Almost seven weeks since offer accepted and nothing from buyer’s solicitor

ss2020jd

I accepted an offer from first time buyers who would ‘move as quickly as we wanted to’ coming up to seven weeks ago. My solicitor sent everything to the buyers solicitor well over a month ago and has chased them after hearing nothing. 

The last I heard was the survey was done four weeks ago. I contacted the estate agent by email over a week ago but no reply. Called again today and apparently they are not in. I explained to  their colleague that I accepted the offer on the basis of a quick sale (initial dates were suggested as a mid june completion and July exchange) and they said they would get onto them and chase things up.

Obviously I don’t want to cut off my nose to spite my face and I do realise things take time but my solicitor hasn’t even received any enquiries from the buyer’s solicitor. The house needs to be sold to pay for my mum’s care home fees and it is costing money to run the house every month. 

I’m not sure what my options are if there is no progress in the next week or so. I’m aware I could put it back on the market and see if there is any more interest but no guarantee it would be any quicker. How long is too long to wait? 

If anyone has been in a similar situation or has any advice how best to proceed that would be gratefully received.  

mebu60

I'd give your EA a rocket and say that if nothing has progressed by the end of next week you'll look at putting it back on the market with a different EA, give them an incentive to do some chasing up! 

gwynlas

Is the property off the market or is it showing as sold subject to contract? If the survey took place four weeks ago there should bee signs of progress, Check with your EA that the buyers are proceedable.

ss2020jd

gwynlas said:

Is the property off the market or is it showing as sold subject to contract? If the survey took place four weeks ago there should bee signs of progress, Check with your EA that the buyers are proceedable.

It’s showing as SSTC when I do a search for it. I was informed that they were definitely proceedable and they had instructed their solicitors about two weeks after offer. There were other interested buyers that were not proceedable at that stage so they advised me that these buyers were the best option.

ss2020jd

mebu60 said:

I'd give your EA a rocket and say that if nothing has progressed by the end of next week you'll look at putting it back on the market with a different EA, give them an incentive to do some chasing up! 

Yes I’m hoping that I’ll hear something next week otherwise I will have to consider my options.

Bigphil1474

OP, keep chasing the EA - they are your EA not the buyers, and will probably be just as keen to get the sale moving as you are, given they'll want their money. We've also sold to FTB's and our EA and our solicitor have independently both kept us up to date on how the buyers are doing. 

kingstreet

If the purchaser's solicitors have requested searches, until they are returned the solicitor is unable/unlikely to make enquiries of your solicitor. How long are searches taking in your area? What exactly are you thinking should have happened?

As has been suggested, your EA should be progressing the sale with both solicitors. Ask them for an update.

AskAsk

The EA needs to find out what is happening.  Some EA provide no after sales service so I always check if they do much after sales support before I instruct them.

Tiglet2

Here's an approximate Timeline, which would be average for most transactions:

"Coming up to 7 weeks ago"  - offer accepted from FTB.

6-7 weeks ago - FTB instructs a solicitor, Seller instructs a solicitor.

6 weeks ago - EA to send out Sales Memorandum to each party - i.e. each solicitor, seller and buyer.  

6 weeks ago - Buyer's solicitor sends welcome pack and initial instruction documents to buyer to complete, sign and return.  The buyer will need to provide ID.  The solicitor will do ID and AML checks.  No work will begin until these early stages are complete. The solicitor will probably want some money paid on account in order for the solicitor to start work.

6 weeks ago - Seller's solicitor sends welcome pack and initial instruction documents to seller to complete, sign and return.  Seller to provide ID.  The solicitor will do ID and AML checks.  No work will begin until these early stages are complete.  The solicitor may need monies on account to pay for Land Registry documents.  

5 weeks ago - Once Sales Memorandum received, buyers solicitor and sellers solicitor send each other an 'initial' letter introducing themselves to state that they are acting in the transaction.

5 weeks ago - Buyer and seller return completed documents, monies etc.

4 weeks ago - Seller's solicitor gather the initial documents required to form a draft contract pack, i.e. Land Registry title, plan and transfers noted in the title, together with the F&C, PIF and any other necessary papers such as1 w certificates and warranties provided by the seller relating to the property.  Seller's solicitor will draft the contract.

4 weeks ago - Seller's solicitor will write to seller's lender to obtain an up to date mortgage statement.  They will write to any freeholder/management company to obtain details of any management pack needed and the associated fee for providing it.

4 weeks ago - Seller's solicitor will send the draft contract pack to the buyer's solicitor and will ask them to confirm their approval of the contract, provide a draft transfer and raise any enquiries.

4 weeks ago - Buyer's solicitor receives the draft contract pack together with draft contract.  The buyer's solicitor will now need some time to peruse all the title documents and the F&C, PIF etc before they can be in a position to raise enquiries.  Bear in mind, some legal documents are lengthy and it is therefore a fairly lengthy amount of time to properly go through everything.  Solicitors are busy with other clients too, so perusing these documents is not done in a day, more like a couple of weeks.

4 weeks ago - Buyer's solicitor will check the buyer's mortgage offer and will often wait until this is received before ordering searches, providing they have received monies from the buyer to pay for these.  Searches can take several weeks to receive - the local search usually takes the longest.

This week - hopefully all searches are back, mortgage offer is approved and the seller's solicitor, having perused the draft contract pack, is now in a position to start initial enquiries.  Don't think that the buyer's solicitor will raise enquiries before searches are back, they often don't because they like to do things in one go, rather than piecemeal.


While this is an "average" timescale, it does give you some idea how weeks can go by with a seller and buyer both thinking that nothing has been done.  There isn't a lot of progress achieved so far in the timeline above, as the preliminary (or pre-contract) work has only just been completed.  The actual legal work doesn't really start until this point, i.e. raising enquiries and progressing the transaction to exchange and completion.

ss2020jd

Thanks everyone for the helpful replies and especially @Tiglet2 for that amazingly detailed response! When you put it like that it doesn’t sound so unreasonable, although my solicitor seems concerned about the lack of any response. I’m not sure she’s had the intro letter from them but I know she’s sent the whole pack and draft contracts to them. 

@AskAsk and @Bigphil1474 That is one thing I specifically asked the agent about and was of course assured that that was a very important part of their service! I have been chasing them so hopefully they will chase as they said on the call today. In my experience of being both a buyer and a seller in the past I have always been kept updated a reasonable amount. 

@kingstreet searches taking about 10days in my mum’s area. The EA said they would chase today so will just have to wait. 

RHemmings

I got quite annoyed by my sellers and their EA complaining that things were taking a long time when I was doing everything as fast as I could, and my solicitors seemed completely on the ball. The house buying process in the UK is slow (other than traditional auctions). Not annoyed enough to stop the purchase, but annoyed. I'm not suggesting that the OP is like this, but until it's known that someone is dragging their feet, it might be better to not be combative. E.g. don't say one more week and then it's going back on the market with a different EA.