To think it shouldn't take this long

[BelleMarionette]

Conveyancing to buy a home. It's a cash purchase, and I'm not doing a survey. I just want a quick purchase. I have made this explicit to the solicitors, and the vendor wants the same.

It's getting to nearly 3 months now, and I don't even have a completion date. Naively, I initially didn't check in with the solicitors constantly, as I didn't think it was necessary, but am trying now. They don't even reply to emails, so am having to make constant phone calls to find out what's happening. And then the people concerned aren't even in the office (they seem to rarely be in)

How long should a purchase normally take in these circumstances? And any tips to speed things along?

I had a purchase go through in 6 weeks from offer to completion. We agreed with the vendor the date we wanted to complete on right at the start and told our respective solicitors that.

We did have a survey and of course no mortgage nor anything to sell.

Are you having searches done? They seem to take an age to come back at the moment and we proceeded without waiting for a couple of them.

Otherwise it's just a matter of both you and the vendor hassling your solicitors to get on with it. We had a (different) sale and purchase last year and the conveyancers were mostly working from home. I feel your pain. It's just a nightmare to get hold of individuals now when they are not in the office. I know staff like it but from a customer perspective WFH is not a good thing. That one took 3 months from offer to completion and it was a complicated sale.

Hassle your solicitors. You need to call them, ask what they're waiting for, ask when they expect it to be done, ask if it can be sped up in anyway etc.

I remember phoning our solicitors once and asking what they were waiting for. I can't remember exactly what it was but they were like "Some documents from the vendors solicitors". I asked if they'd asked for the documents or if they were just expecting them to know. They said "This is just how it's done, they'll know". So I got in touch with the vendors solicitors via the estate agents and it turned out the vendors solicitors had no idea ours were waiting for these particular documents.

I wish I was joking but that exact scenario happened a couple of times.

They also wanted to do everything via post. So when something needed signing "we'll post it to you and you can post it back". We worked just down the road from them so we regularly had to intercept them and go to the office to sign.

Phone your solicitor and ask them if there is any reason for the delay.
Kick them up the arse. Keep pushing.
I'd want a proposed exchange date pinned down by the end of today.