How long does it take to set a completion date?

[bjkmummy]

Looks like everyone ready. 3 house in chain. We are in the middle. House we are buying is empty as owners live in USA. So realistically just 3 of us to agree. I put forward a date last week of completion on 10/8 and utter silence ever since from our solicitor and estate agent. Response last week from our buyers solicitor was that they are trying to sort out a completion date which of course I know! How long does it blooming take to say yes that works for me or no it doesn't. Likelihood of it happening next week unlikely I guess. Still waiting from the completion start from the solicitor, no removals booked, nowhere booked to stay as I have 3 asd young people as well so the stress starting to build and I'm getting nervous it's all going to go horribly wrong. We are at week 13

Depends what else is going on. We needed to request funds from a Lifetime ISA and get out of our tenancy. Our sellers drove us mad constantly proposing randomly completion dates that didn’t work for us - you might just need to hang tight.

Week 13 for a 3 house chain is very quick. We’ve just bought in a 3 house chain it took 5 months. You can ask for a completion date a few weeks after exchange to give you time to sort movers etc. I’d speak to your solicitor to see if there’s anything holding up exchange

Mate I exchanged yesterday after 25 weeks.

It looked like the chain was going to collapse up to the last minute (chain of 4).

We only started talking dates about three weeks ago.

Are you sure that each solicitor has completed their work and is asking for dates, or only one of them? Usually if a solicitor is radio silent on responding to a completion date suggestion, it means their work isn't yet completed and therefore a discussion on completion dates is a waste of time.

13 weeks is not long for all the legal work to be ready, unless all three properties were freehold, no management companies, and very motivated parties.

Yes I think you are right. It seems the solicitor at the beginning of the chain isn't yet ready but everyone else now is so the waiting continues. The house at the beginning of the chain on an unadopted road so the solicitor asking for paperwork regarding legal right of access which in honesty should have been the first thing they asked for rather than chasing it now.

They wouldn't have known about the unadopted road until they reviewed the Local Authority Search. Local searches are nearly always the last one to be completed and not until the conveyancing is well under way. They might have noticed the legal right of access in their title though....... unless it isn't there.

Roughly a million years.

Solicitors are notoriously disorganised and communication between them seems like the impossible task.

Can you tell I'm frustrated with a similar situation at the moment? 😅

My buyers put forward a date and I replied on the same day saying I'd compromise on a week later. My solicitor took that back to the buyers. That all happened on the same day.
Deal done and exchange happened within a couple of days.

We're in a similar chain. Our solicitor sent our draft contract to the buyer 2 weeks after we engaged them. We thought that meant it was going to be a quick sale. We thought searches must be done etc. But no, it's the wording they use. We just got the seller's pack along with an email saying once we'd agreed with the seller's particulars they'd start the searches. No wonder it all takes so long. The searches could be done by now and I don't know why they wait. Perhaps solicitors should supply a breakdown of each step along with dependencies and approx timeliness.

So yes, it's all going along a lot slower than we thought. Our buyer only engaged his solicitor and started his mortgage application 3 weeks after his offer. He's a ftb but even so.

We've gone from thinking we'd move sometime in Nov then a hopeful Sept but now back to Nov.

Yes I think more patience by me is needed. The agent is chasing the bottom of the chain today. My dh is driving me mad as he's literally packed everything and I'm having to tell him to stop - we have been in this process for 6 months so have dejunked and cleared so much stuff so to actually pack the last bits now won't take too much but we need to stop until we get close to exchange. Getting a little concerned that if it continues to rumble on as we have a holiday booked in about 6 weeks which we booked last year. Thankfully it's in this country so worse case scenario if we do go away we will just have to come back a day or so early

Yep all 3 properties are freehold and most of us seem very motivated. I think I just need to be a bit more patient. We have now our completion statement from our solicitor so we are ready to transfer our funds but it's just if everyone else is ready - I think the two below us are having mortgages whereas we are cash buyers

"The house at the beginning of the chain on an unadopted road so the solicitor asking for paperwork regarding legal right of access"

Has this been satisfactorily answered now?

Yes I believe so. The seller had all the paperwork so sent that to the solicitor and is also willing to sign an indemnity as well. Update today is that the solicitor now just looking at the paperwork then they need to cash in the Isa in preparation for exchange so slowly moving forward