The nervous wait to exchange....

  • Thread starter Thread starter noj
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I think its a fair statement in regards to the solicitors. the estate agents ive been dealing with are superb even as the buyer (so not being paid by me). The apparently very respectable solicitors I am paying a wedge to are horrific communicators (3 or 4 days to reply to an email etc), dont seem to want to do anything and seem to take 3 hour lunch breaks and then shut at 5.

The whole process could be much more efficient but solicitors in my experience want to justify that signature and a database search as much as possible.
 
Best of luck everyone who is waiting. It is a stressful time. If both paries are calm, reasonable and of sound mind, everything will go through.

A good, local solicitor can make a hell of a difference. We nearly pulled out of selling ours as their solicitors were absolutely appaling, but the couple were lovely. We were patient, and gave them a final deadline (which they missed) but we exchanged two days after and we set the completion date to suit us, not them, as a result of them missing the deadline.

We are now buyers, and on the lookout, so will no doubt have to go through it all again in the not too distant future!
 
Just accepted an offer on ours friday and was fretting overnight already, not a great sign :D

Our buyers have to sell their place, but luckily their buyers are in rented and were going to rent for 6 months as well. Looking for a completion date at the end of June so trying to keep pushing things :)

Does anyone have a checklist or whatever for all the conveyance steps, i'm going through asking stupid questions from everyone at the moment but want be ready to switch into informed a-hole mode as soon as things start slipping :D
 
Just exchanged on a house I'm buying yesterday so I know the stress!

However I will say that Halifax have been pretty good so far. Application was easy, they didn't need anything else from me and organised for a local surveyor to go round within a few days.

My conveyancer has also been brilliant. Answering emails at 10pm at night and always able to get hold ofher (Griffiths Ing Property Lawyers). The seller is using a local conveyancer though and he is utterly useless. He's so slow and doddery that he's held the process up by a few days at critical times on two or three occasions now.

Note to everyone - local conveyancers aren't the only choice. Go on recommendations. You'll find that a good conveyancer will still be good even if they're 300miles away and a crap one will still be crap even if they're in the same town as you.
 
small update today...

got confirmation that all the paperwork has finally made its way back to the underwriters for the mortgage. As we've lost a week they've gone ahead and booked the survey on the house we're buying.

Surprisingly its being done next Thursday - I was expecting it to be longer given that the survey on our current house isn't happening until 1st May as that was the first available date.

Hopefully the last hurdles.
 
Had my offer accepted yesterday, now the wait. I have the opinion that it will fall through and i will lose my booking fee and survey costs. Anything other than that will be a bonus! :D

How long has it taken for you guys to complete so far?
 
Kimi said:
Had my offer accepted yesterday, now the wait. I have the opinion that it will fall through and i will lose my booking fee and survey costs. Anything other than that will be a bonus! :D

How long has it taken for you guys to complete so far?
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Offer accepted 1st March. Contracts exchanged 14th April. Completion next month!
 
Our wait was quite nervous as the house we bought (as FTB'ers) originally had no onward chain, and then it extended rapidly into a chain of 6 (!) as our vendor's vendor got worried about the house price rises in the area. We had our offer accepted in September and completed on the 28th March, 2 days before our mortgage offer ran out. Was an unnecessarily long wait (incompetent conveyancers and the vendor's vendor deciding after 2 months that they did want a house after all) but paid last year's price on a mortgage offer from last year.

New house also had FTTC installed by Openreach whilst we were waiting for it to complete too, so can't complain too much :p
 
no idea where we're at with ours - waiting to hear back from mortgage advisor/bank about something or other. hopefully will hear something before Friday. in the meantime I may as well be sending emails to an empty office as estate agents and solicitors are proving to be useless at reading them and replying to them!

we had a 'memorandum of sale' sent to us from the agent with a misprint in the address and my surname was incorrect. I emailed them a scan of the letter instantly with the corrections and have asked for a new amended copy four times now with no reply. The only reply I've had is a ****take of an email telling me about their 97% customer satisfaction rating and offering me quotes for removals and home insurance **** off!

They keep referring to the address as 'A 52 *********** grove' when the house number is actually '52A' I keep correcting them on this and they keep just typing it as 'A 52' in correspondence - is this likely to cause issues down the line? solicitor made a similar mistake too (missed the A off altogether) useless!
 
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It's a shame Tesco's bid to become an estate agent didn't work out. Other estate agents would've had to rethink their attitudes and improve their service to survive.
 
Sat waiting for mortgage approval (any day now) then the survey (only 12 year old house so not expecting much from it) and hopefully go from there,, no chain either end which is nice.
 
Had the confirmation back that they're now ok with the wife's payslip and employer reference so now just need the mortgage valuation before giving the official offer out.

That's booked for tomorrow so with a bit of luck we should get the nod next week.
 
noj said:
Had the confirmation back that they're now ok with the wife's payslip and employer reference so now just need the mortgage valuation before giving the official offer out.

That's booked for tomorrow so with a bit of luck we should get the nod next week.
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ah cool, nice one - I've helped to hijack your thread but have not forgotten to keep an eye out for your progress.

what's next then, after the valuation and offer letter? legal stuff?
 
R B Customs said:
ah cool, nice one - I've helped to hijack your thread but have not forgotten to keep an eye out for your progress.

what's next then, after the valuation and offer letter? legal stuff?
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Not been hijacked :) its kinda nice to know other people have the same worries.

Hopefully survey today lets us get the official mortgage acceptance through. We then need to wait on the buyers of our current house to have their survey done (booked for next week) then final bit of enquiries before we talk about exchange.

Bit of luck the plan is to be in around 3rd week May.
 
noj said:
Not been hijacked :) its kinda nice to know other people have the same worries.

Hopefully survey today lets us get the official mortgage acceptance through. We then need to wait on the buyers of our current house to have their survey done (booked for next week) then final bit of enquiries before we talk about exchange.

Bit of luck the plan is to be in around 3rd week May.
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Looks like Im just a bit behind, bank came back fine for mortgage, just ordered my home buyers report.
Wasnt sure if I wanted to spend £540 on one for a 12 year old house, but you never know so I went for the better safe than sorry approach.
 
My survey's getting done on Monday 28th, so hoping to get the report mid next week.

House was built in 94 and in very good order, not expecting anything to come up on the report.

Once we have the survey report back it shouldn't take long for us to exhange, the current owner has 4 other houses, so no chain on either end, looking to get the keys on the 1st June.
 
Possibly a silly question but I am currently renting a flat 6 month min term served so on month by month, I pay rent on the 25th, if the completion date was say the 8th could I give my months notice on the 10th and then when the 25th rolls around I just pay 15days rent? Or would I be in for a full month?

Edit: just asked and he said our tenancy ends on the 24th of each month, So I gave notice today what are the chances of survey coming back and all the rest of the stuff being done so I can move out before 24th May? Dont want to have to pay a full months rent for a few days,, person we are buying from is moving into an empty flat with no chain.
 
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Well the survey really isn't anywhere near to exchange or completion. You still need to have your searches done (takes around 10 days - but if they recommend other searches you need then you need to wait longer) and you still have a mountain of paperwork to read, sign and return.

You have to remember you're reliant upon the person you're buying from - if there's a chain it gets even worse. I'd say from having the survey to moving could be upwards of a month - I'd probably have waited until exchange was insight before handing in my notice.



M.
 
m4cc45 said:
Well the survey really isn't anywhere near to exchange or completion. You still need to have your searches done (takes around 10 days - but if they recommend other searches you need then you need to wait longer) and you still have a mountain of paperwork to read, sign and return.

You have to remember you're reliant upon the person you're buying from - if there's a chain it gets even worse. I'd say from having the survey to moving could be upwards of a month - I'd probably have waited until exchange was insight before handing in my notice.



M.
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By Handing in my notice we arent getting kicked out on the 24th,, but if we are still here on the 25th we have to pay another month.
 
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