Buying a house - how often do you chase?

[Rottie454]

I'm in the middle of purchasing a house after having to pull out of two previously and it drives me insane that nothing gets done until you chase! How often did/do you chase estate agent/solicitor/mortgage advisor? I don't want to keep pestering them as I know it takes time but equally nothing seems to get done until I do and I've heard people say they've completed in 4-6 weeks as they constantly chased.

4-6 weeks is remarkably quick, possible in some rare cases, but the average time taken is 10-12 weeks.

Are you selling as well as buying? Get your EA to do the chasing if so, that's a large part of what you're paying them for.

Remember that your solicitor quite likely has 100-150 clients they are acting for at any one time. Imagine if each client called to chase every other day.

Mildura no I don't have anything to sell. Yea this is what I thought and why I don't want to constantly hassle them but take my mortgage advisor for example. He knew we had an offer accepted on a house and two days later I asked him had he instructed the solicitor and he said he'll 'do it now'. Well what if I hadn't of emailed him when I did, when would he of actually done it? Agh so frustrating!

I'm at week 19, I chase about 4 times per day!!

Come over to the sellers/buyers thread, if you can bear to read many a tale of woe!!!

I hassled then weekly or when things where to be expected to be done by. So for example I asked my broker when he expected the mortgage offer to be confirmed then called then to check. I found calling weekly at least kept them clocking over. We still waited 6 months until we completed but that was due to further in the chain being useless and our estate agent lying to us. (Which we caught her out on since we spoke to her so much and got moved to a more senior person at the estate agents.

Why is the mortgage broker instructing your solicitor? You should be instructing the solicitor yourself.

Like pp i'm confused that your mortgage advisor is instructing the solicitor - surely you do that yourself as the solicitor is the main one you chase?? As a buyer you don't have much sway trying to chase the EA, as it's the seller that's paying them, not you. We completed in about 8 weeks as first time buyers, but your solicitor needs to be on board with your preferred timescales from the start.

Our sale has been in the process since MARCH, we've had to pull out of three properties, (we don't want to lose the sale because of various issues that could mean we wouldn't get the same amount and could be difficult to sell, hence why he haven't told the guy to bugger off)
We've been chasing them and the solicitors every couple of weeks or weekly depending on the issues going on! The guys just turned around and said we've not been pushing it enough!!!

We were just buying (selling later) and completed in 6 weeks, could have completed in 4 if my preferred solicitor had not been on holiday first 2 weeks. She's great and always use her as she's always quick and efficient. Never chase EA, told Solicitor we needed things through asap otherwise no school places (no school places given over summer) and soon as she was back she put it down as urgent. Kept in touch with her daily but just short e-mail, and husband went to collect letters from solicitors rather than posting. Didn't chase mortgage they were very quick anyway. Obviously you need to be as organised as possible too - reply same day, get deposit moved so you can transfer it next day if you want the quickest time, instruct solicitor asap and show docs asap. We've done 3 purchases, max was 8 weeks but always purchase only, unoccupied and same solicitor. Did send her a bouquet of flowers last time as she's so lovely, always checks how kids are too and didn't charge me after 5 months when one sale collapsed.

purchase only, unoccupied

That's fairly critical to getting things through swiftly.

"An army marches at the pace of its slowest man."