Once all parties have signed contracts how long until exchange and date to move

[soapoperalife]

After a very stressful four months our seller will be signing next Thursday. Our buyers (FTB) have signed and so have I.
Does anyone know how long it takes for the contracts to get exchanged? I understand the date to move is usually a week after exchange (if agreeable by all parties).

No usually - mn likes to make life really difficult and do it on the same day, but given nothing can be booked firmly until exchange, post office redirect takes a week, broadband longer etc etc two weeks is much easier.

As for how long to exchange - depends what else needs doing. If anyone is waiting on searches it could be a while.

Depends on if anything else needs doing, all parties in our sale/purchase had signed all relevant documentation but one party was waiting on a pension sip to materialise and exchange couldnt happen till then. We eventually exchanged after 4 months and then completed the same day on our sale and the following week for our purchase. (All parties involved had vacated their sale properties and were renting their purchase properties on a monthly rolling tenancy agreement)

It is really variable I have exchanged in May and completed in August vendors were buying a new build. And equally done same time. When I moved last summer broadband and post office redirection only took 24 hours and were all done online.

When everyone is ready to exchange, then you can set whatever date you all want (though if you're in a chain of course it has to be the same time period!) between exchange and completion. It can be the same day, 4 weeks' later, several months later or anything else. Simultaneously is less common as you'd have to have drawn down the mortgage monies but otherwise, you only need as long as the slowest person in the chain needs to know they'll be able to get their money and for everyone to know they can get removal people in.