How long has your house purchase taken [so far]??

[dubyalass]

I had an offer accepted in mid-June; no chain. I've had my mortgage offer through and the survey done. There is an issue with ownership of an outbuilding so the vendors are sorting that out with the Land Registry. Searches not done yet but unlikely to be anything tricky there.

I'm hoping that I might be in by the end of October but realistically who knows. I've no idea how long the LR are taking to process casework at the moment. Once that's sorted it should all be pretty quick.

Well done Starseeking , that's been a slog an a half . We signed our contracts today so inching closer . Still waiting on a few inquiries our solicitor has raised with theirs . Offered on house mid July so we are doing reasonably well ... I think 🤔

@Starseeking thats wonderful! Congratulations. Hopefully many more of us will be following suit over the coming weeks.

Thanks all, I appreciate the best wishes.

I really hope all those waiting to complete can get to the end quickly, and that property purchasing in England is reformed soon; our current system is nonsensical.

@starseeking this gives me hope. We are 7 months in - chain has collapsed twice, due to our vendor then our buyer pulling out. new buyers are 6 weeks in so hoping for 3rd time lucky !

Thank you starseeking for that bit of hope, and may you be very happy in your new home.

I'm only 2.5 months in, but things seem very slow and complicated and I swing between "it will never happen" and "I must be patient".

It's only 7 years since I last moved, and the whole process has become far more labour intensive since then, and that's not taking into account the current financial circumstances

Is there a patron saint of house moving??

Google research....there is. It's St Anne, Jesus' grandmother.

Ok St Anne, please look on us all kindly and give us strength and our buyers speed! 😁

<prays to St Anne despite being 100% atheist>

I've just chased my estate agent as he didn't get back to me. He's not in the office today. I feel like wringing his neck.

My sales progressor just emailed me an update, but my buyers solicitors are so slow, we are all waiting for them.
Apparently we are aiming for completion at the end of this month, Yeah right...I'll believe that when I see it....

'Scuse me, St Anne...are you there...?

It seems fairly quick here in Scotland. The offer is binding as soon as accepted, missives are exchanged promptly, and vacant possession is agreed within weeks.
My own current house had been empty for a year before I bought it, and the vendors were v keen to proceed. Both DDs bought within the last five years in Edinburgh, and neither encountered any delays.

6 months and we’re only a chain of 3 (2 properties). Vendors at the top holding things up, by taking an age to return signed documents. We are in a discretionary 1 month mortgage extension and I’m on edge expecting the lender to revoke it. Our vendor’s solicitors have just mooted the 28th as a day for completion. I could cry in frustration, we’ve been ready to exchange for ages and that’s 1 day before our offer expires. Added to that our daughter needs to move school and they can’t hold her place any longer. This will be the third house we’ve tried to buy in 2 years. I just can’t do it anymore.

Our sale and purchase has been going on since February. There was a slight delay whilst our buyers found a new buyer, but in that time we found a property to buy (we were about to go into a rental, thankfully didn’t sign a contract as bottom of chain pulled out evening before we due to - couldn’t wait for exchange as rental market flipping hard work too).

Purchase of the one we’re buying is taking an age. First they had to secure probate, then it wasn’t registered at land registry and now the valuation survey has shown cracks, so we had to find a structural engineer to look at it. We also need to find someone to cost the repairs so that the mortgage company can tie us to fixing it (they’ve also down valued it by £45k and that’s after the work) and proceed with mortgage.

We’re waiting on a home buyers survey (our mortgage company don’t do them) this Thursday, to get the full picture, before going back to renegotiate with vendors. If they won’t budge we’ll have to go back to the rental market, as we need to move locations and can’t keep our buyers hanging on any longer. It’ll mean paying around £8k in early redemption fees (3yr 1.6% fix left so we’re porting) and sticking out in a rental till mortgage rates stabilise, which could take forever. I pray our vendors look at current market and agree a reduction, as we can’t afford to buy it and do repairs if they don’t.

I had a particularly interesting ‘sale’ where I was both buyer and seller (‘selling’ as executor of a property and buying as ‘myself’). ‘My’ solicitor was crap. Consistently blamed the executor solicitor saying she was waiting for stuff they had sent weeks ago. I will never use her again. The firm was amazing for the probate (so I had to use them for the transfer). She obviously routinely blamed other solicitors for work she hadn’t done and was not switched on enough to realise I could easily check, even though she clearly should have known I was both buyer and seller.

When I bought here, the conveyancer was awesome. I was a cash buyer and my vendor moved into a property that was vacant as their vendor temporarily moved into their holiday let. It took under three months from me spotting it on right move to getting the keys , with Christmas in the middle and I had searches and a survey done to be safe (despite not strictly needing them. I felt it was wise). I think that’s about as good as it gets.

I’m hoping to be surprised by my current sale. It’s a buy to let, selling to an investor. She seems to have done nothing so far despite offering in august, and now wants a discount. I’ve agreed if she exchanges in four weeks. She’s a cash buyer, doesn’t want a survey and is meh about searches. So what else is there? Surely she can just hand over the cash, right?!

Sale and purchase started end of July. Chain of 3, no mortgages involved. My buyer is renting, my vendor is moving in with family.

Searches, surveys and fixtures/fittings have been done, now at enquiry stage (have been for a few weeks with my buyers solicitors simply not replying to mine).

My solicitor told me last week that it was far too early to be talking about exchange and completion dates

Currently praying to St Anne multiple times a day.

Spoke to my solicitor, my sale is neigh on done. My purchase however... will not complete until 3 land registry enquiries are sorted, all with regards to the land in front of the property, one part was purchased in 2020, the boundary redraw has been since June 2021. The other 2 are in relation to the right of access (basically the driveway passes over land that isn't owned by anyone) and to incorporate that land into the boundaries too.

Anyone have any idea if my solicitor can pressurise land registry to get it done or is it all down to the vendors solicitor?

St Anne is busy.

My purchase seems to be going ok; I should be getting my report on title to review today. But my sale is dragging as my buyers solicitor is so slow ( also works part time and is leaving soon, so I don't think her heart is in it). I'm still waiting for them to respond on enquiries. Strangely, my buyers are still hoping to move at the end of this month. I'm not sure they are aware that they need to hassle their solicitor a bit more to achieve that.

St Anne, your intervention is required please!

Offer March, from a first time buyer, we weren't buying anything else ...Completed Mid August...but I will say our conveyancing team was absolutely shocking (company attached to PB)

Santander have just pulled our offer expiry forward from 30th Oct to 20th Oct. I feel sick.

@GraceJonesBiggestFan when are you due to exchange/complete? What a nightmare. What rate/term was your offer for? Mine is allegedly valid until early January but I will be astonished if they honour that.

Make sure you start kicking up a real stink to the estate agents and solicitor. Give them the 15th to exchange by complete on the 18th .

Mine is still limping along. The solicitor says everyone is off sick so her director is “busy” and she will tell me when he looks at our file (there is an issue with the freehold). Ridiculous. Offer expires 14 Feb but really we need to complete much sooner

I've emailed the agent this afternoon to say WTF is going on, do some chasing and if there's no serious progress by this time next week I start looking for something else. In the current climate I'm not prepared to dick about any longer. Checked with my broker and my mortgage offer can be transferred to another property so I have a plan B. I'll be pretty sad if this house doesn't come off but there will be others.

It’s 2.4% 5 year fixed. Apparently the product is no longer available after 20th October - even though they’d previously said 30th October. If our broker hadn’t checked we could have ended up in an awful position of exchanging (thinking 2.4%) and having to instead choose another product of 5.99% upwards before completion or lose our deposit.

We’ve been telling the agents and solicitors about the mortgage expiry since July and they all reacted like I was mad. But even before the clusterfuck 2 weeks ago, it was obvious that rates were climbing exponentially. I’m so upset it has got to this point. Since the mini-budget I’ve been phoning solicitors and agent daily, saying I feared our mortgage would get pulled early.

Thank you, we have. Now a horrible weekend of waiting to find out if the rest of the chain is ready to proceed next week. I’m barely sleeping and don't think I will until the mortgage funds are physically drawn down. Fuck Liz Truss!

This is exactly what we've said today. We've been chasing an exchange date for about a month. Our solicitor has been ready for a while now. Getting nowhere further down the chain. Everyone I speak to is blaming someone else for the lack of progress. Enough is enough! We are paying ££££ for professionals to get us through the sale/purchase but it seems we're doing all the chasing. If we don't get a date by the end of next week, our house goes back on the market.

Update from me - we are FTB and bottom of a chain of 6, had our offer accepted in April and chain completed mid August. Our mortgage offer expires end November so we got onto our agent a week ago and asked them to see if our vendor can break the chain otherwise we’d be needing to renegotiate the price. The vendor has said they can do this. We received our contact through a few days ago, signed and returned in person today and paid our 10% exchange deposit. Was also asked for a preference on completion date which we’ve said early November but we can do sooner if possible. Fingers tentatively crossed we are a bit closer.