When did you hear about an exchange date?

[Sittingonasale]

I'm getting fed up with a total lack of communication from EA and solicitors. I get drips of information every few weeks if they need me to answer enquiries but absolutely nothing from EA unless I specifically ask and often then it's ignored or not answered.
Second lot of enquiries was sent back same evening by myself a couple of weeks ago.
I'm in week 11 now and have told them when I'd like to complete (end of July) but there's no mention yet of exchange. This should be a simple transaction as my buyers are FTB and I've said I can stay somewhere until my onward purchase completes (I only put an offer in a few weeks ago so knew it was late and I'll probably have to stay at my mums for a while).
I'm wondering when or how much notice you had before an exchange date was set?

I feel your pain, we’ve had very very slow solicitors (offer accepted from our FTB in February) and we will complete tomorrow (fingers crossed hopefully not jinxing this!!) it’s been so frustrating, as if no one wants to do their job and get paid!

Oh you can exchange and complete on the same day if that helps. we had very short notice on this (like a week) which probably won’t help you plan your onward purchase but great you can stay somewhere temporarily. (We moved to rent to be chain free, but haven’t found our onward yet)

I hope you have better luck than me!

Thanks metal. It's so frustrating isn't it? Knowing that you're going to have to pay a hefty price for it soon.

Good luck with your completion and fingers crossed for you!

Ask your solicitor very direct q’s, e.g “what matters are still outstanding in order to exchange?”

If it is the buyers solicitor not responding, ask your solicitor to nudge them.

Also your EA is able to talk to the buyers solicitor for updates (but will not enter into discussion about an exchange date).

It does take time. Are all the searches back?

Thanks @Sittingonasale 🙏

Fingers crossed it’s just your EA and solicitor bring slow like mine (our sale was in South West, not sure how fast other places are progressing) I was worried for a while there the buyers were having second thoughts!

Oh forgot to add, I started cc-ing my solicitor’s supervisor into every email, with pedant info like: “form x was sent on this day, returned signed by this day; no further information was confirmed to be required on this day but then this delay happened” etc. This seemed to help move things along as a more senior solicitor stepped in to take over the paralegal that had been sitting on our paperwork.

Thank you. Yes, all searches were back a few weeks ago.

Metal, good idea. I'm buying in the SW but selling in South Wales.

Metal Rat, that's what I am worried about. They haven't done a survey either but I'm hoping getting this far they won't suddenly change their minds. 😐

🤔@Sittingonasale do you know much about your buyers, ie FTB but hopefully a large deposit with financials confirmed?

or maybe it’s something else that’s holding it up, we had a few nitty gritty clarifications on leasehold conditions that stumped up the solicitor and held it up.

They are FTB and had mortgage approved a while ago.

As long as they aren’t getting a survey, you could suddenly be told that Exchange is possible very soon. I would take control by being the first one to mention a definite Exchange date, say the last Thursday or Friday in July.

Though it sounds like it may be more in your best interests to delay things rather than attempt to move them along so you don’t have to stay at your mums so long.

We sold in March, exchanged 19th June and completed on the 30th June. Ours was a small chain of 3 and no surveys were done over the basic online surveys the solicitors do!