Conveyancing solicitor taken 3 months, still not exchanged

[Free_30_day_trial]

I wonder if anyone can guide me on what to do, or how to speed things up.

I am in the process of buying a new build house off plan. I'm financing the purchase using:

1) Savings
2) Residential mortgage on the new house
3) LTB mortgage on my current home which I will then let out soon after completing on the new house (I own my current home i.e. no mortgage).

The new house won't be ready to complete until around July next year, but I was supposed to have paid the 10% deposit and exchange contracts within 28 days.

I engaged a conveyancing solicitor recommended by the house builder. They swayed me by saying that they have a good relationship and can pick up the phone to them at any point and help move things along. This was back at the start of October and its now 11 weeks later and we still haven't exchanged.

Every time I ring the solicitor they tell me that it won't be long now, but they have been doing this for the last 4 or 5 weeks.
I have both of the mortgage offers in place, however they will both need extending early next year as the 6 month deadline will expire before the house will be finished.

About 3 weeks ago the solicitor sent an email asking for proof of funds which I did, then they asked where the remaining funds were coming from. I told them again that it was from the LTB mortgage which they claimed to have no record of. They then sent me a quote to deal with this LTB mortgage on my current home which I accepted.

I'm now in a position where I seem to have gone back to square one with them unable to exchange on my new home until they have gone through the whole lot again with my current home, searches, money laundering checks, and deeds to completed and returned.

Is this all normal practice?

When I spoke to them a few weeks ago I explained that the mortgage offers would both need to be renewed before completion, but I think they had assumed that getting the LTB mortgage money would be needed for the deposit, which I explained wasn't the case. The comment I got was "that explains things, its much clearer now".

I would have thought I could have exchanged contracts on the new house because I have my LTB mortgage offer in place?

Why is it so hard to buy a house

Edited by Free_30_day_trial on Thursday 16th December 18:05

[A500leroy]

im 9 months in with no contact, been told it may take another 9. Hang in there.

[Free_30_day_trial]

A500leroy said:

im 9 months in with no contact, been told it may take another 9. Hang in there.

Bloody hell, 18 months to exchange contracts
At least you don't have to pay the deposit so quick.

I have my options meeting next week and I'm fully expecting them to ask me to pay for £24k of options up front due to not exchanging yet.

That means when I exchange and pay the deposit I'll be down over £70k and sitting around for about 7 months waiting to complete.. during which time mortgage offers could get withdrawn, I could lose my job, get sick, anything.. what a worry

Edited by Free_30_day_trial on Thursday 16th December 18:33

[Sarnie]

This was your first mistake;

"I engaged a conveyancing solicitor recommended by the house builder."

[Free_30_day_trial]

Sarnie said:

This was your first mistake;

"I engaged a conveyancing solicitor recommended by the house builder."

I realise that now, but the last house I bought was 12 years ago, it was my first home and it wasn't a newbuild.
I wrongly thought the process would go through easier if there was a relationship in place between the house builder and the conveyancer.

I don't know why a housebuilder would recommend a conveyancer who was slow and seemingly not all that competent unless they get a back hander?

I have my mortgage advisor pushing as well as the house builder, but I'm worried by the length of time its taking.
One concern I had was the house builder pulling out, but as yet they haven't really been in contact regarding the delays.

TBH the longer it drags on the better for me as I can hang on to my investments for longer, but upon exchange I will be more exposed if I have to pay for all the options up front as I'm lead to believe may happen if the house builders solicitor doesn't have my 10% deposit.

[Taita]

Can you ditch them as they have done no work / just pay them for the work they have done and take it to someone more competent? Caveats about competent being a relative term in conveyancing.....

[NickCQ]

Free_30_day_trial said:

One concern I had was the house builder pulling out, but as yet they haven't really been in contact regarding the delays.

Perhaps this is a silly question, but why are you worrying if the builder is not chasing you, if you can't move in until July anyway? The builder is hugely incentivised to get your deposit in (their business model doesn't work if they don't), so until you have paid that they are not going to do anything stupid.

The point around the options also seems like a red herring if you can demonstrate that it's the conveyancer's fault (put EVERYTHING in emails to them), and again, the builder is not going to use that stick if there's a chance you pull out and they have to find a new buyer.

[Sarnie]

Free_30_day_trial said:

I realise that now, but the last house I bought was 12 years ago, it was my first home and it wasn't a newbuild.
I wrongly thought the process would go through easier if there was a relationship in place between the house builder and the conveyancer.

I don't know why a housebuilder would recommend a conveyancer who was slow and seemingly not all that competent unless they get a back hander?

I have my mortgage advisor pushing as well as the house builder, but I'm worried by the length of time its taking.
One concern I had was the house builder pulling out, but as yet they haven't really been in contact regarding the delays.

TBH the longer it drags on the better for me as I can hang on to my investments for longer, but upon exchange I will be more exposed if I have to pay for all the options up front as I'm lead to believe may happen if the house builders solicitor doesn't have my 10% deposit.

It doesn't help you now but this is the exact reason they send you to their "preferred" solicitors;

"they get a back hander"

Use almost any solicitor other than those offered to you by the people selling you the property........they aren't doing it because they offer a seamless, stress free quick service. It comes down to pound notes.

What have you paid them so far?

[Free_30_day_trial]

Sarnie said:

What have you paid them so far?

The conveyancer just £100
The house builder £2500 reservation fee

I have two concerns, the first is that I will somehow lose the house which has taken me a long time to find in the right area and at the right price.
I've been waiting since March for the plot to be released, there was a huge amount of interest and I managed to get the one and only plot on the whole development that I wanted, mainly because I didn't have anything to sell.

My second concern is that I might forfeit some of the options due to the delay.
If I couldn't spec the house to the way I want it (I've ticked most of the options) then I don't think I'd be interested in the basic house.

Maybe I shouldn't be stressing about the whole situation. Nothing has really gone wrong and I guess the roof won't be going on anytime soon (at which point options become finalised) so I could always just delay the options meeting if need be.

[KTF]

Why do they have to restart the process again as only the finance aspect has changed?

When did you tell them about the LTB mortgage?

[Free_30_day_trial]

KTF said:

Why do they have to restart the process again as only the finance aspect has changed?

When did you tell them about the LTB mortgage?

Sorry, when I said restart what I meant was that they now have to do all new searches etc on my current property like they did at the start of conveyancing of the new property. I told them about the LTB mortgage right at the start in my initial phone call. I was relying on them to tell me what I needed to do so maybe I should have pushed it a bit more, but I didn't know I had to. I am still not sure why we can't exchange based on a firm LTB mortgage offer. Why can't they do all the searches after exchange? There's at least 6 months before completion. I guess that's just how it works, but it would have been nice to have known at the start.

[Sarnie]

You shouldn't be exchanging contracts with mortgage offers that expire before your completion date....

[Free_30_day_trial]

Sarnie said:

You shouldn't be exchanging contracts with mortgage offers that expire before your completion date....

That may be so, and if it were up to me then I wouldn't, as like I said it leaves me very exposed for 6 months.
When I reserved, the house builder said I needed to exchange within 28 days (although if it takes a little longer they would be fine with that).

Mortgage offers only last 6 months (as far as I'm aware) so the offers were always going to need renewing.
My mortgage advisor told me that to renew it was just a case of sending new payslips, getting it rubber stamped, and taking the rate on offer.

Should I have argued the point with the house builder? They told me 28 day exchange was standard practice when buying off plan?