Reasonable to delay exchange and completion?

EssexHebridean

It may be worth ensuring that someone is able to set up the buildings insurance for you at Exchange, too...(not that the thought of someone leaving the gas on made me think of that...) 

saajan_12

ryanm8655 said:

Obviously this presents issues for exchange and completion...
.

Being out of commission makes no odds on exchange which is just done by email and phone. Any pre-exchange viewings are your choice and benefit, so I expect most vendors would say sure, just don't view then. Else go view the property this week. It's pretty close to exchange, it doesn't have to be the very day / hour before, and the chance something changes in a matter of days is low. 

For completion its more usual for people to be present particularly if buying/selling on the same day (though it seems you're not). They may be expecting a ~2-3 week gap between exchange and completion anyway, so an extra week's delay to 1st December may be acceptable. Any more and I'd be pushing back as a vendor, particularly as it gets into xmas and people are antsy moving then due to the holiday stress and solicitor shut downs. 

Again the risk is low - people go away for a couple of weeks on holiday all the time with properties left empty. A few weeks of the meter ticking up on an empty property (so no tvs, computers, ovens in use) isn't going to be much of a discrepancy. If you don't have friends/family who can pop in for you, ask the vendors to check the boiler is off and you'll send a bottle of bubbly as a thank you when you're in action. 

Smalltownhypocrite

First, you might be jumping the gun, 7 weeks is super quick to completion.

I bought my house in the same circumstance (vacant house, FTB, so no chain, cash buyer) and it took 14 weeks, we lost a few weeks to verifying the money (anti fraud/laundering), then survey as the search where sent off and that was pretty much as fast as it could be done (well maybe 1 week faster, I don't know why we had to wait a week to exchange/complete) without not doing any checks, thats just due to how long searches took. 

Are you sure ALL the searches are back? most of ours came back instantly but the one main one took 2 months on its own and held everything up.

Second, why do you need to go to the house at all if its all ready empty? We never once met the seller, all viewing where done via the EA, we signed contracts really early and didn't have to do anything after that except confirm the solicitor had the right to exchange them at a set time.

Also interestingly another similarity between us, my husband had a major operation just days before we exchanged/completed... changed nothing.

Albermarle

Firstly what you ( or I think ) is reasonable, the Vendor may agree, or may not. They may be the unreasonable type.
Secondly if they do think it is unreasonable, that is only an issue if they act on that by cancelling the sale, which would seem a bit of an overreaction. House sales and purchases get delayed all the time for all sorts of reasons.

Being out of commission makes no odds on exchange which is just done by email and phone

It would be an issue if it was on the planned day of exchange the OP was having the op, or it was in the immediate post recovery period.

OP - If was you I would flag up the issue with the Vendors, explain about the operation,  and say something like '  Due to the impending major operation I  would prefer not to be rushing to complete in November, and that December would suit better in the circumstances'

That would sound pretty reasonable, and at least you would be keeping them informed. People hate being kept in the dark.
They might just say OK we understand.
Or they might say December is too late, but understand if it is later in November rather than earlier.
Or they might be uncooperative.

Worth a try anyway.