How long between exchange and completion?

[Madmoomoo]

Hi

We are about a week or so away from exchanging contracts. The EA that we have been buying from has pushed like mad to get a quick exchange (I think they are desperate for their commission). We were gazumped twice at the beginning of the process but managed to hold on. The problem is the sellers want a 6 week wait until completion which I think is excessive. They are old and they have a lot to organise but I still feel 6 weeks is a long wait and also I worry that a local lock down could cause potential problems. I don’t want to find ourselves in breach of contract through no fault of our own.

How long was/is your gap between exchange and completion?
Do you think 6 weeks is reasonable or am I being impatient!

Thanks

1 week

6 weeks defo not reasonable, average time is 2 weeks I believe. We wanted 1 week because I am a worrier and I didn't want anything to happen between exchange and completion. No way would I do 6 weeks - could you maybe push back the exchange date?

We are doing ours the same day! Not sure how we got into agreeing to that, but its tomorrow so fingers crossed
Yes 6 weeks does seem excessive to me. I assume they want 6 weeks so they have that time to box all their stuff up, whilst secure in the knowledge of knowing it wont all be for nothing.
In most house moves I've done the longest between exchange and completion is usually 10 working days, and the shortest will be tomorrow. All you can do is ask for it to be shortened, maybe suggest 3 weeks.
6 weeks is a long time, if anything were to happen, things that you can't even forsee could happen, and then you would be in breach of contract obviously so just ask. Good luck!

I think a couple of weeks is reasonable. It depends on how much you want the house and how desirable it is. If you insist on two weeks and they say no, will they find another buyer easily. Could you compromise at 4 weeks.

Usually 2 weeks is the norm. In this house we had 4 weeks as the seller had a daughter with SEN and he needed to make arrangements to move her care etc. 6 weeks is taking the piss I think.

One week is the norm, but due to COVID many are exchanging and completing on the same day to avoid risks such as exchanging then he owner catching CV and needing to isolate. 6 weeks is insane!

I’d agree, two weeks is the norm, six weeks just means they are being overly cautious, they don’t want to start the moving and planning until exchange in case it falls through,

You can protect yourself, have your solicitor write into the exchange contracts that if it does not go ahead due to reasons out with your control ie Covid lock down then you have no liability.

We had a prolonged exchange due to land boundary issues, our solicitor wrote into the exchange a paragraph that gave the sellers six months to get it sorted or we could pull out with no penalty and that we would be able to move in two weeks later and pay a rental till completion.

As it happened the land registry sorted it two weeks later and we completed, but the solicitor protected us, ensuring we could move in post exchange and if the issue dragged on we could walk away.

So just get your solicitor to amend the exchange documents to protect you.

They have a cash buyer in the wing that gazumped us in the early stages.
We saw the house just before lock down, put our house on the market the next day. We got an offer on ours in the first week that viewings were released. We made an offer which “they were minded to accept” we instructed solicitors but a few days later this other buyer appeared and the price jumped 45,000. We have a budget to add an extension so we delved in to that. The seller agreed to go with us if we exchange in 4 weeks.
We have another 6 working days of that to go. However the sellers have been really really slow responding to our solicitors enquiries!
So we are really keen to exchange to secure it. It is our dream forever home....and I want to move in! Soon!!!!

We’ve spoken to the solicitor about adding riders to the contact but she says we need to be really wary about doing this. It can create a backdoor for our buyer to get out of the contract.

We are hoping to exchange next week, complete end of July.
We have a Covid clause in our contract.
Our buyers wanted longer as they had to renew their rental contract in lockdown, but we want to get moving, end of July was our compromise, it will give us plenty of time to get everything sorted but it can’t come soon enough for us.

4 weeks between exchange to completion, our buyers were renting and wanted 6, as they didn’t want to pay rent and a mortgage 🤷‍♀️ We said 4 weeks as we wanted the cash.

4 weeks was plenty as where we were moving to was empty, (already owned by family) we moved out the first weekend and then had 4 weeks to clean, was a full on house clean, took us entire weekend, we did everything windows, doors, carpets, de scaled the showers topped up some paint work, was in nearly new condition.