How long does the house buying process take?

[floatsomeandjetsum]

We've had an offer accepted on a house. We've instructed solicitors and all is well.

A small mortgage is needed but I have this in hand.

No chain on either side.

The estate agent said to expect it to take 4-6 months to complete. Is that normal?

We're keen to crack on, as is the vendor.

We had the offer accepted first week of December and moved in on the 28th Feb. Just under 12 weeks. This was just before lockdown.

With no chain I have exchanged in as little as 9 weeks and as long as 22 weeks. A lot depends on speed of solicitor and speed of searches.

4-6 months sounds right, depending on the chain, we moved just over a year ago, four in chain, all purchasing cash from sale, still took 4.5 mths.

We went from offer to keys in six weeks, with getting a mortgage. We could have been in a week faster but we delayed a week for cash flow reasons.

Depends.
1st house was two months
2nd house they pulled out on exchange day so that took over a year in the end.
3rd. Took 2 and a half months.

The actual answer is no one knows. It depends what gets thrown up during the whole process

We offered beginning of November and are still waiting for one person in the chain to be ready. If it wasn't for that person we would have been moved in around 12 weeks it's looking more like 6 months....

We put in an offer on a house about 3 weeks, just us & the vendor in the chain (probate property), and we're not applying for a mortgage. Estate agent & sol have both said to still expect it to take around 12 to 14 weeks for completion.

We had our offer accepted on 2 July and completed on 1 October. This was with a mortgage, but no chain (we were moving from a flat that we were renting). It was in 2020, so during Covid, but when things had opened up a lot, so we didn't experience too many delays.

@Asdf12345

We went from offer to keys in six weeks, with getting a mortgage. We could have been in a week faster but we delayed a week for cash flow reasons.

Wow!!! That's impressive.

Thanks very much all 👍🏻

We went from offer to completion in just under 5 months in similar circumstances, but probably could have been more like 2.5 months. We both wanted to push completion until well after Christmas, so waited an extra month and a half or so.

Offer accepted week before Christmas and hoping to complete end of march.
No chain either side.

We could have done it a couple of weeks earlier but sellers wanted to wait a couple of weeks

that sounds like a long time with no chain. My last purchase was offer accepted on bonfire night and moved in on 23rd Jan. (pre-covid)

Ours took six months. Even then the Exchange date was delayed to a couple of days before completion.

We discovered the solicitors were taking ages to pass questions and answers on. It all sped up when us and the vendors started talking directly to each other and badgering the solicitors as we knew they had the answers to the questions...

This was during the stamp duty holiday. I don't blame the solicitors for taking on as much work as possible, but they were overloaded and it showed!

Ours was 8 weeks. Us moving from rented needing a mortgage. House was empty.

So literally just us buying an empty house. 8 weeks was the time it took to do the paperwork. We found that solicitors take a lot of holidays!

So if you're a cash buyer, buying a new build from Bellway for example, it could still take months!? (Renter, never bought or sold a house so this is fascinating to me...!)

Offer to keys, May to November. Cash purchase, no chain. Problems with boundary. Needed Land Registry to resolve.
(Pre Covid)

I can't remember exactly as it was a while ago but in the order of 6-8 weeks with no chain at either side.

When a dd and SiL were buying their first house, and were in an expensive short term rental, I told them to expect 3 months.

So it was a real turn up when from offer accepted to getting the keys was exactly 6 weeks. They did use the in-house solicitor (new area and no other recommendations locally) ditto the mortgage broker* though, and although I’d never previously have thought it a good idea, I have to assume that helped speed it up - obviously they all wanted their cuts asap.

*but only after dd had found exactly the same deal online for rather less in fees, and he said he’d match it.,

I used to be a legal assistant doing conveyancing. I would say that with no chain, if everything is done as promptly as possible with no problems or further queries it should be 6 - 8 weeks. For example, while your sellers solicitors are preparing the draft contract and property information forms you could be finalising your mortgage offer and any valuation. When contract papers are received, your solicitors apply for any searches promptly - these used to take about 14 days. During this time any queries by you from the papers could be raised and hopefully answered. Then when the searches are back, if everyone happy and no further queries arise from them exchange and completion dates can be discussed. Usually about another 2 weeks. When there is a chain this process is magnified so usually takes longer. Because I worked for one solicitor I would say we were able to prepare and prioritise and get things done a bit quicker than usual too. Sorry if this is too much information!