How long is a chain free sale taking?

[IloveSooty424]

We’re FTBs and had an offer accepted on a house this week. We found out today that our seller is chain free. How long are chain free sales taking if you’ve sold/bought recently? We’d ideally like to move into our new house during the school summer holidays. It that realistic? Thanks.

Solicitors and Conveyencers are snowed under trying to finalise completions for end of June. Once that date passes I think some will be less busy so less waiting times.

We went from offer to completion in 7 weeks (completed earlier this month), included a mortgage at our end. Searches and bank holidays slowed us down. You have to be on it though.

Lots of factors to consider, a friends council searchs have an estimated 18 week wait... we're in a different council area and it was 3 weeks.

16 weeks - capacity of Solicitors/lead times for some of the searches.

As PPs have shown it varies. But what you can do to increase your chances of a fast pace is, let your EA know and ask them for recommendations of which solicitors are good at quick turn around. Also, your FA let them know too and they will know which mortgage lenders tend to be quick and which are awkward, and importantly, any piece of info required from you, turn it around same day. Ask solicitor to communicate via email.

In my experience, some solicitors dictate letters, they think they are in the post, but have actually been stuck in a typing queue for 1 week waiting to go via royal mail. If both solicitors operate like this then timescales stretch out.

Mine took 24 days from instructing solicitor to sale BUT I already had mortgage offer in place and that took another 2ish. So I'd say 5/6 weeks total

Mine was under 3 months and we had Christmas in the middle.

It’s just taken us exactly 4 months to sell our flat Tina first time buyer (offer accepted 1st Feb, completed 1st June) with us moving in with family. Their solicitor was very slow!

DD1s offer was accepted about 6 weeks ago. She’s expecting to complete in around 3 weeks. It’s been ridiculously quick. She’s a FTB and he has no chain. The house is virtually new though-he’s only been in it for about 6 months. Nothing dodgy about the house; (my worry!!) he inherited some money and decided to buy something bigger.