notice before exchange (not completion)

[Twogirlsonelabrador]

Hi all
I know there will be a gap of a few days/weeks between exchange and completion....i wondered if people could advise from their experience as to when you are told you are nearing exchange how much notice you might have of this. As a first time buyer I have no experience, and we are the stage where mortgage sorted, only two in chain, surveys etc done and currently waiting on "answers to enquiries" raised from our solicitor to the sellers solicitor. I just wondered if they say you are nearing exchange....or you might exchange next week etc....any suggestions welcome!

If there is only two in the chain then it should happen fairly quickly. We waited about 4 weeks before we finally exchanged from the first attempt - eventually it transpired that there were more people in the chain than we first thought and certain solicitors in the chain were being completely rubbish. I would say don't get your hopes up for a certain timeframe, as annoying as it is.

Best to ask solicitors advice on this but it can all suddenly happen once mortgages, surveys and searches are complete, the solicitor will just complete their enquries then say they are complete and you're ready to exchange what date do you wish to complete and please send 10% over. You need to get house insurance lined up for exchange so worth getting quotes and getting your money in easy to transfer accounts. We are due to exchange in about 1.5 weeks.

thanks for that, thats what I was kind of thinking really that we might get caught out as nothing seems to be happening but could suddenly be all systems go!In terms of the insurance, do they need anything other than address details etc to get that in place? thanks for your help!

It's normally just address and basic details like is it detached, brick built, ours has a thatched roof so they will want to know that.

You need to talk to your solicitor for a better guidance of time frame , my solicitor would be contacting me fairly regularly at this point ( but I know him well and have a good working relationship ) if your questions are unanswered and it's been a week or so it's his job to chase them up and get things moving along, it could be sellers are slow to answer or stalling or perhaps the sellers solicitor is slow sending answers on .
you can set completion to a date that suits both yourself and the seller ( good idea to avoid the traditional Friday as moving firms get very booked up plus if anything goes wrong the weekend is in the way before you can sort it )
You can get the insurance quotes in and ready to go once you know the exchange date , all you will have to do then is phone through to pay and start the policy , most companies have a form on line that you fill in.

Thanks so much for the info - Ive only joined MN today (read stuff before on here) and already learnt more today than the solicitors have told me!! thanks again!

boot your solicitor to explain the process, that is one of the things you pay for. you should get a call before exchange as a final check before they commit you. yes, get insurance quotes ready.

you will need all the usual insurance info - locks, rooms, etc etc.

if solicitor goes quiet, pester. it isnt a sacred occupation.