Are we close to exchange?

claz83 wrote: »

Going out of mind just waiting, can anyone who's endured this process let me know roughly how much longer this is going to drag on for?!

We had the solicitor's report through last week with all the search results. All was fine so we've signed and returned a copy of the report, the contract, mortgage questionnaire, mortgage deed, buildings insurance questionnaire and Land Transaction Return. Mortgage has been approved. Home Buyers survey is done and we've let our solicitor know when we'd like to complete. We also had to send some documents to prove where our deposit's come from (inheritance).

Now what? Obviously we all need to be in the same place to exchange but is anyone aware of anything else I'll need to do before it happens?

Are you in a chain? If so, then you are definitely at the mercy of what is happening elsewhere in the chain.

If not, and searches all come through very clear and there are no complications, it could be a matter of just a few weeks.

For comparison, I am currently going through with a very straightforward purchase (I'm a cash buyer, neither end is in a chain, and the house is vacant). However, the purchase was held up firstly by the discovery of a faulty title issue, compounded by an arrogant seller's solicitor who refused for 4 weeks to accept anything needed doing about the title issue, and even now (i.e., right now, as I type!) after the title issue has been resolved, he has so far taken 4 additional days to facilitate exchange of contracts. I can't emphasise enough how critical the solicitors are - get a bad/lazy/overstretched one and things can go glacially slowly.

You need a completion date on which all parties in the chain are agreed and you need to have paid your deposit to your solicitor.

Without one of those, you can't exchange contracts.

The report is one of the last processes during a purchase. You now have returned signed documents and advised of your preferred completion date. Providing the FTB have also returned their documents and the vendor you are buying from has signed and returned theirs, you should be ready to exchange very shortly. There is not much for you to do, other than have the inheritance money ready to be paid to the solicitors (either as deposit or in the solciitor's account in time for completion).

Best of luck - you're almost there!

We are stuck waiting for the freeholder to reply to solicitors enquiries about the lease. Freeholder lives in dark ages and only communicates through the post. No email address!