In a contract race - I hate it

[Cyrli]

Buying a house is stressful. I can't believe we're in an even more stressful situation by being in a contract race.

Any tips on how we can hurry things up? We seem to be sorted on the mortgage front, valuation is been done on friday, estate agent is being a bit slow getting stuff over to the solicitors, which is fine if they are being slow with both sides. Anyway, not much point in this post just home on my own - well 6 month old son doesn't have an opinion!

Hmm. I'd camp out at the estate agents offices, get the info yourself and deal with the solicitors - and call the solicitors every day to ensure that they're on the case.

Dinky is right, it'll only happen if you nag, nag, nag...

We exchanged on this house in under two working weeks, at the end of which I was exhausted...but it happened... Good luck!

You can pay extra to get the local searches done in person. That will save valuable time. I'd also try and see if the survey could be done quicker.

I bought my house in 20 days. That was from first viewing to moving in and included sorting out a mortgage (I hadn't been planning to move!).

Nag, nag, nag sounds familiar - that's all I've done for two days. I'm phoning the solicitors at least daily, and checking for online updates too. I didn't know we could pay to do the searches ourselves - I'll look into that. It's lucky I'm on maternity leave, I think I would have had to take time off otherwise. Thanks for all your suggestions.

Offer to collect/deliver everything yourself and ask for them to call you when signatures required - saves a day postage each time.

You guys HOW????? We are 3 months and counting...

I'd love to know if any of you knew you were in a contract race at the beginning. We've just discovered that our vendor issued a second contract at a higher price without telling us and we've wasted four weeks and a few hundred pounds. I understsnd this is illegal/unprofessional if one isn't informed.

Yes we knew from the beginning that we were in a contract race. I think the estate agents have to tell all parties involved. www.practicalconveyancing.co.uk/content/view/10334/1129/