Am I entitled l?

subjecttocontract

Conveyancing has become very competitive on cost. Firms have to cut prices to undercut their competition in order to get work. They take on more than they should and load their people with more than they can handle. The person dealing with your property may well be juggling another 20 or 30 at the same time. Once you are 4 months in to the process it's probably not worth changing conveyancer. I had one leasehold sale that took 7 months, hopefully yours will complete very soon. Good luck.

jonnydeppiwish!

Your conveyancer is waiting for answers to enquiries - the vendors are not ready to exchange.

Blotto17

It’s weird that they take on so many jobs and then provide an inadequate service. If I’m asked to recommend them when everything is over there is no way I could in good faith give them a good review. The level of communication is just so poor. 

subjecttocontract

As the majority of people need property conveyancing once every say, 7 years, I suspect the firm's aren't to worried about providing a poor service. Their customers will be unhappy about the service and the time taken but elated when their sale/purchase actually completes. Estate agents will know which firms are good or bad as they will be liasing with them regularly. 

GrubbyGirl_2

This is the reason why, after 10 house purchases in my lifetime, I always pick a local conveyancer.  That way you can always turn up to their office - hard to ignore you when you're standing there

Blotto17

I would show up as it is local but I’d just feel like they’ll just give me the - “no current updates” line and where do I go from there? 

anselld

Blotto17 said:

I would show up as it is local but I’d just feel like they’ll just give me the - “no current updates” line and where do I go from there? 

You go...  

    What is the list of outstanding matters prior to exchange?

    Who is providing each matter?

    When was each matter requested?

    When was each matter expedited?

    When will any matter with your own Solicitor be addressed?

Then you go to the Vendor or whoever else is holding things and say "Matters x, y, z, are outstanding from your Solicitor, please confirm and expedite".

Rinse and repeat every few days until exchange.

Tiglet2

4 months for conveyancing is pretty normal these days.  Leasehold average is 6-7 months, freehold with management company average around 5-6 months, freehold average 3-4 months.  These estimates are for those purchases without any particular issues/problems. 

However, I do wonder if the house you are buying and the house your sellers are buying are both freehold but with a Managing Agent (to manage the communal areas/roads/lighting etc), for which there are related ongoing fees.

Although freehold purchases, the addition of a Managing Agent will slow things down as the solicitor will be requiring additional information from them, such as the likely cost of their service charges, together with details of their accounts, whether the roads are going to be adopted by the Council etc. 

Most new builds (that includes new builds from the last 10 years or more) have some sort of Managing Agent contract attached to the estate.  Managing Agents don't usually respond very quickly to enquiries either so that adds more time to the transaction.

It would be preferable if your solicitor could let you know exactly what they are waiting for in order to proceed, but when they say there is no further update, that generally means that the position they were in last week hasn't changed and the transaction hasn't moved forward at that time.

Maybe get the Estate Agent for the seller to do some chasing - they can speak to all parties, though you can't always rely on the accuracy of what they say.

Blotto17

That advice is really helpful actually. You assumed right. There is a management company as there is an annual fee for the kind of work done that you mentioned. I didn’t think it would slow things down to this degree though.
I’m still just exasperated by how long the whole thing is taking.

BungalowBel

We sold a leasehold flat last year.  No chain (just us and our buyer, we were not buying anything, it was a flat we rented out and the tenants had left, buyer had nothing to sell).  It took just over six months.  Leasehold, so slightly longer than freehold.  But I don't think your four months is particularly long these days, especially as you have a managing agent.