How long is our chain?

[Toon49]

We have sold our house to first time buyers and had an offer accepted on our new house. We are in a chain with 4 houses including ours. We have never been in a chain before. Is this a long chain or fairly average?
Obviously lots of variables but does it usually take a long time for the chain to complete, I'd imagine it's longer getting 4 solicitors to get everything sorted! I know lots could potentially go wrong and fall through the more houses in the chain! We aren't in a rush but would be good to have an idea!
Does everyone then exchange on the same day?
Thanks for any help!

I can't help you much but we're in exactly the same position as you. Yes you all exchange and complete on the same day. Currently I think the houses up our chain are a little behind us as they accepted their offers a little later.

Thanks just have to hope all sales go smoothly really don't we!

In our chain is

A first time buyer, our buyer, us, our vendor, our vendors vendor.

So 4 houses but 5 people.

Ours has took 16 weeks from offer accepted to completion.

We were all ready for 5 weeks, the first time buyer held the rest of the chain up!

How long is a piece of string? Honestly it could go on for many weeks or many months.

Longest we’ve been in is 13 ... we
Were 12th

On our first house we had a chain of 4 or 5. Our offer was accepted in January, we were ready in April, the chain completed in June and we all moved in July.

On our second house there was 3, FTB and we were moving to an empty property and it took 3 months.

*Does everyone exchange on the same day?
*
I believe it's common to do so. If you are relying on funds from a sale to fund your purchase you need your sale to exchange before your purchase. If you exchanged on your sale, then your purchase fell through you would have to find somewhere else to live by completion date. If you exchanged on your purchase but not your sale and your buyers pulled out you would still need to buy the property (or face hefty fees) but would have no money from your sale (unless you had the money already and then you would own two properties).

When we completed recently the money moves up the chain, so FTB sols pass their money on to our solicitor then our solicitor passes the money on to our sellers solicitor. Completion of our property happened so legally it was the new owners but then our solicitors went off for lunch so it was a few hours before our sellers solicitor received our money so we could get the keys and move in! I can't imagine how long the top of the PP chain of 12 had to wait for!

We had the same length chain and it was 17 weeks from our offer to completion, obviously a few weeks longer for the 2 parties below us in the chain as they made their offers before us. If there are leasehold properties in the chain it generally takes a bit longer as you have to wait for the management pack and the solicitor has to investigate the lease.

All parties will exchange and complete at the same time, so if one party has a delay then everyone will have to wait for them.