Realistically, how quickly can we complete?

[cheapandcheerful]

We found a house at the weekend (finally, after our previous place falling through)...
Our buyer wants to complete around Jan 5th (obviously not going to happen!) but what is the quickest we can realistically expect to complete our purchase, assuming nothing is wrong with the survey and bearing in mind the xmas period?

I'm reeeeeeally ready to go now!

[FanSpamTastic]

We managed to sell and move out in 4 weeks from offer to completion. But we were going in to rented and had very motivated buyers who made it a condition of the deal that we completed in that schedule.

[wowfudge]

The three things likely to hold things up are: survey, searches and solicitors' holidays. Have a conversation with your solicitor now and find out when there office is closed over Christmas and New Year. Ask them when the searches need to be in to have a realistic chance of getting them back to meet the proposed timescale.

Push now to get the survey done and get the report as quickly as possible. If the survey raises any issues, that's another potential hold up.

[wowfudge]

Their office obviously

[Spickle]

Any leasehold or shared ownership properties in the chain? They take longer to exchange. The local authority search in my area is currently taking three/four weeks to come back, though that differs with each local authority, the other searches are quicker. My solicitors are shut from Christmas Eve to 5th January.

[LittleBearPad]

I was told by estate agents the average is 13 weeks from offer to completion, 8 weeks would be considered speedy. FanSpam you did well!

[specialsubject]

We did it in six weeks, buying an empty property as a buy-to-let which is a crime on mumsnet so no-one moving, and with two efficient solicitors. It would be impressive to do it quicker.

hold ups are indeed searches - find out how long they are taking and Christmas - nothing will happen from mid-Dec until after new year. You aren't completing on Jan 5th. You also need time between exchange and completion to arrange removals.

[zipetwhippet]

When our buyer pulled out, another came along on the same day who was in rented and we then completed in 2 weeks as they bought the survey, their solicitor was a relative and didn't have all of the searches. Before that it had dragged on for 3 months though.

We also bought an empty property to rent out, which took 3 weeks as we were cash buyers and it was a repo

[wowfudge]

Zipet - yes, it is possible to complete quickly, but were those transactions so close to Christmas?

We just completed on a sale in under 5 weeks. We were very motivated to sell, buyer very motivated to buy and get into the house.

OP you are selling so make sure you have all your house related info gathered together in one place and fill in the forms/respond to any queries as fully and quickly as possible. We had a couple of queries - relating to residents' parking and alley gates - which I provided links to the relevant pages on the local Council's website to for the buyer. Possibly overkill, but it meant they had all the info and it stopped any further batting back and forth of additional questions.

[zipetwhippet]

Hi yes one of them was the week before Christmas. So if it had lingered on it would have added 2-3 weeks.
The other one (rental) was in summer and we were about to go away. Bank pushed that through and demanded a 3 wk schedule. our solicitor was only p/time- just very efficient, we signed in the morning and went to the airport in the afternoon. So it can be done, depending on the circumstances.

[cheapandcheerful]

Thanks everyone - very encouraging!

[FanSpamTastic]

Our sale was in February - I guess a quiet time for conveyancing. Plus it was before the financial crisis and changes to mortgage applications. I imagine that adds in some more time now. Good luck - keep in regular touch with solicitor and estate agent to make sure things are moving along!

[sleepyhead]

We did it in 6 weeks (moved in 16th December last year), but the property we were buying was empty and our buyer was very keen to move into ours by then.

Our solicitors wanted us to wait until after Christmas and I got the feeling that it was more for their sake than ours , daily phone calls and a lot of luck that there were no issues either side got it done on time.

[Whooshtheyweregone]

We've done it in six weeks but that was with both us and the vendors really pushing our solicitors. We were in regular email contact with the vendors comparing notes on what each solicitor was saying and I really think thT helped speed things up.

[RaphaellaTheSpanishWaterDog]

We've also done it in six weeks previously (completed back end of November so not really close to Christmas though) with a short chain - our vendors were going into rented before buying overseas, we were not getting a mortgage and didn't bother with survey and our buyers had already sold and were also cash buyer's with no survey being done.....

Currently we're waiting to exchange (sale and purchase) and are eight weeks in. We hope to complete on 12th Dec and have stated that if we don't make that date we want to wait till the New Year!

Searches have been the main hold up this time, with our buyer's taking 4+ weeks.......

We have good email contact with our buyer and I agree with Whoosh that this has helped tremendously....only wish we could have done this with our vendor too.

[MairzyDoats]

Where are you in the country? The local authority search needs to be applied for ASAP, each council has different turnaround times. Hackney and Tower Hamlets for instance are currently taking about 28 days to turnaround, whereas Kesteven in Peterborough takes about 48 hours.

[LucidCamel]

We had our offer accepted 20th December and completed 31st January a few years ago. We were moving from rented and our rental agreement was due to expire 5th Feb, so we were all over the solicitors, and they were very helpful (sick of us).

[FanSpamTastic]

Given budget news today are you sure you want to move now! Looks like stamp duty is going to be less after next April for most house sales. Based on the calculator a £300k house today would cost stamp duty of £9k but after April that would reduce to £5k. The savings would be progressively smaller as the house price goes up but I can see this putting a complete stop on all transactions that have not already gone to completion.

[MovingOnUpMovingOnOut]

I've known clients complete in 2 weeks.

[FanSpamTastic]

Can my comments above - it is live from tonight apparently and you can take advantage of the new lower rates! Thought it would be bonkers to kill all sales until next April!

[wowfudge]

In addition, if you have already exchanged, you can choose whether to pay stamp duty according to the old or new rules - whichever suits you best.

[marymoocow]

our offer was accepted on 17th November, signing contracts this Tuesday (9th Dec) and hoping to complete end of this week/beginning of next! So 3 weeks to exchange plus a few days extra to completion (fingers crossed). There has been a lot of pushing on our part and communications daily with all the relevant people .

[Fridayschild]

Mortgages are a big delaying factor at the moment. Add the lender to your chase list.

[tomatoplantproject]

We exchanged within 3 weeks. However we were buying an empty property, everyone was motivated to get it through quickly, and finances were in place (we had been ready to exchange on another property which had fallen through and it was relatively easy to flip the mortgage offer to the new place).

To do it quickly you really need to have everyone lined up and ready to go. And then push really hard every day.

[Kerberos]

You also need to factor in having motivated sellers of the property you are buying. When we bought ours in June it took 6 month mainly because of the lack of action from the people we were buying from.

[marymoocow]

of course what we didn't factor in was our buyers lying to us which means we won't now exchange until after xmas .