Buyers/Sellers Exchange waiting room

[spidershavetoomanyknees]

Currently waiting for exchange, stuck in a never-ending loop of "there's been a couple more enquiries higher up the chain" and "we're nearly there now". Wondering if there's anyone else who would like to join me here in the waiting room of doom to vent into the void.

Next train for Exchange (line terminates at Completion) is currently delayed and they'd like to apologise for the delay.

@maxiewaxie It's been since early October for me too. I was told exchange mid January and moved into a rental the other side of the country so my problems have been the worry and cost of the empty house. At first it was held up by various lease issues with the sale of my buyer’s flat - we are only a chain of 2. Then he magicked up a gifted deposit and broke the chain 2 weeks ago. The delay now is compliance checks on that which have dragged on due to his solicitor being on holiday last week. We are still talking about completion on Friday so I’m hoping we exchange today.
There seem to be quite a few of us hoping it will be today. 🙏🤞to @thunderouslug @Sousuke and to you @maxiewaxie and to anyone else on this rollercoaster.

That all sounds so similar to our situation @Karmatime . I don’t understand why the lender hasn’t sent the redemption statement by next day delivery or why it has to be by post at all. Presumably they used other methods during lockdown. It somehow seems worse that we are being held up by such a small problem. The amount is tiny apparently and our vendor has offered to pay it off so there’s nothing to redeem but apparently that will add further delay. I just don’t get it.
Anyway I really hope there is some good news for us all today. Thanks for replying, it really helps to chat to people in the same boat.

🤞for you too @Inapicklee - I hope you can exchange before the removals deadline. When we moved there was an option to take out insurance to cover lchanges but as we were moving into rental I didn’t investigate as it wasn’t really necessary.

Fingers crossed for today everyone!!
May tonight be the day we can all sigh a big sigh of relief!

Fingers crossed! We've started driving up to collect the keys... wondering whether they'll make the 2pm "deadline" as we've a locksmith coming at half past!

oooooh @spidershavetoomanyknees how exciting!!!

I just had the call from my solicitor to give authority and the exchange is starting from below. It’s a fairly long chain so she said it may take a little while but MOVEMENT!! 😱

Very exciting news@Inapicklee , hope it all goes smoothly. No news for me yet sadly but still hopeful. Apparently our vendor is going into a branch of his bank to see if they will email a redemption statement to his solicitors today - I can’t see why not but apparently some lenders will only do it by post.

I’m going a bit stir crazy waiting! My solicitor was told verbally yesterday that checks are complete and they should be ready to exchange today and complete tomorrow. However they (my buyer’s solicitor) have not confirmed in writing and are not responding to emails or calls from my solicitor. This is not unusual they have been rubbish all along but this is the last straw!
Great news @Inapicklee - I hope all of us make it today!

Oh no @Karmatime , that is really bad, hopefully they are just having along lunch. It’s the worse thing when people just won’t reply to phone calls, emails etc. I’d rather know the worse than just be sat waiting for a call. I’m off to collect grandchildren from school shortly, I’m pleased to have something to take my mind off it. Good luck.

So exchange is not happening today. My solicitor finally managed to actually speak to my buyer’s solicitor for the first time since his offer was accepted in October. They haven’t had confirmation from his lender that funds will be released so we are now supposed to exchange tomorrow morning and complete on Monday.
I never want to go through this nightmare again!

@Karmatime It really is a nightmare isn't it.

No exchange here either. Not looking likely for tomorrow, maybe Monday. It's all up in the air, again. There's also suddenly talk that we all need 5+ days between exchange and completion because of mortgage funds. Don't quite get why that's the case now when 2 days were okay previously. So really, we are starting to look at the end of the month now. A whole month after the original completion date - ridiculous. Bottom of the chain can be glad they're not my buyers because I would definitely not clean the house on moving day...

And to really top it all off, I forgot to cancel our internet cancellation that I had in place for tomorrow (one of the many proposed completion dates). Just called them and they will try to stop the cancellation but there's a real possibility that it'll be turned off tomorrow. I work entirely from home and have no mobile signal here. Just perfect.

Sending you gin @thunderouslug I hope they can cancel the cancellation.
To be fair to my buyer it’s his solicitor who has been the problem all along but he appointed the useless bunch so I don’t have that much sympathy.
The house is already clean but I’m worried about it being empty in this freezing weather. We were supposed to exchange and complete a couple of days after I checked on it 3 weeks ago.

@Karmatime cancellation got cancelled! At least some luck. Have you got the heat on a little in your house? Also, did you tell your insurance the house would be empty? I had a really bad experience when I owned my first flat and went abroad for 2 months without telling the management company (and the insurance). Then had a leak and was completely on the hook for it.

No exchange. Bottom of chain has funds released but middle didn't have it as of 4pm. My solicitor says the middle solicitor is confident they'll hit end of day or 9am so it appears exchange AND completion tomorrow.

@thunderouslug I did have the heat on low up until 3 weeks ago but turned it off as they we were due to complete within days (and it was really mild!) I’ve been going up every 3 weeks for a weekend since it was empty which covers the insurance aspect. If we don’t exchange tomorrow I’m heading up on Saturday.

Wow looking at the score for Thursday, only one property exchanged out of 4! This does really show how much of a mess this system is.

So sorry to hear no luck for @Karmatime @thunderouslug and @Sousuke . I didn’t exchange either but my vendor was able to get his bank to send a redemption statement to the solicitor which she should receive by 1pm tomorrow. It would be great to think that will be the last hurdle but we have been there before. Our completion date remains 17th March so fingers crossed for tomorrow for us and everybody else.

Doing it for relative.. it’s such a rubbish process. Sometime buyers have the advantages and sometimes the other way round. And don’t get me started on surveys! You give a discount and that is conveniently forgotten even though the house isn’t pretending to be something it’s not.

THERE MUST BE A BETTER WAY OF DOING THIS. MAYBE THE SCOTTISH SYSTEM?

Solicitors love a Friday for completion. Maybe they want to then make a run for it at the weekend

Probably something to do with all the bottles of wine they get 🤣

Nah. I'm just bitter because nobody ever bought me wine when I worked in litigation. The conveyancers I knew preferred other days but clients wanted Friday so they had the weekend at home. The sole consolation was a good end to the week.

Nope 0 out of 4, we didn’t exchange either @Sousuke unless you exchanged and I missed it?

turned out top of the chain who had been hustling everything along for ages didn’t have their redemption statement yet! Then this morning we’ve found out our buyers solicitor hasn’t had confirmation of funds being released in time despite them saying they were ready for the last 2 days.

I no longer have words.

I am at the end of my tether and beyond! I was promised exchange first thing this morning and have not heard a thing. My solicitor who normally replies to emails immediately is having IT issues according to the receptionist so I can’t even check with her so I have no idea what is going on or if it will happen today or not.
I suspect not!

@Karmatime this is honestly ridiculous!

I don’t understand how my buyers said they were ready to exchange on Wednesday and now have decided they don’t know if the bank can get the money in time?! I so badly want this sorted by the weekend.

Same here @Karmatime , we were promised the exchange would start at the bottom of the chain first thing this morning but it hasn’t and so far I can’t find out why. Let’s hope we all get sorted this afternoon.

@Inapicklee I think it will be because their solicitor didn’t request the fund release soon enough. That was the excuse I got yesterday. I finally managed to speak to my solicitor who is still having IT issues and hasn’t been able to find out what is going on.
My thoughts are with you and everyone else going through this pure hell!