Sloth like solicitors. How much to chase?

[DotTheCaddy]

We are at the stage where all our searches are done, responses to enquires received, mortgages are sorted, contracts signed etc but WE STILL DON'T HAVE A DATE TO EXCHANGE.

How much is reasonable to chase them for exchange now? There seems to have been no movement for over a week and frankly I'm getting pissed ooooff.

I really want to move in the next few weeks!! Grrr.

Feel your pain. We are supposedly exchanging today.... waiting for the call currently!!

In my experience unless you push you won't get a date. In the end I spoke to our agent who liaised with the others in our (short) chain and we decided on a date to aim for and then we just told the solicitors what we wanted.

I dread to think how much longer it would have dragged on for otherwise to be honest!

Good luck!

Oh god how tense!! Fingers crossed for you.

Our agent has turned out to be beyond useless unfortunately. Shes a nightmare to get hold of.

I will keep on at them from now on then, thanks

Are you in a chain? If so it will need everyone to be ready to exchange, in my experience no date is "set" for exchange of contracts, it is just done when everyone is ready.
I never understand what the hold up is - Solicitors don't get paid until completion and so it is in their absolute interests to keep things moving.
I know they are very busy though, we got turned away by one firm because they are too busy to take on new clients.

Frustrating though!

Ask what’s holding it up.

We are in a chain (FTBers buying our buyers place and our vendor has no onward purchase so its fairly short) Everyone is ready apparently, or so our EA tells us.

No answer from their office so I've emailed.

@Werk Yeah I thought that may be the case. Trying to keep my emails super polite so they dont stick us to the bottom of their pile.

Call, every day! That's what I did when things ground to a halt for no apparent reason. They soon got a wiggle on as I think they just wanted to be shot of me.

I would call every day. Twice if you need to. They soon get suck of it and sort it out.

I remember our solicitor talking about the volume of clients they handled, high volume which I bet slows it down.

But still, good to email, sometimes it’s the load of getting through it.

@DotTheCaddy (great username btw).

1. Do not believe the EA. They will want you doing their job by chasing up, plus they will only really know about your sale, not the rest of the chain. They want you to exchange more than you do and they probably wanted it to happen today so they could "book it in" for their end of month figures.
2. Ring, don't email. I am in the legal world (not conveyancing) and for many email is treated like post and is not considered urgent (annoying if there is no answer though).
3. Ask why they have not exchanged - if you have premier property lawyers or someone of their ilk in the chain there is always a delay because the file gets handed over from the call centre file handler to the one qualified person in the building to check before it can exchange.

You are their client, call them every day!

Well we managed to exchange today on the dot of 5! It only happened as a result of relentless chasing though so keep at it!

Thanks all. DH going to phone again this morning as I've got a few work meetings. We had the EA on the phone chasing it up last night so our buyer is definitely ready.

Congrats @Hoviscats that's brilliant news! I hope we wont be too far behind you.