DH has to go away in the middle of house purchase. What does he need to be here for?

[AngryFeet]

So we are well into our house purchase process. We are trying to move as fast as possible but being ftbs we are not sure how long things will take. So survey report should be back tomorrow and as long as valuation was ok mortgage should be approved next week. We have signed and returned our draft contract and searches are back with solicitor (have been for over a week she is going through and making queries). What happens now and how long will it take? DH is away with work from 3rd to 10th March. We would like to be in by end of March so could this hold things up?

[sydlexic]

Speak to your solicitor, if any thing needs signing he can probably do it before he goes, or it can be sent to him.

[sybilwibble]

As sydlexic said. We exchanged while on our 2 week summer holiday. The solicitor gave us everything to sign before we left and we gave him clearance to transact on our behalf. If anything it made the process less stressful than if we'd been sat at home doing it ourselves.

[Anja1Cam]

I was away for several weeks at just the wrong time, things were moving fast, dh met with solicitor etc, I signed via fax. I never met our solicitor face to face, but had spoken to him on the phone earlier on in the process...

[middleagedspread]

We've just been in a similar situation. I signed the contract on behalf of DH, but we both had to sign for the stamp duty. This was after exchange though.

[specialsubject]

shouldn't make any difference. Ask your solicitor to confirm if anything needs your husband's signature in the time period concerned, and if so to arrange it beforehand.

exchange is done by the solicitors talking to each other and doesn't need anyone present.