waiting game before exchange

[Thatcrazycatlady]

anyone else in same boat? searches ordered, mortgage in place and solicitor checks done etc, no chain. We have been told 8-12 weeks from 19th July, We have been told we would get an update every Monday, our borough said 8 day turnaround for searches but not holding out much hope for this timescale haha, I literally have been eyeing up the packing boxes wanting to get stuff put into them my partner has strictly said no, he said nothing is set in stone until exchange etc so for me not to get to exited, I am so inpatient and feel like this is going to be the longest wait ever!

@Endlesslypatient82 our mortgage is approved etc, 2 days after we submitted it

Your buyers clearly was not

@Endlesslypatient82 we are not selling, not sure where you got that idea.

This is what I’m doing now. We’ve got everything sorted and ready - searches & survey complete, price negotiated based on findings, mortgage in place, etc.

We were meant to complete last week but our seller has a hold up so we haven’t even got an exchange date. I’ve thrown out so much stuff already and every week I earmark a couple more areas of our flat to tackle - by the time we move there will be hardly anything left to pack!

I'm in same position, 3 in chain, we are going to go into rented but that's a nightmare at the moment as apparently about 10-15 people for every rental property. Obviously can't lock in a rental until exchange, think I'm going to be homeless.
Keep worrying all going to collapse as buyer's solicitor is a nightmare, apparently hard to get hold of or reply to emails and not very pleasant on the phone according to my solicitor or dales progressor.
I haven't even bought any boxes as frightened to jinx it, it is horrible, surely there's a better way.

When do any of you pack your house up, do you wait for exchange or take a big chance that nothing will go wrong and just do it?

I'm packing a few things that don't matter...out of season bedding, decorative items, that sort of thing. Also I'm sorting out the garage ( eek), shed and garden.
Decluttering and trips to the tip and charity shop, on the basis that even if we didn't move in d have a much tidier house.

Not much movement here. I have been quite chilled about it so far but interactions this week with my solicitors and the vendors' solicitors have left me wanting to write a strongly worded letter to everyone telling them to a) speak to each other; b) speak to me and c) get a bloody move on. Nobody seems to have any interest in progressing the sale and part of me is tempted to start looking at other houses just in case. I don't want to cut my nose off to spite my face because the house is great but arrrrrgh.

How far has your sale/ purchase got dubyalass?

Mortgage sorted, survey done and uneventful. Main thing holding it up was a title issue but that's now allegedly resolved. Comms between my solicitors and theirs seem to be non existent unless I get stick my oar in. The vendors don't seem to be in any hurry which is fine for them as it's a probate sale, but I would quite like to be in before Christmas!

I don't have anything to sell so at least there's no stress on that front.

I didn't want to pack anything until exchange, but then my EA started saying that exchange was very near and that once we had exchanged things would move really quickly and that we should get packing. So a few weeks before presumed exchange we packed up everything we didn't need daily. I hated it because I felt like it would be so depressing unpacking everything if things went wrong, but in the end our exchange was delayed and we ended up doing a simultaneous exchange and completion and I was glad I didn't have to worry much about packing on top of all the other stress.

We exchanged an hour before completion!
Thankfully we weren't moving that day.
Our vendors had been all packed for the failed completion 2 weeks earlier, and lived out of boxes with 5 kids for 2 weeks....
Id say either book a full packing service, or start boxing the stuff you don't use once the surveys are back ok.

I'm 6 months into my second purchase, having had the first collapse after 7 months due to my vendor changing her mind.

I've been ready to exchange for ages, apparently exchange has been imminent since July...my vendors vendor had tenants in whi have only just left after they outstayed their welcome.

I need to exchange and complete by 30 September, as the extension on my current mortgage offer runs out then, and I'm not getting a new, higher rate one to buy the same house! I'd rather pull the plug. New stuff is coming to market, but vendors are being quite unrealistic with pricing, so nothing is flying off the shelves. I'm going to see a wreck tomorrow as my back up plan.

Dreadful house buying/selling system we have in UK. I have been told completion October but there's apparently still things being checked out with 3 sets of solicitors so still no idea of exchange.

We were/are going into rental but cannot even lock that in in case all goes wrong but now found somewhere to purchase we like, put offer in last Wednesday but haven't heard anything. So stressful all this waiting.

It is a truly dreadful system. We’ve been waiting two months now, completely ready to exchange. Our ‘hold up’ turned out to be the person at the top of the chain (our seller’s onward purchase) having no legal right to sell!!! They claim they’re fixing it but won’t tell anyone the details of the problem or a rough timescale and won’t speak to the estate agent. Our solicitor chases our seller’s solicitor by email twice weekly and they reply saying they’ll get an update but never so. No one seems to care except the agent who will lose two sales and get paid nothing if the chain collapses!!

I hope it all works out for you. Ours has been going on since June. I just want to start packing :(

Haha we did the living out of boxes for a while. We exchanged 15 minutes before completion! It almost didn't happen. Our normally useless solicitor decided to not be useless for once and pulled it out of the bag. We had been "ready to exchange" for over two months so about time really. The system is so crap in England. 😤