Current timescales for house buying...

[Sorryusernamealreadyexists]

Hi there! We’ve been given a very optimistic timescale from our solicitors of 6-8 weeks! Mortgage advisor is saying roughly 12-16 weeks?

We are first time buyers buying the house we are currently renting, deposit in place and ready as we could ever be! No estate agent involved, landlord isn’t buying another property

I was wondering how realistic the timescales are? Our solicitors seem very keen to get things moving, and we’ve had replies in the evenings etc

If there's no onward chain (as it seems!) then you could well do it in line with your mortgage company's time frame as you will need both solicitor and mortgage processes to end in order to complete. Our situation is the other way around - mortgage lenders estimate currently is 4-6 weeks, but we are in the middle of a 3 house chain and the people buying our house are first time buyers and they've been told their mortgage will take much longer to arrange so we have to be led by their timescales! When we were in the same situation as you 7 years ago we completed in 10 weeks (due largely to me badgering the agents and solicitors!) We were told that was quick.

Have you had / are you having a survey? That often holds things up - the mortgage co look at it, may want work doing or a retention, or further reports e.g damp.

But their timescale is probably for most chains, and you aren't in a chain - while solicitors don't always live in the real world (based on my recent house move, and the ones before that), so probably somewhere between the two.

But if your solicitor acts fast and the mortgage co don't act extremely slow, and if there are no survey issues, 8 weeks is not unreasonable.

Is your solicitor doing searches? They take 6 weeks to come back in some areas.

Solicitor is doing the searches, and we are not having the house surveyed (OH is a builder) and we’ve lived here for a long time

The mortgage lender will require a Homebuyers report, though, surely? They usually have that done as part of the valuation.

Took my daughter nearly 4 months to sell a flat in London(no chain either side) and 10 working days to get to a binding legal contract in Scotland. Moved in 3 weeks after starting legal process up hete
Something needs to speed up in England.
In Scotland searches are available online so immediate.

There will be a mortgage valuation survey, sorry should have specified

I accepted an offer on my flat early Feb and we aim to complete mid April. With flats it's the management pack that often holds things up but mine are efficient at getting them out.
I'm buying a house and offer accepted mid Feb. No mortgage and survey next week with post survey meeting. It will just be my sale (of my main house, not the flat mentioned above) that may hold things up but if searches come back soon then I could go April/May too if the lawyers are prompt with answers to enquiries. My buyers though are buying under special circumstances and everything has to be approved by a separate lawyer (so three quotes for conveyancer, surveyor etc). That has delayed things do far (also laid back attitude- my estate agent had to prompt them about the survey after I asked why it hadn't been booked).
I'd ask why the mortgage guy thinks it will take that long if searches and survey are back well before that.

Offer accepted 1st September, exchanged Yesterday?! 3 house chain, we (bottom of chain) moved in with parents to speed things up. Well and truly fed up now

Really quick and simple house sale here. Survey within 1 week of offer, mortgage offer v quick, searches returned within 4 weeks. No enquiries from buyer, everyone returned paperwork swiftly etc etc.
Still took 3.5 months.