Offer accepted, when is realistic completion date?

[Evergreen101]

What is the average time between offer acceptance and completion these days?

I have an offer accepted on a freehold detached house and draft contract was just shared today. Mortgage valuation is getting booked for Friday/Monday, with the formal mortgage offer hopefully by end of the week.

What is a realistic timeline to exchange and completion (assuming no major hiccups along the way)?

Critically, is there a chain either side? Are you selling anywhere? Is the vendor buying somewhere? This will increase the number of variables and potentially impact timing.

Assuming you're not selling and buying an empty freehold property, best case probably 8 weeks, more commonplace 10-12 weeks.

Providing no significant hiccups.

I have been told that the current average is 3 months from chain being completed.

In my experience you need to expect 4 months of buggering about

I’m chain free, cash buyer, and it’s already been 3 months, with no exchange date or completion date.
everytime I ask what the delay is I’m getting fobbed off, very frustrating!

Thank you, that's helpful! And yes, sorry, should have mentioned, I'm a FTB and seller is moving into a rented property.

6 weeks is the minimum I believe

It took us 4 months with a chain of 3

I'd say three months is a good timeline. Depends if any issues are thrown up during survey and conveyancing. If both sides have everything sorted then it could be well less than that. I bought in five weeks two summers ago but the previous buyers pulled out so the sellers solicitor had all documents in place and my solicitor had all mine in place so minimal delays (it was the searches that held it up - I actually have gone from viewing to completion stage in two weeks but that was some decades ago when you could go get searches done in a couple days).

There isn't really a minimum as such, it could all be done in a week under certain circumstances, it's just really unusual.

@Mildura I'm sure our solicitor told us 6 weeks to sort land registry checks and all other legal checks, but that might have been based on their workload than actual delays

I accepted an offer on 7 Jan and completed on 24 Feb. Buyer was cash buyer, no chain on either side. My property was a leasehold but that didn't hold things up. Also the buyer didn't get a survey. 140 year old Victorian Terrace that needed all sorts doing. I bit his hand off

Our last move took 4mths, we were in a chain of 4, we were top of the chain.

We got our memorandum of sale on 6th March and will hopefully complete early next month. We're chain free and know the seller so we've been communicating between us and then chasing our solicitors which has helped but it'll still be over 4 months between offer and completion assuming it goes smoothly now

I recently managed 6 weeks. I didn’t think we’d do it but my buyer was very motivated to complete swiftly. There was one link in the chain on their side but none on mine.

we’ve completed in 6 weeks moving with no chain below us or above our vendors. However I had to sell my mums house and that took about 7 months mainly due to the buyer being really slow. My last move was 3 months and I’d say that was pretty average.

We sold a flat chain free last autumn to a first time buyer and it took 3 months.