Would anyone like an 'in a chain' support group? (3)

[Spickle]

Assuming all you lovely people in a chain still need a support group? Here it is......

mother our vendors vendor was buying a new build and we were told that the developer required a 28 exchange. It took two months in the end. I suspect that the developers are happy so long as they can see things are moving and no one is being flaky as both me and my buyer had signed contracts for the last month of that time and the chain was waiting for my vendors searches to come back.

To be fair searches shouldn't kick up much as it's 3 minutes walk from our current house and was built the same time - 12 ish years ago. In theory it should be straight forward but our vendor seems rather naive.

Beckyb1 as Iam says, it does depend on what the search results show. If there are further enquiries to be made based on the search results, these will be described as "additional enquiries" by your solicitor and could involve third parties to provide documentation or further searches, such as a flood search etc. It is still impossible to give a realistic timescale at this point. All responses need to be satisfactory before dates for exchange and completion can be discussed.

Iam in the situation you describe, the new buyer using the same solicitor as the old buyer, can accept the previous searches and most of the enquiries will already be satisfied. New buyer will need their own mortgage offer and their identification verified. Obviously the name on the contract will be changed, but yes, it should be a lot quicker to get them up to speed with the rest of the chain. Best of luck, hope it all comes together very soon!

m0ther - we're in a similar situation ourselves. We knew our vendor was buying a new house that wouldn't be ready until the end of the year, and had agreed a delayed completion when our offer was accepted - this was last Thursday. On Monday of this week at 6pm we got an oh-so-casual call from the EA saying the vendor needed a 6-week exchange. (Good job we ignored the EA's advice to wait 'a couple of months' before applying for our mortgage, then!).

We're chain-free so we're happy to try for this (even though we'll then have a 4-month delay until completion, ugh) but there's a limit to what we can physically do to make this happen.

So far, we've signed all the paperwork with the solicitor to instruct her - actually drove to solicitor's to pick it up, and then drove to drop it back off a couple of hours later, thereby saving at least two days' worth of mailing time - and met very briefly with solicitor to stress that we are keen for a 6-week exchange and could she please submit the searches immediately (typically they like to wait until you have your mortgage offer but given the tight timescale we have to just do this and hope it's not money down the drain if the survey comes back with big problems).

We've also instructed and booked the survey for next week. Our mortgage is agreed subject to valuation (we have a great broker who was all over this as soon as we told him about the rush). Seller's solicitor has sent the draft contract to our solicitor last night, she's promised to start reviewing it today.

So we're now at the end of week 1 (of 6) and at this point, we've done all we can do and we're now dependent on survey/valuation, searches, and solicitors. If it doesn't work out then we know we've done our best and no-one other than a cash buyer (and maybe not even them) could have moved this faster.

I'll keep my fingers crossed for you if you do the same for me...?!

Solicitors aren't local so we get everything emailed. We print, fill in and post within 24 hours. Doing our best. I'd love to move in asap but am realistic too.

Can I join?

Our searches should be back now (waiting for confirmation), but our "cash" buyer pushed everything back by actually applying for a mortgage (grrr), it has been approved but their searches won't be back until next week.

Our vendors want to complete by the end of June so feeling the pressure!

Oh, and to top it off our fridge freezer is on the blink, and I'm begrudging the idea of possibly having to buy a new one to use for only a few weeks (as there is an integral one in the new place).

Awkward I just never understand why people lie. Our vendor forgot to mention deadlines were essential in order for them to move or they could lose their new build plot. So frustrating.
Our new house also has an integrated fridge freezer so I'm planning to put our current one in the garage as a spare (although we'll be so near a supermarket that it's unlikely we'll need to stock up.) I think I'll create a wine and pimms fridge

A wine and pimms fridge sounds fantastic - unfortunately we don't have a garage or shed so it would end up in the living room, not really the look I'm going for (although after a few glasses of wine I might go for useful over appearances!).

OK so now the awesomely slow ftbs' solicitor has raised further additional queries asking for a radon survey and whether any insurance claims have ever been made. And these weren't raised a month ago, together with the other additional queries because....?

Oh ocelot it's so frustrating isn't it?
Our solicitor has gone overkill with queries but I have a feeling it's because she new to the role. I have even replied to her and answered a few of them myself for her!!

Thanks spickle our buyer is ready to exchange and my solicitor has emailed today saying the last of our queries have been answered so we are very nearly ready I hope! That just leaves the new buyer's buyer. We've been told they are a cash purchase but I'm awaiting further info about them as if they really are and all this paperwork is already ready then they should be ready to exchange too. I feel like I'm being too optimistic though.

My searches are back!

I have three queries on them, but none are a showstopper. Sol doesn't think there are any other issues with them. The query that needs to go to the buyer has done. The other two are for the sol to clarify for me from the title deeds.

I think the vendor has their searches.

My mortgage is looking less and less likely - so I'll be selling a load of equities.

More of an issue is that the sol dealing with the transfer of current property to ex has not answered an email I sent last week about how the process will work and his sol hasn't responded to my communication with him (what is it with solicitors? I respond to emails the same day).

I'm a bit confuddled about timings and what has to happen when. I expect it will sort itself out. Holiday from next weekend, so a week without any movement.

I follow every email up with a phone call within 24 hours. I'm probably annoying the hell out of our solicitor but I'm not planning on befriending her. Ime you have to keep reminding them to move your case to the top of their pile.

It's hard to call when I'm at work, but worked from home yesterday and tried her about twelve times with no answer. She might be in court.
My conveyancing solicitor is on holiday and I couldn't get through to his assistant so in the end I just rang another one on the team and he took a note of my queries and said he'd come back to me Monday.

Received a Section 20 notice for my flat a few days ago letting us know about some work. The timeline for the work means it will take place after we've completed. Phoned up my solicitor who had a little panic that our buyers were going to be unhappy and there might be a problem for us. We've exchanged but she was worried about any comeback if they thought we knew before exchange and didn't say. Happily we did know as the work was mentioned was in the AGM notes which I sent over with the Property Information Form and I'm pretty sure I'd written it on the Property Information Form. The AGM notes were also in the management pack so its all been properly declared.

The managing agent says it will come out of the sinking fund and there won't be any call for cash from leaseholders. My buyer doesn't know that though so the poor bloke is probably swearing about not having moved in yet and already expecting a bill from the freeholder!

Okay I have a survey question. We've paid extra for a more detailed survey mostly due to is wanting a bit of a clearer idea re the cracked render. Letter has arrived for us to fill in to authorise the survey but it appears our mortgage company has instructed our vendor's estate agents surveyors. I know they are supposed to be independent but it feels they have a vested interest in the sale going through. Not comfortable with that!

Let the mortgage co use whoever they want and you use a different co - or are you paying for the mortgage co one? (I didn't have to pay for mine)

I'm not sure, if you know there is something you want checked, that a survey is the right way to deal with it. Is it worth having a local builder take a view?

As an aside, I hate the way the EAs sell everything now, mine has tried to sell me mortgage/financial advice, insurance, moving assistance, conveyancing and survey. The vendor originally has their own sol but moved to theirs for 'cost reasons'

We're paying for the survey and are paying extra to get the enhanced survey rather than just valuation. Not full structural survey. As we actually want independent advice from the survey the conflict of interest does concern me slightly.

Is anyone else meant to be exchanging this week?

Were hoping to ocelot although said that last week as well. There are a couple of outstanding queries but hoping they are pretty simple to sort out. No one has talked about completion dates yet though so goodness knows when we will actually be moving. I want it sooner rather than later but I'm worried some parts of the chain will insist on a month between exchange and completion.

Good luck with yours

You too Stripy!

I'm so cross, am probably being ott but buyers wanted to measure up yesterday and ea came to show them while we went out. Last night we were sitting sweating wondering why the house was so warm - they'd changed the heating dial up to 28 degrees and left it. Had a grumble but fine it was sorted. Tonight I went to bath dc but there was no hot water. Basically they'd turned off the boiler plus the separate isolation switch which means the hot water we've been using was what was in the tank and with the switches off it hasn't refilled. Why would you mess about with someone's heating system? Ea is saying he didn't see them do it but they were looking at the boiler so "if they did it he's sorry". Er, they did as dc can't reach it and I didn't turn it off.
I know they're excited but it's still my home right now!

Hi all I'm gate crashing I hope that's ok. Warning it's a long one.
We accepted an offer on our house from a ftb on 22nd April & had offer accepted on a house that we fell in love with on 25th april. Selling isn't the problem (sign bit not dated contracts ready & they have paid deposit to solicitor) the buying side is the problem. We've had survey, mortgage offer in, sorted insurance & paid for searches but we have been waiting what seems like forever for the sellers solicitor to send a draft contract. I believe that the contract is being emailed to my solicitor either Friday or tomorrow then my searches can be done. We gave a date of the 30th June to our solicitor do u think this is still achievable. We hope so as the loft is cleared & boxes r packed just left out stuff we use day to day. Thanks & sorry to of waffled xxxx

I've been told searches take 2 weeks by an agent and 8 weeks by a solicitor (although knowing solicitors this may have been preparation for excuses if they took ages - not our solicitor). I would call the solicitor every 2-3 days to find out what's happening.
I'm currently leaving ours until Thursday when I'll call for an update as to where we are.
We're still waiting for the surveys to be arranged and as of Friday our solicitor didn't have the contract pack so was unable to guesstimate how long it'll all take. Vendor wants 28 day exchange (but they're the ones holding it all up).

Searches don't take a different time for different categories of people. Mine have taken 5 weeks I think - the council website says they take around 6 weeks.

My solicitor warned me very strongly against having private searches. And against buying insurance against uncompleted searches - he sensibly pointed out that it's all very well being insured against bad things coming back in the search but you're still sat in a house with....whatever it is: flood risk; extension with no building Regs sign-off etc - would you really want that, even with insurance?

I thought he made a good case.

Well solicitor emailed me today. Draft contract pack has been received today, searches have been authorised & my file if now with the equities team. We would like 30th June but thinking it my be July. Xx