How quick can we move in?

[SheldonSaysSo1]

We had an offer accepted on our new house a week ago (first time buyers). There is no chain as we live with relatives and it is a new build (already completed). Roughly how long will it take until we can move in? We have a rough goal we are working towards but I'd love to know from people more experienced how long it takes (and how to speed things up!)

We exchanged and completed in 6 weeks when we were FTB. That was very quick. If you aim for about 3 months then you should be ok. Depends on how quick your solicitor is, how quick the sellers solicitors are etc...... also keep pushing your solicitor. It would be quicker to use a local solicitor than one of the cheap online conveyances. More expensive than online but worth it if you want to move quickly.

For me... FTF buyer, no chain, already empty property, new house so nothing on the survey. 12 weeks.

New as in just a few years old, not new as in brand new

I’m sure we were only about 6 weeks from offering to moving in! Possibly even less. It was an empty property as well.

Wow these are really quick! That would be great if we could aim for about 6 weeks.

one sticking point is often the searches; councils move as fast as they want to, and will be short staffed/struggling at the moment. There's not a lot to be done to speed that up. (Assuming this applies to new builds....)

make sure you do the snagging and have guarantees. New builds are not famed for their quality.

Ours was 10 weeks, however it was in December so we lost a couple of weeks for Christmas

It was written into the contract of our new build reservation that we would exchange within 6 weeks. It went to the wire, but our good local solicitor worked over the weekend to make sure it all came together in time.

I've just accepted an offer from a FTB and the property I'm moving to is empty. I mentioned to the estate agent I'd like to be done within 12 weeks (I had a previous sale fall through, the mortgage and survey on my new place is all complete)

She said there are no guarantees because of back logs and it depends on solicitors. Would be more like 4 months than 3. I'm hoping though!

Congratulations though 🥳

You'll need to factor in the time it will take you to find a solicitor and provide them your ID etc so they can open a file, take some money from you to put in the searches etc (though the developer may have current searches available in a data room). Then it depends how quickly you get your mortgage offer through as you'll want to have that when you exchange.

If you find a couple of solicitors they suggest, feel free to pm me!

Is the developer suggesting lawyers or do the estate agents know which solicitors some of the other buyers have used - there's a difference between being used to use someone useless and speeding up the process if you use someone who's already been through the paperwork.

PS: a poster has put a very helpful message on a thread from yesterday (about new builds and incentives) about getting a snagging company round. That's a really sensible thing to do as the property is completed (so you have the upper hand) - you'll need to pay for the report but should then say that you want the items dealt with before exchange or as a condition of completion. The snagging firm may pick out a few things which aren't "proper snagging" but you'll want all the proper stuff dealt with.

I was a FTB buying a chain free property with mortgage all arranged and it still took 12 weeks. Solicitors, sellers, searchers etc can all be a bit slow even if a quick sale is agreed!