Solicitors not updating us?

[Sallymads]

We had our offer accepted on our forever home way back in mid June, conveyancer has been instructed since the off.
We’re really starting to lose patience now, we exchanged contracts over a month ago roughly 5-6 weeks, the conveyancer never updates us and when we call ourselves, they keep saying 2 weeks to complete. Had a missed call from the estate agents on Wednesday and finally got hold of them today- apparently our solicitor has contacted the vendors solicitor saying the lender won’t mortgage the property because of the EPC rating? But we’ve already got our mortgage offer? Why hasn’t our conveyancer informed us about this?? They never update us about anything! It was only last Friday they said 2 weeks to complete-again! Chased them up and surprise they’re not in today, there’s no updates except the drain search came back two days ago- all of which we thought were done. Also there are 5 unanswered questions sent from conveyancer to the vendor which they won’t tell us what they are? Is this standard practise? The vendors are getting really panicky now, as are we! :( sorry for the rant!

Can you contact your mortgage lender and see what their policy is on EPC? If they have let the solicitor know they have withdrawn the offer they can tell you!

OP, unless something really, really odd is going on, you can't have exchanged if the enquiries are ongoing.

Assuming you haven't.......... the mortgage offer will come with various conditions which the solicitor needs to check albeit most are reasonably standard. The mortgage company probably won't know what the EPC rating is but there might be a condition to say it has to be no worse than X.

The enquiries are likely to be boring but (hopefully....) necessary and fairly standard. It's fine to ask to be sent a copy of the enquiries but equally, if it's the seller's side which hasn't answered them, you may be better advised to get the agents to chase the seller to chase for them to be answered.

As PP said this is very odd. You need to have a completion date agreed before you exchange and you must be completely ready to buy, i.e. all enquiries done and mortgage offer secure.

You need your lender's approval to exchange so you can't have exchanged if they are still asking questions. There are penalties for not completing on the agreed date after exchange and if you can't buy at all then you lose your 10% deposit.

As a general rule, I feel most solicitors need nudging to do anything. So call and email and generally make a nuisance of yourself. You will get updates then. Do not think no news is good news. Or if there's a problem they will contact me. Most solicitors deal with the clients who are hassling them. At least that has always been my experience. Ask for updates at a minimum of every week. If you are nearer the end, then likely pester daily.

…it doesn’t sound like you have exchanged?

Update! We definitely exchanged and we completed the day after this thread wooo🥳