Exchange and complete on the same day.

[EmmbadTheBad]

We are in the middle of a small chain - our buyers, us, and our sellers. We have been given a possible move date for next Friday, however we haven't exchanged yet and the EA is now saying that it's likely we will exchange and complete on the Friday.

So we are having to just go ahead with arranging for broadband/utilities at the new address, post redirection, etc., but what if it doesn't happen on Friday? It all seems a bit precarious.

Does anyone have an experience (preferably good!) of exchanging and completing on the same day?

We did this week- but the transaction was delayed and we didn't get the keys until 3pm. We had spent the night before in a hotel and sat there for most of the day with 3 full cars and a hire van full of stuff until we got the phone call to say we could collect the keys.

I do. We did it on the house we're in now, it's very nerve-wracking but all you can do is cross your fingers that all goes to plan. I have no idea what we'd have done if it had fallen through. Having said that, we didn't have utilities etc cut off and reconnected from our house, we just transferred to/from our name so everything stayed on the whole time, we just gave a meter reading when we moved in.
We went from offer to exchange/completion in 6 weeks. Looking back on it, I've no idea how that happened!

Is there anyway of getting even a day between? We were in a similar chain but various issues with my buyers solicitor and mortgage meant that we missed our first exchange deadline. The main thing is how much information you are getting from the solicitors. If they say it's fine then you should be ok.

Might be worth speaking to both the other parties as well to try and stretch the day out. The house we were moving to had been empty for 9m so we asked the EA for early keys so we could drop stuff off early. They refused saying we weren't insured but our buyers were more reasonable and said that as they were renting they didn't need the keys until 5. Everything worked out in the end.

Thanks for your responses. I hadn't even thought about the logistics on the day. We are moving less than a mile away from our current house and will be moving ourselves in a big-ish rental van, so it will take several trips plus loading/unloading time at each end. Our buyers are ftb so hopefully they won't need to move in on the same day. However my husband will need to go to work in the evening so I'll be panicking in case we don't get the keys 'til late!

And remember that legally once you complete you have no right to be in the house from which you are moving so even if your buyers don't want to move in that day, you can't still have your belongings in the house and continue moving them out in further trips. I think your dh needs to take the evening off work as well! (Unless you have a very small amount of belongings to move)

Emmbad- I have to say I found it helpful to book a storage unit for at least a week or two prior to the move. Moving a whole houseload of stuff is a mammoth task. I packed away loads of clothes, kitchen equipment, memorabilia, garden stuff etc, and put into storage so on the day of the move we only had the boggest bits of furniture and our ovenight bags to shift. Made things a lot easier. We couldn't have done the move without professional help otherwise.

Whether you exchange and complete on the same day is down to the solicitors. The EA has nothing whatsoever to do with it so please don't listen to their advice. Just remember that all monies have to be in and every dot and every t covered in the paperwork. Anything still outstanding at any part of the small chain will mean a delay and possibly not completing. Some lenders also want to have separate transactions on the day, i.e. exchange in morning, complete in afternoon and it will depend on the solicitors' workload as to whether they can do an exchange in the morning. Usually solicitors do completions as a priority first and exchanges and other paperwork get done afterwards.

we did this last month...no problems