seller's behalf - and reporting back to you.

But it sounds like there might be a conflict of interest, and the estate agent is 'looking after' the buyer, rather than 'looking after' the seller.

Tiglet2

Sallibee said:

user1977 said:

Sallibee said:

user1977 said:

Sallibee said:

GDB2222 said:

It’s not just up to your solicitor. The buyer has to be happy. The buyer’s lender has to be happy. It sounds like the buyer is continuing to ask questions about the property, and that process can go on for a long time. 

You could simply decide to remarket the property and see what other offers you get. If you don’t want to do that, I can’t see any incentive for the buyer to hurry things along. 

This solicitor and mine are in the same firm...

How did you end up with that suboptimal situation? You really want properly independent advice, but sounds a bit late to sort that out now...

I found it hard to find another firm to deal with a commercial property, though I did try.

That sounds odd - it's hardly a particularly esoteric area of legal practice. Hundreds (if not thousands) of firms deal with commercial property.

Well, that just shows that I'm a property idiot. Being a medical professional isn't of much help. It's also odd that no one in this 'unesoteric area of legal practice' has commented on my actual question about whether it's normal for the sale to progress so slowly. Maybe you'd care to do so.

It's difficult for anyone to answer your actual question without you being able to confirm what has and what hasn't been done to progress the transaction.  The only real clue is in your opening post: 

"My solicitor says 'a lot of questions are being asked of the buyer, and some issues in the documents of the property"

Do you actually mean "the buyer" or "the seller".  Usually enquiries are addressed to the seller, unless the buyer has still not got their mortgage or ID/AML checks confirmed.

I would say that the two solicitors and the lender's solicitor are dealing with the transaction at their own pace.  Four months since you accepted the offer and started the transaction is perfectly normal at the moment.

Solicitors are very busy with many clients.  It sounds as though you have a very experienced solicitor acting for you, but that might be because the other staff don't have the necessary experience needed to be able to work on your file. 

As the seller you will not always be aware of who needs to do what and when, other than when your own solicitor forwards the buyer's enquiries for you to answer.  Have you received the enquiries?

It is the buyer's solicitor who will drive this transaction.  It is they who do the due diligence and it is they who will decide when they are ready to proceed to exchange and completion.

Sallibee

eddddy said:

Sallibee said:

...whether it's normal for the sale to progress so slowly.

To be honest, a good estate agent should be doing all the above on the seller's behalf - and reporting back to you.

But it sounds like there might be a conflict of interest, and the estate agent is 'looking after' the buyer, rather than 'looking after' the seller.

Thank you. haven't been asked any questions apart from about the service providers. The buyer has little to do with it because it's a commercial mortgage and it's all in the hands of solicitors (not mine and not the buyer's, but lender's. Finally my solicitor has said that all the documents they need have been passed on. I've (again 'finally') learned that I only get an answer from my solicitor when I ask a single question at a time in an email, two or three get "I'll be in touch".

The estate agent is not a good one and I'm going to complain, as I'll be paying a lot and all they have done is advertise it and do two viewings (also, the buyer contacted the agent, not vice versa) and I have done all the negotiating myself and been given no updates in three months.

Sallibee

Tiglet2 said:
It's difficult for anyone to answer your actual question without you being able to confirm what has and what hasn't been done to progress the transaction.  The only real clue is in your opening post: 

"My solicitor says 'a lot of questions are being asked of the buyer, and some issues in the documents of the property"

Do you actually mean "the buyer" or "the seller".  Usually enquiries are addressed to the seller, unless the buyer has still not got their mortgage or ID/AML checks confirmed.

I would say that the two solicitors and the lender's solicitor are dealing with the transaction at their own pace.  Four months since you accepted the offer and started the transaction is perfectly normal at the moment.

Solicitors are very busy with many clients.  It sounds as though you have a very experienced solicitor acting for you, but that might be because the other staff don't have the necessary experience needed to be able to work on your file. 

As the seller you will not always be aware of who needs to do what and when, other than when your own solicitor forwards the buyer's enquiries for you to answer.  Have you received the enquiries?

It is the buyer's solicitor who will drive this transaction.  It is they who do the due diligence and it is they who will decide when they are ready to proceed to exchange and completion.

I mean 'the buyer'. The mortgage was 'appoved' in mid-November, according to the agent when he was admonishing me for saying I wasn't happy with the low price. I have no idea what questions they might be and no enquiries have been made to me other than details of the service providers. I've given this information twice and the only service is water (which is shared); there's no gas and the electricity provider will be up to the buyer when I leave.

I chose this solicitor because she was the one who took over and completed the purchase of the same property after a negative experience with the first solicitor (who is now the buyer's solicitor) and another who was very good, but left the firm after two weeks on my case. She's experienced but I don't understand why she asked a second time for service providers' details when I had already given these two months earlier...When I said I'd already provided it, she said she'd passed them on then...

I think it's now at the stage of being totally in the hands of the lender's solicitors, as yesterday my solicitor told me all the documents had been passed on to them. Whatever can 'all' the documents be???

I'm finding it hard to not be in control of my own business, hard not to have questions answered and not to know the process and what to expect...I'm glad that no one here said this is a ridiculously long time to wait and will have to be patient without dozing off!

Thank you.