Conveyancing - why cant it be done in 1-2 weeks?

[PRTVR]

My daughter completed in under 2 weeks, even ended up in the local paper with a piece on how quick it was, her secret, contacting the solicitor every day, asking how it was going, even offering to deliver a letter to the other solicitor, the other solicitor was at the end of the same road and they were going to post it, this allowed her to let the other solicitors office know that she was in a hurry to complete.

[GrumpyTwig]

hahahaha 2 weeks? if only... currently still not exchanged having agreed sale and purchase mid november.

It's all down to solicitors, buyers are using some clowns who are notoriously cheap but rubbish and I can never get in contact with mine.

[Andehh]

PRTVR said:

My daughter completed in under 2 weeks, even ended up in the local paper with a piece on how quick it was, her secret, contacting the solicitor every day, asking how it was going, even offering to deliver a letter to the other solicitor, the other solicitor was at the end of the same road and they were going to post it, this allowed her to let the other solicitors office know that she was in a hurry to complete.

We went from viewing to owning in 4 weeks, through a similar policy. I rang nigh on everyone every single day. I stayed polite, apologetic but assured them I wouldn't stop until they had complete their task and passed it onto they next person...

[PositronicRay]

Solicitors, it's like herding cats.

[PRTVR]

Andehh said:

PRTVR said:

My daughter completed in under 2 weeks, even ended up in the local paper with a piece on how quick it was, her secret, contacting the solicitor every day, asking how it was going, even offering to deliver a letter to the other solicitor, the other solicitor was at the end of the same road and they were going to post it, this allowed her to let the other solicitors office know that she was in a hurry to complete.

We went from viewing to owning in 4 weeks, through a similar policy. I rang nigh on everyone every single day. I stayed polite, apologetic but assured them I wouldn't stop until they had complete their task and passed it onto they next person...

Sounds very similar, my daughter's nickname at the place she was working the Rottweiler, so there was no way they were going to drag it out.

[Pheo]

We just moved a couple of weeks ago - offered 1st week of December, completed 14th Feb, inc two weeks of down time for Christmas. Pretty happy with that as it took 6 months last time due to a major problem on their title which had to be resolved (and guess what they were using a factory conveyancer recommended by the estate agent!)

Key this time was everyone wanted to move quickly, three property chain so relatively short (although the last purchase had no chain so go figure) and all of us using local decent solicitors or in the case of our vendors their well established solicitor who has done all of their transactions before.

So it can be done relatively quickly, but some elements do just take a bit of time!

[Rh14n]

We agreed the sale of our house on 1st December 2016 and agreed the purchase of our future home a week later. Unfortunately we're at the top end of a chain of 10 and it's a bloody nightmare! The bottom end of the chain has broken down twice but we're crossing fingers that we're up and running again but there's still no mention of an exchange or completion date. Communication seems to be the key and this is where the one house being sold by Purple Bricks is the problem with the agent just being a man with a mobile phone who doesn't reply to messages. Luckily the people at the house we're buying are happy to vacate and stay with parents and are very nice people. We saved an awful lot of time sitting around the kitchen table discussing issues and dealing directly with them - much quicker than posting letters between solicitors.

[PixelpeepS3]

going through this now.

So far it's taken 2 weeks just to get the solicitor details from the vendor

[TheAngryDog]

PixelpeepS3 said:

going through this now.

So far it's taken 2 weeks just to get the solicitor details from the vendor

My solicitor has their details already. I have a good feeling that this will be wrapped up in good time.

[carreauchompeur]

Folks,

This seems to be a good thread to add to... Basically I'm in the process of selling. I assume from the replies here that the online-type conveyancers are to be avoided?

Is there any advantage/disadvantage in using the same solicitors as the buyer? Apparently he has had good experiences of his firm...

I'm looking at an average of £8-900 for selling a leasehold place, no chain, nothing. Not cheap!

[33q]

We are in the process of selling one of our rentals.

We are 4 weeks in to the sale process and I've just applied for retrospective planning permission for a 6 x 4 Keter shed. Because the buyers solicitor has spotted a clause inI the original conveyance.

Just one petty delay after another

Turns out the council wrongly advised me that I needed retrospective planning .... I need them permit me to have the shed

And now they have given it to me but quoted the wrong address'!!!!!!!!

[Sunnysider]

A couple of years ago we found our forever house which happened to be uninhabited, so we bought it without selling ours. The whole process took 7 weeks which I thought ludicrous, but when we came to sell our old house to no chain, motivated buyers, it took 17 weeks, mostly due to their nitpicking, incompetent conveyancer.

The whole process should be time scheduled throughout the whole process, with penalties for failing to adhere to those schedules.

Obviously it'd be chaos for a month or two (like the back pass rule in football) but it'd soon settle down and all concerned would be able to do the jobs we pay them very well for in a swift and efficient manner.

[dogz]

I have bought a leasehold flat in under 2 weeks which is very good going

I also sold a freehold house which was on an un-adopted road which took 6 months. The purchasers solicitor wouldn't move and declared it a risk to his client. I put it back on the market, received another offer and it was completed 1 week hence.

Solicitors try to justify their means to protracting things - I've yet to meet a good one

Last house I bought, the solicitor allowed me to exchange when a retention was placed on the mortgage - obviously won't be using again!

[fridaypassion]

Well a bit of an update to this saga we finally got moved a couple of weeks ago some 4 months after selling.

The second attempt at selling also fell through but we managed it on attempt 3!

The solicitors drove us to the point of absolute distraction throughout! They came up with a couple of covenant "issues" (I think they make most of their income on selling insurance policies for these restrictive covenant things) £160 for a policy to protect us in case a woman that died 25 years ago sues us for having a commercial vehicle on the drive?

So in short we had a needlessly protracted first attempt where the buyers backed out
Second set of buyers were lovely people but wasted 4 weeks of our live trying to sell their house which had 2 missing mineshafts in the garden. They lost their buyer and we found out they had previously had a failed sale last year for the same reason.
Buyer 3 came through but the amount of bullying/harassing/loosing rag with we had to do with the solicitors beggared belief. At every step of the process they just delayed things with no justification. To add the icing on the cake they forgot to get us to re sign fresh deed transfer documents so we had to rush into the office on the day before completion to sign!

Its safe to say we have no plans to move again any time soon

[Cheib]

There's something called an Attended Exchange which is basically a fast track process....24 hours.

[fridaypassion]

Thats interesting I wasnt aware of that. Reinforces the idea that they really do just spin the process out !

[So]

fridaypassion said:

Thats interesting I wasnt aware of that. Reinforces the idea that they really do just spin the process out !

You realise, do you, that an attended exchange involves the two solicitors physically meeting as opposed to conducting the transaction remotely? Whilst some solicitors are slow, a great deal of the time taken is the flow of documents back and forth, searches, waiting for responses from the seller when enquiries are raised etc.

[Pothole]

So said:

fridaypassion said:

Thats interesting I wasnt aware of that. Reinforces the idea that they really do just spin the process out !

You realise, do you, that an attended exchange involves the two solicitors physically meeting as opposed to conducting the transaction remotely? Whilst some solicitors are slow, a great deal of the time taken is the flow of documents back and forth, searches, waiting for responses from the seller when enquiries are raised etc.

A great deal of that time could be saved if their attitude was slightly less lackadaisical. There's no incentive for anyone to get things done in less time "than it normally takes" so it takes that long, adding to the fallacy that it has to.

[Cheib]

So said:

fridaypassion said:

Thats interesting I wasnt aware of that. Reinforces the idea that they really do just spin the process out !

You realise, do you, that an attended exchange involves the two solicitors physically meeting as opposed to conducting the transaction remotely? Whilst some solicitors are slow, a great deal of the time taken is the flow of documents back and forth, searches, waiting for responses from the seller when enquiries are raised etc.

And it involves risks on the buyer's part....you can't complete all checks but it's possible to get a hell of a lot done. Surveyor can do the survey and report verbally within a couple of hours for example.

I offered it years ago when I was trying to buy a flat in London which got into a bit of a bidding war. When the Estate Agent pretty much refused point blank (fairly obviously they hadn't had time to consult buyer and their solicitor) it became obvious that something was amiss....the buyer I was in competition with had a property on the market with the same Estate Agent so if the other buyer was successful agent got paid twice. At that point I walked away....it worked well though as I found out that the Estate Agent was working against me despite me being an unencumbered buyer.

No for everyone but in the times when the London property market is going mental it was worth considering...

[Ace-T]

Maybe we were lucky but our recent move with a 5 person chain took 9 weeks from deciding to put the house on the market to moving day. An excellent local estate agent and a pretty good solicitor were key, as was the entire chain keeping each other motivated and informed. The only problem we had was that our buyers forgot to tell us they wanted to move in a few days earlier than the proposed completion date!

As we hadn't moved in 17 years we did not realise how good this actually was until afterwards.