Enquiries

[helenlois]

Last October my husband and I accepted an offer on our shared ownership flat in London which is almost 6 years old.

All had gone as planned up until one week ago when our buyers solicitor sent over 200 enquiries to our solicitor to answer. We are unsure why this many as the property is new, passed all the previous checks they do and we've been told the buyer is super keen to move in.

We have never sold a property before. Is this a normal amount of enquiries?

Also is it the buyer who agrees or asks for the enquiries to be sent with the solicitors help?

Does anyone know how long this many enquiries can take to answer? I'm aware that it is also dependent on many factors.

We have paid a deposit for our son to go to nursery where we are hoping to move to and don't want him to lose his place which he may do if it takes many weeks/months to complete.

Thank you.

it's usually the solicitor who asks the question, many of which you'll be able to answer quickly. 200 does seem like a lot though, but if you don't have an answer to a question, don't be afraid to just reply with "I don't know"!

My solicitor raised about 22/23 in October/November for the house we’re buying and we’ve only just got to the stage where there is 1 outstanding. The solicitors for our buyers raised about 17 which were answered fairly quickly. It largely depends on the nature of the enquiries and how good the conveyancers are.

I work for a conveyancing solicitor and have not seen 200 enquiries raised on one transaction in the 9 years I have worked there. There will probably be some for you to answer, but a lot will be about the shared ownership and leasehold nature of the property, which will be answered by the Managing Agents/freeholder in the management pack.

With that many enquiries, you are nowhere near exchanging unfortunately.

I had a brief break from the construction industry and worked in a conveyancers... 200 is loads but given that, no word of a lie, an enquiry we had raised on a 6th floor flat was “please can you confirm there is no conservatory” and a lot literally asking the whole PIF form again, it may be plausible that information they already have is making up the questions (which is very frustrating!)

Sounds like the buyer's solicitors have emptied every possible additional enquiry from their precedent book. If you've filled in the "Property Information Form", I'd ask your solicitor to send the enquiries back and say that you'll only deal with genuine relevant enquiries. I've done this with the random 11 pages of the kitchen sink type enquiries. You'll definitely have to answer some but that number is (a) crazy, (b) invariably unnecessary: and (c) wasting time.