Any advice - going slightly mad over trying to exchange contracts...

[SesHasapinkline]

We were due to exchange contracts 2 weeks ago and complete this coming Friday.
Have still not exchanged!

We were told originally that the problem was our buyers' mortgage brokers hadn't sent a hard copy of their mortgage agreement to their solicitors.

On Monday this week, our solicitors decided we had more paperwork to sign! We had originally been going to buy our property in April but the chain had fallen through. We got a chain together again with us purchasing the same house just at a lower price due to the market changes. We were sent contracts to sign which had the price amended by hand. We signed and sent them off and our solicitor decided on Monday (about 3 weeks later!) that she needed an original without any ammendments. Those arrived yesterday and our Estate Agents were fantastic and drove to where I work so that I could sign them and they could be sent off.
Today, the solicitor has emailed me with another document that she wants us to resign as the stamp duty has changed with the change in price! DH is away in Germany with work until tomorrow evening and so the soonest they can be posted back is Friday and so the soonest she'll get them is Monday! This means we may now not exchange until Monday!!

Now I know that in theory you can exchange and complete on the same day but my main problem is that this solicitor doesn't seem to feel any real urgency at all and doesn't seem bothered!

I said to her today over the phone that I appreciated that she dealt with many of these day in day out but that for us we don't and it is our home and that is why it is important for it to be sorted. I hoped that was trying to make my point diplomatically and politely but she didn't seem to acknowledge it at all!

Anything we can do other than sit and wait and cross fingers???

I'm fed up with friends and family phoning / texting on a daily basis to see if we have exchanged yet!

[LIZS]

You can't go in to sign or deliver them back the same day ? When we renegotiated the price we actually didn't change it on the contracts or stamp duty but then it wasn't significant amount.

[SesHasapinkline]

Thanks LIZS - good suggestion but...
solicitors are in Manchester (through Estate Agents) and we are in Surrey.

I can't understand why it took her 3 weeks to decide this!