How close are we to exchanging?

[Yazi23]

We had an offer accepted on a house back in September. Our solicitor has finally received the vendors contract pack and is waiting on the final local search results. Providing that comes back ok and we're happy with the contract, how close are we to exchanging?
We are FTB moving from rented so no chain.
Who suggests the exchange date?

Have you done a survey or are you planning to? What is the position of the people you are buying from (is there a chain)?

Yep homebuyers surgery done and all is ok. No need for valuation survey as we are 100% cash buyers.
They had an offer accepted on a house about a month ago and the people they're buying off said they would go into rented if necessary.

The simple answer is that is depends how progressed the onward chain is. If they are at the same stage as you then you could be relatively close ... if not then how long is a piece of sting!

Regarding the exchange date, my experience has been that you contact the EA and ask them to go up the chain with a proposed completion date and it goes back and forth until all agree. This normally happens when you are all close to exchange. I was told you need to have an agreed completion date before you can exchange.

Good luck!

Yes, of course you need to agree completion date before exchange. Suggest one, at least two weeks and preferably a month after exchange. Remember all work will stop at least a week before tatmas day.

Do not give notice until you have exchanged.

Thanks all. It just blows my mind how ridiculous the English house buying system is. It seems to work to the advantage of everyone but the people actually buying/selling!
I'm hoping to exchange start of Jan and complete mid Jan (hopefully I could take advantage of the Jan sales for the extra bits of furniture we need!). Does this seem a reasonable timeline providing we don't have any hiccups?

Sounds feasible if everyone behaves rationally! But don't hold your breath.

assuming there are no issues and the vendors have a rental property to move into by mid Jan it's doable, however between midday on the 22nd December and I would say the 8th of Jan, don't expect anything to get done as sols will be on shutdown.

I agree. The only people who benefit from the current process are the solicitors abs surveyors! It's incredibly painful and sometimes can feel like it'll never come together.

Good luck

*and

Thanks everyone. Will aim for January and hope for the best!

You can exchange and complete on the same day! You need to find out what the sellers are needing to do.

You could be our buyer! In our case, the searches on the house we are buying have come back with problems and I can't get a timescale on resolving them. We need to move by early January but I'm coming to terms with that not happening because of solicitor shutdown over the whole Christmas period. It's extremely frustrating and we just seem to drift week to week between updates from solicitors - it can take a fortnight just to get an answer to one question. I have no idea how anyone actually manages to move!

Oh no Captain, how frustrating. Like you say, with Christmas coming it will slow things down even more. To be honest it's really taking the shine off the house for me. I'm just hoping that I'll fall in love with it all over again once this is done and we're in there!