Searches during covid times

[Foreverlexicon]

Hi,
Just wondering what people’s experiences are in how long searches are taking to come back at the moment?

Just found out vendors are willing to move into rented to avoid losing the chain and now wondering if we have any hope of meeting the stamp duty deadline.

It really depends on your council. Where are you buying?

Greenwich took 28 working days for us.

Can you ask the estate agent? We were viewing a place a few weeks ago and were told it's 12-16 weeks here (but we have been publicised as having the slowest searches in the country so yours are likely to be much better!)

go.mumsnet.com/?xs=1&id=470X1554755&url=search-acumen.co.uk/covid-19-coronavirus

You may find this helpful.

mine and my buyers were both around a month in (neighbouring) London boroughs

@Dogsandbabies

That’s excellent thank you!
By that, it’s saying 34 working days which takes us to the end of May so we might just be able to squeeze it through?!

Is it reasonable to complete within a month of the searches being done as long as it all comes back okay?

If everything is done pre-exchange on the assumption that the search won't throw up anything odd - and it doesn't - you should be able to exchange within a couple of days of the search coming back. It then depends how much time everyone wants between exchange and completion.

The search times are estimates - some
councils seem to quote their slowest
time with most coming back sooner,
some do it the other way round which is less helpful.

We did. And we were in a chain of 4. Searches came back with some queries too and we still exchanges 2 weeks later and completed a week after that.

About four weeks. After that it depends on the enquiries raised and how long it takes to answer them. Take it survey all done and all fine? Lucky your vendor will move into rental - mine is saying no despite me offering cash incentive.

Survey booked for Monday - not letting myself get excited until that’s done as the last one had subsidence and we had to pull out 😬

Thanks all - solicitor seems to think searches will be back by start of May and vendor’s estate agent also thinks we have ample time and said the vendors already assumed we would want to be in before the deadline so fingers crossed!