4 to 5 weeks realistic

[Iammetoday]

Buying a house. ENquiries started and Searches requested or will be Monday. Nothing added to house since last sold so not expecting anything from the Searches that needs to be looked at. How long now until exchange/completion? Would 4/5 weeks be realistic? I feel we're at the end now, local authority searches take 2 weeks apparently. Giving extra few weeks at solicitor seems slow and to transfer monies etc.

No. Totally unrealistic unless cash buying without a chain using private solicitors who already know your affairs (eg if you're extremely wealthy). It's usually 3 months min.

@YukoandHiro what on earth takes that long? We have mortgage in place and it's private sale. No chain.

3-4 months minimum unless you're a cash buyer.

We were cash buyers, no chain and our sellers were moving into a rental. We had great solicitors and a proactive agent. Both us and our sellers were on the ball and provided information promptly. It took 8 weeks from offer to exchange.
4 to 5 weeks is very ambitious, 2 to 3 months is more realistic and that’s if there are no hurdles.

We have done it in 6.5 weeks before (this is very quick), the average is 3-4 months. No chance of being in in 4-5 weeks.

Honestly, who knows? Every time I've done it it's taken months. Quickest when I was a FTB buying an empty flat was 3 months. Slowest when we hit mortgage issues and were in a chain was 9 months.

Our house sold within 12 hours. We offered on a house the next day. Our buyers were in rented and keen for a quick move. Our seller was going into rented and was also keen for a quick sale.
It still took 3 months, and we didn’t even have a survey on the one we were buying.

Oh wow I'm shocked. We've completed all mortgage stuff and ID checks etc with solicitors,, survey and valuation done, draft contracts are in so just searches to do... I thought 4 weeks!

How long since you had the offer accepted? If it is just the searches you are waiting for now then it could be quicker but usually these are the first thing to be applied for. In my case it was 8 weeks from offer acceptance to exchange and we ordered the searches and survey in the same week as the offer was accepted.

These things do seem to be taking longer at the moment.

Our last four house purchases haven't required a mortgage (earliest was 2007, most recent 2018) and each time we've been buying an empty house and the chain the other way has varied between one (just our buyer) and three other parties.

The quickest was 2018 when we were buying our current house (a repossession). We did the whole thing in 4 weeks...but our own house sale had already completed. Prior to that when selling and buying we've done it in 7 weeks - from offer to completion with a chain of three - and 9 weeks from offer to completion with a chain of four.

Another time it took 10 weeks where the chain comprised our seller, us, our buyer, their buyer and their buyer's buyer...and that was after a delay caused by a fire in one of the chain's solicitor's office!

But we've always been incredibly motivated (aka pushy!) and were once accused of badgering our rural conveyancing solicitor who wasn't accustomed to being asked for weekly updates.

I'm dreading how long it'll take to complete when we market our house soon.

So we had offer accepted in august and mortgage in place 1st Sept. I'm going to push the solicitors as they have been fairly lazy at least about contact contract pack done so just searches/ enquiries to do.

Unrealistic.

I'm going to push the solicitors as they have been fairly lazy that's one way to get brown listed and pushed to the back of the pile.

@Fringebangfringe 🤣🤣🤣 lol! I'm paying them!! I'd just swop company's!

You think that makes you more important than all their other clients? Okaaaaay then 😊 good luck!

@Fringebangfringe of course I'm no more important than anyone else! I never for a moment said that, I'm just asking how long searches take to completion- move in if you dobt want to participate!

You can always email your Local Authority and ask what the lead time on searches is at the moment. That's what I did when I last moved house. 😊

@Fringebangfringe thanks good idea!

In my experience it was the local authority searches that took the longest. When we moved from West Yorkshire to South Yorkshire it dragged on and on, then I finally drove from work in Sheffield to Leeds to pick up the search to take it to the solicitor in Sheffield (this was pre modern technology).
Round here they have to do mining searches as well as it used to be a coal mining area. These take the longest to carry out.

I have lived in 5 houses and have never moved in under three months from accpeted offer to completion.

In fairness, you've waited until quite late in the day to start doing your searches and enquiries. I know everyone does it differently but on every house I've bought/sold, the searches have been requested much closer to the start.

Your survey is done, and your mortgage offer is in, and there's no chain. So that's all positive.

Searches usually take about two weeks - but in some areas it's taking much longer, could be up to 40 working days.

But let's say your searches come back in two weeks. Your solicitor isn't going to pounce on them the minute they arrive because your sale has to take its turn in her caseload, just like all the other people buying and selling property. Your solicitor will then need to go through the searches and identify any potential areas of concern. It's normal for enquiries to be raised off the back of the searches. So they will need to write to the seller's solicitor with their enquiries. The seller's solicitor may need to contact the seller to get answers. Seller replies to their solicitor. Their solicitor then writes back to your solicitor. Your solicitor reviews the answers. If all is OK, contracts can be sent out for signature. Once they're returned you can agree exchange and completion.

Can you see why 4 weeks is ambitious? There's multiple touch points, and every time a piece of correspondence is received, there will inevitably be a small delay as your solicitor gets round to it - hopefully no more than a day or two. Also depends on how quickly the seller answers any enquiries.

We're in the middle of selling our house now - process started on 4th August. We are - hopefully! - at the point of just finished enquiries and the contracts are being sent out so we're nearly there. But we have no chain, an incredibly motivated buyer, and we both have shit-hot solicitors who don't hang around. Even with all of that it's going to be around 8-9 weeks minimum, start to finish.

Very unrealistic.
Two months is considered quick. 5 weeks extremely unusual. Three months is the norm. Even with no chain

OK, well we'll move as quick as possible, our seller is very motivated so hopefully will go through quickly... Will update so others know!

@Iammetoday - out of interest, when did the process start? When was your offer accepted?

@SpidersAreShitheads offer accepted Aug and mortgage in place by 1st Sept

So just recieved an email.ail from Optimus property searches to say they have started searches and will get back to us next week with results....

Your solicitor should have advised ordering the searches soon after your offer was accepted and the memorandum of sale was issued. It’s unusual to leave this until nearly 2 months afterwards. I had to pay for them up front - it was about £350. I think this was the first thing I put in place, before booking the survey. Some councils are taking up to 6 weeks but hopefully yours is not one of those!