Searches not yet requested - odds of completing before SDLT holiday?

[SheWouldNever]

What do you reckon? I think it’s very slim odds, husband thinks we’re in with a good chance.

We are selling and buying. Things are a bit further ahead with our sale, enquiries / searches just been raised. Waiting for contents and fittings forms from our seller so looking like searches won’t be able to be raised until the new year. Buildings survey booked for early Jan and should be written up by mid Jan.

Is there anything else we could / should be doing this side of Christmas to help move things along? I think the bulk of our conveyancing is going to happen in jan / feb so going to be right up against the wire and doesn’t look like the government plan to extend or taper the stamp duty relief for those underway with purchases.

You can ask your solicitor to apply for searches on your purchase today if you wanted to.

There's nothing in the fixtures and fittings form that has any impact on the searches.

All the solicitor needs is the address of the property and a copy of the Land Registry title and plan to show exactly what is being purchased. The title and plan can be downloaded from the LR site for £6.

Some local authorities take 12 days to give search results, others will be 12 weeks, most somewhere in the middle.

Thanks @Mildura, that’s useful to know. Our solicitor said he’s waiting on contract documents from our seller, I assumed those were the property forms etc but maybe he needs something else to proceed. I will check with him if he is able to raise searches now.

I asked our solicitor if he knows how long searches are taking in our LA but he didn’t answer.

Solicitors generally prefer to receive what's referred to as the 'draft contract package' from the vendor's solicitor before doing anything, as the arrival of these documents indicates the seller is getting on with things and has instructed the solicitor to proceed. This can avoid them wasting their own time and their client's money.

But it is not absolutely essential.

Some local authorities display on their website how long they are taking to return local searches. Try Googling the name of your local authority followed by 'Local Land Charges' and see whether anything comes up.

Which local authority is it? Fingers crossed it isn't Hackney as they had their IT hacked and can't get searches back for weeks and weeks......

Yeah, that's a nightmare.

I've got a client re-mortgaging their present home in borough of Hackney to buy something with me and they've been told 170 days for search results to come back!

The solicitor doesn't need anything to do the searches. In fact I've heard of some people doing the searches on their own houses in advance of going on the market and passing the cost to the buyer. As the info is provided by the council there shouldn't be a problem (as opposed to getting your own house surveyed, which may not be acceotable).
But you are coming up to Christmas and that in itself could delay things up to two weeks.

If it's Pembrokeshire, definitely not. Over 8 weeks to get them back in October, and I can't imagine things have improved! Good luck.

The LA is Bromley. Don’t think they are advertising timeframes online.

Over 95% of searches are returned on the same or next working day as received

www.bromley.gov.uk/info/672/local_land_charges/102/local_authority_searches

I would ask the estate agent to chase their vendor and the vendor's solicitor.

My solicitor wrote to me to say he'd not had any contact at all for over five weeks with the vendor's solicitor - it's taken me two weeks to find out the file hadn't been actioned at all, the vendor's solicitor has tested positive. I instructed my solicitor on 28 October, nothing has happened on the seller's side at all, it's now eight weeks.

@Salome61oh goodness what a huge delay, hope it all moves faster for you now. I’m checking in with the solicitor and estate agents every 10 days or so.

@Mildura thanks! How did I miss that bit?! 😂 Read that page earlier. That’s good news.

I think you have a good chance and biggest risk is survey.

I would check in once a week or so with solicitor / EA - what I do is I send a weekly update to EA / solicitor and they send one back. This has caught a few issues and also told me things.

I would have a think about what might show up on survey and see if there's anything you can do there - they normally say about gas and electricity, have you got certificates. Any sign of damp anywhere, any unfinished DIY. If your guttering hasn't been cleared for ages maybe worth considering getting that done as that will often flag.

Our searches were said to take 31 working days but came back in around 15 working days. We had offer agreed end Oct, searches ordered end Nov, back yesterday and looking to exchange pre Xmas with completion mid Jan so it can move at a reasonable pace. Lots of things are being cancelled though - surveyor was 3 times, EPC twice, electrician twice.

@SilkiesnowchicksandXmastreecat good tips, thanks. Our buyers haven't booked a survey yet for here, I'm getting the EA to chase them on that because when we booked our survey we were told approx 5 week wait time before there would be availability.

Regarding our current property that we are selling, we fully renovated 5 years ago including rewire and new heating system and have all the certificates for that. Gutters were cleared last month.

Fingers crossed you get your pre-Christmas exchange date.

That sounds good. We also had to get EPC done if you've not got that already, got the boiler serviced (asked for last 12 months). We had EICR for electricity and repairs done but no point with that if you have electrics 5 years ago and certs. If there's any building regs / planning certs you need and not yet supplied worth getting those in order though sounds like that's done already.

I really hope we can exchange pre Christmas though not sure who made that date whether the buyer just saying it or they've checked with solicitors, our solicitor said OK but ours is sale only.

Very slim.

As PP have said, the current focus is on the in by Christmas clients. Organised chaos best describes it right now.

Most firms already have lots of clients who are trying to beat the SDLT deadline.