Exchange & complete on the same day

[LuckyMoonstone]

I need positive stories please, I’m too stressed to hear about how it’s probably all going to go tits up.
Completion agreed a couple of weeks ago for tomorrow, everyone in the chain (only 3 of us) agreed. Exchange was supposed to be last Wednesday, our buyer wasn’t ready (they’ve dragged their feet through the whole bloody process). So with the bank holidays that took us to today. Still not happened. So EVERYTHING has to be done tomorrow. I’m so worried and stressed that we won’t be moving tomorrow. It will cause such a problem for us. Work has been booked off/reorganised, childcare for our toddler is arranged, a van has been hired. Please tell me this isn’t going to be a disaster.

I exchanged and completed on my first home. It went really smoothly for the most part. Hardest bit was we didnt get the keys till 5PM as it took an age for the money transfer to be confirmed by our sellers solicitor so the actual move was crazy and went well into the night.

Well I can't say about your case but it happened to us

Furniture moved to storage ( ready to be pulled out if it all went wrong and we had to go back on market ) and us sitting in car in driveway till 4 in the afternoon when finally sale was confirmed

Stress beyond belief

Do you know why ? In our case out cash buyers actually didn't have the cash for the deposit

Not recommended but can work out

Our buyer is waiting for mortgage Company to confirm release of funds, and also for some money to be cleared from their Help To Buy ISA, or something like that anyway. That was the last update I had at 3pm today. I’m so fucking worried I could cry. The house we are buying is empty, current owner already elsewhere so at least we aren’t holding him up. But like I said we’ve got all this work/childcare/help arranged and this will massively fuck it all up if we can’t move tomorrow. I literally don’t care if we don’t get the keys until 5pm on the dot.

Has the mortgage company confirmed the funds are released or will be released tomorrow?

@IrisVersicolor no idea, I’m gonna have to ring our solicitor first thing in the morning and find out what’s what. I was so excited for tomorrow and now I’m stressed out.

We recently exchanged and completed on the same day. I think we exchanged contracts around 11am and had completed by around 12 or 1pm and had the keys at around 2:30pm. It was so stressful as I had been told all week we were ready to exchange, with completion set for the Friday. Emailed our solicitor after work on Thursday afternoon to see what was happening and found out he was off the next day and hadn’t told us what was happening at all. But all went through the next morning so it can happen!

@BalanceNotSymmetry thank you that gives me a bit of hope!

I am in the same position now.
Should have exchanged last Friday to move this Friday.... we are still waiting and are currently discussing a simultaneous exchange and complete.
How do you book a van not knowing if you'll actually move??

It is such a bad idea to exchange and complete on the same day. If your buyer pulls out, you have no redress, if you have exchanged you have their deposit. Last time we sold ( 2021) our buyers tried to do simultaneous ex/com, we just said no. We got four days ( including a weekend). The extra time was very useful.

Simultaneous exchange/complete can also delay exchange - as you can’t exchange until you’re ready to complete.

Eugh we did this 8 weeks ago and it was awful our whole house was loaded up on the van before we'd even exchanged let alone completed. Most stressful 2 hours of my life just waiting to see if we "could" exchange on that day 😱😱 I would never do it that way again or recommend it personally xx

But obviously it did all go through, we got the keys at around 3pm xx

Our last sale was exchange and complete same day but there was no chain and the buyer was cash. All sorted within about an hour. I’m guessing that’s not likely the norm though and no chain and ready funds was the key.