urgent help neded- how can we speed up exchange/completion on house?

[noonar]

my mum is in a pretty desperate situation. she got a good price for her house and moved out 2 weeks ago. she agreed to go into rented for 6 weeks, or she would have lost the sale.

she understood that the exchange on her new house was imminent, but it still hasn't happened. she keeps being told, 'anyday now...' by the agent, and her solicitor seems useless. she has to be out of her rented place by 5th sept, but even if she exchanges today, is there any way completion could take place by the 5th?
if anyone with conveyancing experience could give any tips on how to hurry things along, i'd be really grateful.

by the way, mum is in her 60s, and a fulltime carer to her 95 yr old aunt, so is in a desperately vulnerable position. we know she was probably naive to think it'd go smoothly, but she now needs to try and sort it out- fast!

tell the solicitor to get his arse in gear.

i think my mum is just not assertive enough. my brother wants to ring up and shout at everyone to get their f**cking act together, as they are clearly not listenung to mum. but dh and my OTHER brother think it'd make things worse.

she won't threaten to pull out cos she's too scared of losing her new place.

Has she spoken to the sellers directly? When I bought my house things got slowed down by the solicitors/agents playing Chinese whispers - my solicitors thought I was waiting for mortgage approval (even though I had told them several times in writing I was a cash buyer) and in fact I was waiting for the vendor to let the electrician in to do a survey! Once we communicated directly things moved on.
(Not saying it is something like that, of course, but it might be an idea to rule it out.)

thanks, kathy, she has just written and hand delivered him a letter to explain her situation, so that may help. it's just so frustrating.

noonar - she could always exchange and complete on the same day - as long as the solicitor knows before-hand, (there is some additional legal work which is normally done between exchange and completion which would have to be done prior to exchange iyswim). There does not have to be a set amount of time between one and the other, so yes, providing there is not a problem it is perfectly possible to complete by the 5th providing all the monies are in place.

I am not a conveyancer, but was an estate agent so hope this is of help.

thanks helen, she is a cash buyer but assume the other 2 in the chain are not. what could she say to the agent/ solicitor to speed things up?

why ever did she move out of her property? Buyers can't demand she move out for fear of losing sale, she is legally entitled to live there until she completes on the sale. She should contact her solicitor and give them authority to speak to someone more assertive, yourself, your dh, your brother ... and then they need to be assertive and ask what information is outstanding, what is being done to get the information together that is outstanding, and on what date is it hoped the exchange will take place. Then make it clear to said solicitors, and also to her estate agent (as estate agents tend to communicate with each other) that unless an exchange date is reached by say the end of the week, she will be looking to put her house back on the market. Tbh it sounds like there's a chance this is going to fall through anyway considering the buyers have put her under so much pressure to move out etc, so she needs to take the upper hand and start shouting at people. Doing this she needs to be aware that the buyers may call her bluff and allow her to put the house back on the market, but tbh it's unlikely they will do this as this will mean they'll probably lose their sale as well and it's likely they've already shelled out money for surveys/searches etc and they're not going to want to do that. Assertiveness is the key, and often it only takkes one person threatening to pull out to get things moving. And tbh I would advise your mum to move back into her property asap, then at least she does have somewhere to live.

thanks so much wannabe, for your reply. maybe i didnt make it clear but she's completed on the sale of HER OLD house, but hasnt yet exchanged on her NEW place, so is between houses- but has taken more of a gamble than she realizes, i think. all she has in her favour now is that she's a cash buyer. i dread to think of it all fakling through.

wow, sounds to me like she has taken way too much of a gamble as there are no guarantees until you exchange, and tbh there is no way I would sell before I'd bought somewhere new. The fact she is a cash buyer does still go in her favour though, as August is a bad time to be selling a house (had agent round this morning to value mine), and the venders aren't going to want to be putting their house back on the market if they're so close to exchange/completion. I would still advise being assertive. Tell solicitors that she wants to know what is outstanding/holding up exchange. I would then speak to the estate agents of the venders, and say to them that if an exchange date is not forthcoming by the end of the week, then she is going to pull out and be looking for another property (with another agent). The agents will do more to chase up the exchange, as loss of the sale will potentially mean a loss of their commission, whereas the solicitors will earn their fees regardless of a sale/completion.

Completely agree with wannabee, and in fact we had to do exactly that on our last purchase.
We had to arrange an exchange & complete on same date-that was no problem; it only happened though after we threatened to pull out of the purchase unless we had completed by x date.
I think she should do that but be prepared to actually lose the house if things don't go through obv.

thanks again, wannabe. she's just heard from her vendor that its our solicitor who's causing the delay. he is just so useless.

she has taken a massive gamble, but had a good price for hers and was told that her offer on the new place was only going to be accepted whilst she had a buyer herself. she nearly lost her buyer cos other people were holding up the chain. she only kept her buyer by dropping out of the chain, iyswim.

i think that her solicitor has given her no guidance at all at any stage, and that she has been unaware of how big the risks are, as he has not explained the risks or the process to her at all. at one point, she went to the office and signed some papers. she didn't even know if she'd exchanged or not !! he's sent her other peoples's documents, miscalculated the stamp duty and failed to keep her up to date with things. she is an intelligent person, when it comes to passing exams and stuff but naive and scatty in other ways! (am aware she must sound completely bonkers to have got into this situation).

um, i don't think it's that crazy to complete a sale and move into rented before exchanging and completing on another house. We're currently in a very similar position. Except we don't feel very vulnerable, unlike your mother we could just keep renting if necessary.

I do think August is a terrible month to get anything moving, with solicitors, estate agents and vendors and buyers all often on holiday.

I think it depends on the situation you're in though, if there's likely to be several months between the sale of your property and the purchase of another one then moving into rented is perhaps not such a bad thing if your sale depends on it, but if it's only down to a matter of weeks then renting increases your outgoings signifficantly as you are paying rent which you obviously will never get back, plus you have to move house twice which is doubly inconvenient.

you're right, it depends on circumstances. mum doesn't want to move 3 times and has her heart set on a particular property- that's perfect for her elderly aunt. she's paying 450 pw on a short term tenancy at the mo and if she ends up renting for longer it will have to be in another short term rented property as the current owners of where she's staying are due to return on 5th sept.

have spoken to her again and she had no idea that it's usually 28 days between exchange and completion. so time is tighter than she thought it was at the outset, iyswim.

we just had 2 days between exchange and completion on our old house and are aiming for something similar on the new house. not sure where the 28 days thing comes from.

We're aiming for a completion date of 25th August - and we haven't exchanged yet!

We're aiming to exchange this week, and my solicitor is saying that the timescale is ok - she told me that she's exchanged and completed on the same day before now, so she can't see any reason why we can't still complete on 25th. I think the key thing is to keep in touch with your solicitor and keep an eye on where the process is up to. They're working for you, remember.