Draft contacts received by solicitor, what happens next?

[Grytviken]

We are trying to buy our dream house, and have been for the best part of a year. The vendor has pulled out of the sale twice already citing health reasons, but has approached us for a third time and we are now trying again, we are assured it will definitely complete this time! This is the furthest we have managed to get into the process, our solicitor received the draft contracts from the vendors solicitors over a week ago and our survey is being done today.

What happens next? Does our solicitor send us a copy of the draft contracts, or does he check them and then go back to the vendors solicitor?

We are really hoping to exchange in around two weeks, not sure if I should be chasing my solicitor up at this stage.

Any advice is appreciated!!

Is a mortgage involved and are the searches still valid? (Depending on which searches are required some may be out of date depending on how long this has been going on).

Your survey being done today doesn't necessarily mean that anyone will receive it for up to about a week and then if it's the homebuyers report your lender will need to take a view, if it's a proper survey then there may be things you need to negotiate with the vendor.

I'm not trying to rain on your parade but for me I would say exchange in two weeks is optimistic based on the information you've provided. Unless the offer was made with strict deadlines of course.

Thanks Annie, the searches were done before the purchase fell apart last time, and I am told they are all still valid. There is no mortgage involved, but I take your point that it may take a week or more for the survey results to come back.

That makes your life a lot easier in some ways that there's no mortgage involved. That being the case 2 weeks may not be as optimistic as it first sounded!!

Ask the solicitor what happens next. You pay for their guidance.

Might be worth offering a few weeks between exchange and complete, and checking that the vendors know they need to be out on completion day. There have been some horror stories on here.

Your solicitor received the draft contracts a week ago and he now has to read through all the documents and raise enquiries with the seller's solicitor.

Enquiries can relate to anything in the title documents, i.e. that the people selling are the same people named in the deeds, whether there are any restrictive covenants and establishing rights of way. Also the local search will show up any planning permissions, building regulations, and other works done on the property which your solicitor will want to see the paperwork (of course you don't have to have searches as no mortgage is involved). Enquiries may also be made in respect of anything written in the Property Information Form and Fixtures & Fittings Form, i.e. if the vendor has marked something as "to follow", your solicitor will have to wait for this. Similarly, if the vendor says they do not know when the boiler was last serviced, your solicitor will ask them to obtain a service and then provide the report.

Enquiries do form a large part of the conveyancing process and most people under-estimate how long it takes for the solicitor to go through the documents, raise enquiries, get responses to enquiries, possibly raise additional enquiries following unsatisfactory responses and finally get to the point when exchange is imminent.

You won't see the draft contract until much further into the process, at the "reporting" stage.

Having the draft contract paperwork for a week is still very early on in the process. Unless there are no enquiries to be raised and everything provided so far is satisfactory, I would think it would be very unlikely you will be exchanging in two weeks and chasing now for progress reports is a little premature.

Thank you Spickle, this is really helpful. I should have mentioned in the OP that our solicitor is on holiday for a fortnight and her work is being covered, I was just a bit wary that our papers were sat in a pile not being sent on, but from what you have said it makes sense that we wouldn't have seen anything yet anyway.