Realistically what's the shortest amount of time it takes to buy a house?

[Fortress]

Hi would love to hear opinions. We had an offer accepted on a house yesterday, it's chain free and we won't need to do a survey. Our solicitor isn't due to go on holiday... I'm due dc3 in 8 weeks...
Tia

We did it in 4 weeks once - we were in rented and our vendor was moving into a newbuild that was ready to go.

Next house was 6 weeks - our buyers were FTB, we were friends with our vendors and they were moving into an empty house. I did spend about a month on the phone though.

We took the stress out of the last minutes move by accepting that if it came right down to the wire/due date, we'd just pull out, bugger the expense! A bit of strong arming at the death and then we got the removal co to do all the packing, cleaning, & unpacking at t'other end.

All was well in the end.

Ours took 3 weeks (but was a repossession/empty house and cash buy) Its the mortgage that can take an age so get all your paperwork sorted asap.

Hope it all works out for you OP.

We completed on our current property 4 weeks after we made our offer! This was a condition of the sale as the vendors had 2 sales fall thru and they were desperate to sell so they could buy their dream house. We were in rented to no probs there.

It was fine but our solicitors were lazy and needed chivvying along.

Some really useful advice, thanks! Interesting re estate agents driving things forward... Their agent told us that's for our solicitor to do? Will keep you all posted :)

These stories give me hope.

We're two weeks in from having our offer accepted - ftb, no chain, house currently empty. Want to be in by end of July at the latest.

Mortgage agreed subject to survey, survey carried out a couple of days ago although not had the results yet. Not sure how much more there is to do if survey all comes back ok, searches of course but they only take 3 days here.

We sold in early 2010 and I think the Estate Agent was desperate to get some comission back into the firm! We were very impressed with his being on the ball. I'm never quite sure whether it is the EA or Solicitor who is supposed to keep things moving. experience tells me it is neihter and ends up being the vendor and/or buyer but you do wonder why we're paying Estate Agents if they don't do any of the liasing with the solicitor after the sale has been agreed.

We bought our house and got the keys about 4 weeks after we made the offer. It had been rented out previously and was empty, so we exchanged and completed on the same day. If somebody has to move out of the house they will not want to exchange and complete the same day because they would have to have their moving van packed and then the buyer could still pull out.

We exchanged within 5 weeks. Completion took a bit longer but only because I wanted to delay it - we could have done E&C within six. The house I bought was empty and the bloke who bought my place didn't have anything to sell so that made things A LOT easier.

So today; we transferred funds into our solicitors acc to start the local searches. We've told them we don't need a survey and we've got our deposit in the bank ready... Don't officially have the mortgage yet but we've been onto our mortgage advisor with this also.
We're even giving the vendors lots of boxes for packing ;)
Sound good? Hope everyone else is having progress and it's so great to hear positive stories :)

Surely if you're getting a mortgage the lender will need a basic valuation survey if nothing else?

Probably Tyler80 but we're not going for a £500 one where they have a little look and say all 'ok'. Did that 4 years ago on last property and then got dry rot :( I'm assuming the mortgage company we go for will do a basic one if we get onto them?

Yes, the mortgage company will arrange a valuation survey, it's another thing to consider in the timeline