Hoping to exchange today - what time is too late?

[SoapyBubbl]

Asking here to avoid disrupting my solicitor in the middle of things :)

We are hoping to exchange today, we are in the middleish of a chain of 7 houses. I've spoken to my solicitor this morning and apparently everyone is on board to exchange today - but I know nothing is definite until it's done. Just wondering at what point I should give up hope and accept it won't be today - could we still exchange past 4pm?

Also what is it possible that some of the chain ends up exchanging today and some tomorrow?? Just wondering really, it's a spot I problem to exchange tomorrow...

Give your solicitor a call!

Good luck

You can exchange up until the time the first solicitors office closes e.g. 5.15pm. You all have to exchange on the same day.

I suspect if you haven't exchanged by now then you are probably not going to manage it today to be honest. Sorry.

Dp moved people a couple of weeks ago who got keys at 5pm. On a Friday

Mine exchanged at 5.45pm- i was not amused.

Being told the solicitior had gone home at 5pm (this was also a friday), he was actually on the toilet

Phone them - i bugged the crap out of them- your paying them

Ach I just heard there is a problem. The buyer at the bottom hasn't gotten their deposit to the solicitor 😩 apparently this is now underway but funds might not clear until Thursday. This isn't really a problem but it is frustrating!

With a chain of 7, it's something of a logistical challenge.

Bugging the crap out of your own solicitor is likely to be pointless if one of the other solicitors is unavailable for one reason or another.

Any luck?

Due to a problem at the bottom of the chain we are now aiming to exchange Thursday but apparently our mortgage lender (YBS) require 6 days notice to release the funds and that means 6 days between exchange and completion which would bring us to the following Friday BUT our vendor refuses to complete on a Friday due to previous bad experiences SO it's looking like Monday 10th - I'm yet to hear whether this date has been accepted by the whole chain.

It's pretty frustrating to be so close!

people always forget they have to pay the deposit on exchange

A friend of mine the buyers actually didn't have the deposit^ (if you can believe it...

They had gone through the motions, getting the mortgage, etc etc, telling everyone they had the £40k required and seemed to think they could get a loan for the £40k.... they then (surprise surprise) had problems and had to borrow from family.

I think that put the exchange date back 4 weeks!

How annoying - based on anecdotal evidence, this happens quite a bit. The bottom of the chain are likely to be the only ones having to actually transfer funds.

Wouldn't they rather have the weekend to get straight in their new place though? Depends how long the chain is I suppose. Nothing to stop them packing up the day before.

I know I was thinking how it could happen, assuming they knew they would have to provide 10% or whatever it is do you think they thought it wasn't needed until completion? Or maybe they didn't realise it would require more than reading out a debit card number?

As for the couple that didn't actually have a deposit isn't that the sort of thing the estate agents are supposed to check? Also isn't the solicitor supposed to nail down where the deposit is coming from in case of fraud/money laundering??

RE not completing on a Friday they say they've had a problem in the past being near the top of a chain whereby delays lower down the chain meant it took too long on completion day and they didn't manage to get completed and had to wait in limbo for the whole weekend???

I normally wouldn't be in the least bothered about completing on a Friday - issues on completion day are frightfully rare, but a chain of 7 might get me a bit twitchy.

It doesn't matter to me which day it is, and much as I want to move I don't actually mind when as long as it's at least week or so before Christmas BUT I am longing to exchange, the market is gittery at the moment and our existing house is niche - until exchange nothing is certain!!

oh OP I feel for you.

how can people forget about deposits? Handing over that huge chunk of cash is the most anxiety inducing bit!!

As for the couple that didn't actually have a deposit confused isn't that the sort of thing the estate agents are supposed to check?

Do they not have a deposit, or have they just been tardy in getting it in to their solicitor's account? A decent EA would hopefully be on top of this, making buyers aware of what is required and when, sadly a lot of EAs are useless.

mildura the ones in our chain they are just late getting the deposit in - apparently their solicitor didn't advise them when it would be needed... but I was referencing the buyer mentioned by a previous posted who apparently genuinely didn't have the promised 40k deposit and messed everyone about.

Ah! Got you.
Hope you get sorted soon.

We had a similar issue with the bottom of our chain. Turned out they had taken in a cheque, which of course had to be cleared funds before it could be used lol. Your solicitor should be able to request to draw down the funds for completion a little early. If you don't end up exchanging then it will be returned & there is a charge for that, but its not a fortune. If they request funds first thing in the morning then depending on how they work out the 6 days (if its working days or if day 1 counts) then you could look to agreeing to complete next Weds or Thursday. I complete next Thursday myself. Its a good day to aim for & gives you a buffer of the extra day should things go wrong. We exchanged on ours at 435pm btw.

We were in a chain of three and our vendor's solicitor held everything up on completion day by going out for lunch and not confirming they had the funds until 2pm when he got back. Thanks for that pal! Our house sold at 11.30am. We sat in a cafe joking we were rich but homeless. The annoying thing was that the house we were buying was empty (ish - apart from all the sodding furniture they'd left) as their stuff had gone into storage the day before.

For those asking, the couple in question had told (and confirmed) with the EA, Solicitor etc that they had the money in a foreign bank account for immediate transfer.

They were not of British origin and obfuscated by using their nationality and lack of English as an excuse....

Its such a rollercoaster time 😩 I've heard from the estate agent that the bottom of the chain have got their deposit sorted and ready to exchange today but haven't heard anything official from the solicitor so I'm still assuming it will be tomorrow.

Meanwhile the top of the chain have requested that if completion can't be next week as planned it is pushed back for a full two weeks for whatever reason. I'm ok with this but need to confirm if the rest of the chain is.

We didn't hear much until 3pm the day we moved, we eventually completed at 3.45 and got the keys at 4. Removal vans were full and ready to go, it was a long stressful day but we still made it to our new local pub for something to eat at 9.30 that night.
I'm in no hurry to do it again.

In my previous house, exchange & completion took place same day as "that's just the way they (large online only conveyancing firm) did things", which they didn't tell me until I was chasing exchange the day I was expecting it. Didn't exchange and complete until 5pm 4 days later and couldn't arrange removal til completion date confirmed. Never, ever again. No chain thankfully.

We finally exchanged, it was a saga of course. Anyway fwiw we actually exchanged today at 16:20. I was starting to give up hope!