House sale - solicitor

[Pud2]

I’m in the process of selling my flat. I’m feeling a bit in the dark about how the sale is going as my solicitor doesn’t make much contact. Would it be reasonable for him to update me, say, weekly, or should I assume no news is good news? When I try to make contact via email I’m either ignored or get a slightly shirty reply. Not sure if I’m expecting too much?

OP. I don't think that's always the case to be fair. An update can be given relatively easily without formal correspondence. Please don't worry about asking for updates. It's your sale you need to know what's going on

Lol @ 6 weeks. Wouldn’t we all love that. You can smile and nod and say all those things but given searches alone will take 2-4 weeks to return depending on the borough it’s really just massively unrealistic.

3 months is if it all goes through smoothly and there are no quibbles. Once you’re ready to exchange you need to set a completion date far enough beyond that for you to get a rental (or you’ll be homeless).

So realistically 10 weeks or so for the conveyancing and then another 4-6 weeks for completion to give you time to find a rental. 14-16 weeks (3-4 months) would be a reasonable timeframe.

Keep in mind buyers say they want 6 weeks but once they’ve sunk money into lawyers, surveys, searches etc for the sake of another month or two they don’t want to throw away £2 grand. It’s a waste of money. They’re extremely unlikely to pull out just because it’s dragging a little bit. It’s perfectly normal in England.

I’m on the case with our solicitors, luckily we know the people who are selling to us, so between us we are taking turns nudging solicitors and estate agents in turn. The frustration I have is that a couple of times I’ve got through to the actual solicitor and she gives straightforward answers, but when I get the gatekeeper assistant I just get fobbed off. The assistant also insisted that they won’t talk about exchange dates until I provide proof of insurance on the new house, even though I pointed out that I can’t insure without an exchange date (have had a quotation from the insurer but they won’t insure the house until the exchange date, and gatekeeper says quotation isn’t good enough! I’ll wait to have that argument when the enquiries have been answered.

My solicitor will give updates and we've gone from offer to completion in 6 weeks but just doing purchase of a vacant property so no chain.

I'm struck that a pp thinks that asking for window guarantees and electrical certificates is standard. An organised seller will provide these when they complete the forms and if the buyer's solicitor then asks for them without reviewing the file that's stupid and pointless.