Oh ffs, exchange and completion on same day. Help.

[ThisMustBeMyDream]

So due to my buyer being adamant that if we don't move by 8th Sept, she won't move until 28th October (!), all 3 of the chain have agreed on 6th Sept moving date. My solicitor (I'm in the middle) has been the slowest, the other 2 parties have been ready for a couple of weeks. So now we are 8 days away from a completion date and I'm expecting exchange to be done ASAP... my solicitors office drops a bombshell that they are intending exchange and completion simultaneously as they are currently "doing their final checks" whatever that means.
This is my worst nightmare. I really don't want to do this but feel forced to by my buyers because 28th October is just wholly unreasonable.
Please tell me this can be okay? I am so bloody stressed right now. We had a chain collapse in Feb, right before exchange due to issues with probate at the top of the chain and obviously I'm terrified of it happening again. Everyone seems ready, all parties are packed up and ready to move. My buyer is coming from rented so has crossover period and isn't bothered about exchange and completion simultaneously. My me and my vendor are obviously quite stressed about it!

We did this for our last house, because our seller didn’t have their purchase sorted until the last minute - the main issue was the completion didn’t happen until about 4pm, and technically you can’t start moving in until completion so our movers would have been hanging around for ages (in the event the seller gave us the keys at 10am because they were moving a long way away and needed to get going, so we just moved in as planned and breathed a big sigh of relief when the solicitor called…!)

No need to get stressed.
It happens a lot and there's nothing to be worried about.
There's no certainty until you exchange but as long as everyone is prepared the only the to prevent an exchange is someone changing their mind.

It's worrying that you don't understand what the final checks are. Might be a good idea to ask the solicitor to explain to you.

This used to be fairly routine, just make sure you are 100% available by phone and email to OK things at every stage. Good luck!

We have moved 5x over the last 25 years and have never exchanged and completed on the same day, because frankly it sounds horrendous.

I feel like it has become more common recently not less?

I exchanged and completed last 2 houses. It was fine. All went smoothly. You just have to be organised

Ugh, my buyers did similar “if not by this date, then not for a million weeks!” tomfoolery. We told them to fuck off, but in politely coded solicitor language.

hi OP
i’ve moved twice and both times I’ve exchanged and completed on the same day and all has been well.
I will say however as a word of caution my dad was buying a property due to exchange/complete at the same time and the seller pulled out at the 11th hour.. the poor couple further up the chain were sat on the removals van with all their stuff to be told it had fallen through :(
Is it possible to exchange a couple of days before? If not I was in the exact same position and just had to grit my teeth, cross my fingers and bear it!

By sounds they want to move to fit in school dates

I guess they are a teacher?

Is your solicitor going to cover your removal costs if they cause further delays and you end up cancelling at the last minute?

I hated it, but this happened for us the last 2 at least times that we moved (and we've been here over a decade so it isn't new). That said if it is your solicitors who are slowing it down then you are the one who is best placed to shout at them :)

I did it with both houses and it was fine. Both were chain free though and with out current house we had started moving in hours before completion. Try not to panic!

I've done it twice. Both times it was fine.

I'm another who's done it twice and it's been fine.

I've done this once and I hated it for the unnecessary extra stress. But it worked out ok in the end.

Another one here who has done it. I've done this three times and all went smoothly.

Did it twice.

2nd time the funds didn't go through until the very last minute. That was....stressful. 'Don't worry, I've not seen one fall through in 20 years' said the estate agent. As we're refreshing the bank every 2 seconds.

We had this for our last house move. Our buyers money did not come through on the day set for exchange and completion which was a Friday before a Bank Holiday and all our furniture was already on the removal van. The money didn’t actually come through until the following Wednesday so we ended up in a Central London hotel for 5 nights during school holiday season and paying storage charges to the removal company for the period (it would have cost as much to unload and reload the van). Ended up ££££ out of pocket and I wouldn’t be keen to do this again!

We did it, it was great.

"Final checks" is probably code for the fact some poor inexperienced paralegal has been doing everything to date behind the scenes and no-one qualified has touched your file. So now they're going to do what they should have done long before now and there will be a flurry of activity as they review search results and raise more enquiries etc.

I would be raising merry hell with your solicitor, speaking to the complaints partner to find out what exactly needs doing and when it will be done by.

I’ve done it a few times, it got common during covid when people were worried about committing to moving dates and changing restrictions. It’s usually
gone smoothly. One time, the money didn’t go through in time on my purchase so I couldn’t pick up the keys - it was a bank holiday weekend and I had to wait until Tuesday effectively homeless - however it ended up being a very chilled weekend. The situation was entirely out of my hands but I could relax in the knowledge I had sold/bought a house. I stayed in a hotel for the weekend with my belongings stored by the removal company and claimed some expense from the seller, who was not answering their phone on the day and contributed to the delay!

I've done it twice. In NI it's the common way to buy houses, everyone I know has exchanged and completed on the same day 🤷‍♀️

Also my solicitor always said that a final check was calling the mortgage lender to double check they could definitely get the funds released on the right day.

This happened to me just last week, selling.
Horrendously stressful, and up until the night before, my solicitor said it was ‘touch and go’ whether it would happen or not.
at 8.30am the next morning, she said she was pretty confident it would happen, then dropped the bombshell that she was away on leave from 11.30am, and would leave it in the hands of her colleague. 😬

My buyer rocked up outside with his family and removal van from 10am, whilst I was furiously still packing and trying to clean.
Fortunately, buyer and I had been in direct contact and communicating on WhatsApp for weeks, so we were both on the same page and each calling our solicitors for updates every hour or so.
Exchanged at about 1.30pm, then waited hours for completion, which wasn’t until about 5.30pm (but I let my buyer in to unload his furniture just after exchange.

V stressful!
good luck OP!