House sale Coming up for 12 weeks and still not exchanged

House sale Coming up for 12 weeks and still not exchanged

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wack

Original Poster:

2,103 posts

205 months

Monday 18th July 2016
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FailHere said:
With any communication chain you will generally experience the chinese whispers, your agent will tell you what you want to hear, your solicitor will blame the other solicitor, your buyer will blame the lender and so it goes on. Sometimes it is made worse when one, or more, party is incompetent.

My last move was typical of this, I had already moved and the old house was going to first time buyers. They were the ones who wanted a 1st September completion, to tie in with giving up a rental. They were the ones who delayed searches, as their mortgage offer was not in place, despite what the agent told me.

They held back exchange finally exchanging and completing on the same day. When this appeared to be what was going to happen I warned the agent that any attempt to lower the offer on exchange would be met with a refusal to sell to them at all.

I also made a point of saying that I had not arranged to clear the house, as I was uncertain that the sale was going through, this did result in a few slightly panicked phone calls back and forth.
I'm starting to wonder is the agent wants the deadline so the other side start hassling their solicitor more, I can't think for a minute he wants to go through finding another buyer when this one is supposed to be close and still wants it

I'm the same as you, if they try it on at the last minute they'll be told where to go

PugwasHDJ80

7,522 posts

220 months

Monday 18th July 2016
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part of the problem is that no one wants to pay for conveyancing- paying £300 for a solicitor leaves them about £200 margin- or 1 hours work for a fully qualled experienced solicitor.

Hence you get juniors takes with doing 400 jobs at once where you are just a number in the system

we paid £1200 for our solicitors (who admittedly i also bung a lot of work to through my job) but they were excellent. We exchanged and completed 17 days after agreeing an offer.

wack

Original Poster:

2,103 posts

205 months

Monday 18th July 2016
quotequote all
I'm paying for conveyancing but getting the typist it by the looks of things , the solicitor is never there

wack

Original Poster:

2,103 posts

205 months

Saturday 23rd July 2016
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well the deadline worked, no contact at all for a week then they exchanged yesterday, so much for saving money, the guy had to drive 200 miles to visit his online solicitor and kick ass to get them to do their job

so the advice is don't sell to anyone contemplating using an online only service

SilverSpur

20,911 posts

246 months

Saturday 23rd July 2016
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Our sale took 5 & 1/2 months to get to exchange. We completed 3 hours later. Our stuff was in the removal lorry before we exchanged, the people we bought off actually vacated their property and moved up north two days before the exchange & completion, moving into rented.

Stress?

While driving to our new home, a car rear ended my car, which my wife was driving. She suffered proper whiplash and couldn't lift/carry anything for 6 weeks.


Xaero

4,060 posts

214 months

Saturday 23rd July 2016
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My current (first) house took just under 6 months to complete. I realised after a while it was my solicitor that was useless, although suspect the sellers was too. It was an empty house. After 3 months I gave up giving them any professional respect to just get on with the job and called them daily to chase. I also got my mortgage broker and estate agent to get on them too as they seemed to just be taking the piss. It was when I put in another offer on another house that things started moving quicker as I couldn't wait longer due to being kicked out of rented accommodation.

FailHere

779 posts

151 months

Saturday 23rd July 2016
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SilverSpur said:
Stress?

While driving to our new home, a car rear ended my car, which my wife was driving. She suffered proper whiplash and couldn't lift/carry anything for 6 weeks.

On one of my moves I had completed on the sale and was driving a hired 7.5 tonne box van full of all my worldly goods to the new house, I had to stop to answer the phone. It was my solicitor telling me there was a problem with completing the purchase of the new house, my response was "Do whatever you have to". Eventually it got sorted but very late in the day and the agents would not release the keys so I spent the day sat outside in the van.

When I did eventually get the keys I found the house had not been empty (it had previously been a rental), it took the rest of the day shunting stuff around to try to get all my stuff off the van and in there, which meant I had to pay an extra day's hire for the van. Oh, and to cap it all the electric and gas were both off and I had not spotted before that they were card meters.

craigjm

17,912 posts

199 months

Saturday 23rd July 2016
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There is no chain so there is no excuse for such a timescale. Most no chain properties that I have purchased I have managed to do all the conveyancing in less that 5 weeks. My record has been 14 days.

dingg

3,974 posts

218 months

Sunday 24th July 2016
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Son just completed on his first property , took 5 weeks and 1 week was lost due to the vendor not being ready to move