Vendor solicitor being slow?

[Dreamingofthishouse]

Posted here a few weeks ago that we sale agreed on a house, our buyer is in a rush to purchase so we agreed we would be willing to be flexible and move as quickly as possible etc however our vendor ( or their solicitors) are in no rush at all and t had any correspondence with our solicitor to date- was asked for the title deeds etc over 2 weeks ago. I’ve asked our solicitor to follow up but hoping this isn’t a sign of things to come. The vendor has no onward sale so won’t be motivated to speed things along or unlikely to chase their solicitor. Any tips on how to gentle progress things without causing upset and getting people’s backs up? We’ve had houses fall through before for a variety of reasons and hoping this isn’t a sign of similar or that we lose our buyers. Selling ours and Moving into a rental while we wait is not an option.

Keep asking your solicitor to chase and check in with the estate agent too and reassure them that everything is being done to move as quickly as possible and that there are no deal breaking issues. In my experience as either a buyer or seller it’s radio silence and not being kept in the loop that leads to frustration.

Thanks, I find the solicitors very stand offish and very much curt replies. I appreciate they are busy as we all are but surely if so busy that they can’t do things in a timely manner then they shouldn't take on cases. We were very upfront with need for speed (9-10 weeks from agreement) from the outstart but I appreciate this won’t mean anything to our vendors or their solicitors !

What you probably don't appreciate is that 99% of solicitor's clients want their transaction to be speedy. Your wishes are the same as everyone else. After all, very few clients actually want a slow transaction. 99% of clients also think that chasing every couple of days means that the solicitor works faster, not that the constant interruptions actually prevent the solicitor from doing any work.

The fact that you want 9-10 weeks is noted by the solicitor, but obviously until all the paperwork is received and enquiries are satisfactorily dealt with, no promises can be made other than "working towards" rather than agree your timescale.

Your solicitor cannot start much legal work until the seller's solicitor sends the draft contract pack over and they won't do that until the seller completes and returns all the various forms they need to return to their solicitor.

It can easily take 4 weeks just to get off the starting block.

@Frecklespy thanks for your comments. I am absolutely not chasing our solicitor at all, havn’t contacted her at all other than reply to her email and send relevant docs. I know that the estate agent however did call her this week but apparently they have a great relationship. I will check in with solicitor next week perhaps to see how things are going. I don’t think the 9-10 weeks is going to be doable which is understandable.