Seller seemingly has no sense of urgency

[scribblyscribbles]

Fully aware this process requires patience but, argh. Figure maybe people here will sympathise.

We’re selling (first time) and buying (second time), in the middle of a chain of three properties. Our buyers are currently renting (though not FTBs) with a break clause. They say they’re flexible on timescales but don’t want to wait and keep paying rent for too long.

Meanwhile, our seller seemingly has no sense of urgency. She didn’t even START filling in the property forms (TA6 etc) until 2 weeks after accepting our offer, and that was only after we asked the EA to chase these. It was 3 weeks after offer when she finally sent them to her solicitor.

Her house had been on the market for months. I get waiting to see if it sold before doing the forms, but surely you’d get on with it once you did? In comparison we instructed our solicitor when we went on the market, and had returned the forms before we accepted an offer.

I’m worried she’s going to this relaxed about every other bloody thing that needs doing.

Things moved very quickly at first - we sold within a week and had an offer accepted the next day. She then took a month to find her onward purchase, which could have been worse but means our buyers have already done some waiting around. There are quite a few comparable houses they could buy so I’m really stressed worrying that they’ll walk away if she drags it all out too long. And we’re only at the beginning.

Deep breaths I guess!

Only a month to find onward purchase is really quick! I wouldn't be filling out any paperwork or instructing anyone if I hadn't got an onward purchase either?!

This is the downside of being in a chain.

It all sounds totally normal I'm afraid. Deep breaths is the only thing to do really..

Have you sold a property before? You have to instruct a solicitor to be able to send out the memo of sale, so of course you need to instruct someone before finding your onward.

No you don't.

We have received our memorandum of sale about 3 days after the offer accepted (done by EA not solicitor) but have not filled out the forms to instruct the solicitor to start acting yet. They didn't even give us the forms until nearly 2 weeks after the memo of sale.

Why would they issue forms and start work before they even have proof your buying/selling somewhere?

Ok well, you’re evidently going to hold up the process and annoy everyone. Why would you not get things ready so you can move quickly?

I think you're being very impatient. We are buying and selling right now and family life is incredibly busy. We do the paperwork when we can, but you're barely in to the process right now! Give folks time to organise themselves.

You're being very impatient and demanding.

One month isn't that long at all. You need to calm down and relax

Everyone has different priorities. You need to be patient.

Lol... You fancy yourself quite a know it all aren't you.

A) I'm not holding up anyone, I literally got the memorandum of sale on the first working day. I cannot fill in form that hadn't even been written up yet lol.

B) I'm buying a probate house that hasn't even been released yet... I'm sure the ghost is sick of waiting on the GOVERNMENT to do their job.

I wonder if you even understand what 'instructing a solicitor' means?

Instructing is the legal verification and terms contracts you accept to start searches and billing time its not just getting quotes etc... Its not something you just do in a day there is a literally fuck tonne of paperwork that takes time to be drawn up and even longer to read and collect the needed info. Taking weeks is perfectly normal.

It also fine to have your surveys, valuations and structural investigations done in this time before spending money on conveyance.

How long have you been waiting since the seller accepted your offer, OP? A month to find an onward purchase is very quick!

Maybe she has the same concerns I will now have when selling my property.

A few years ago I jumped, appointed a Solicitor, got the forms back within 24 hours, only for my potential buyer to change her mind 3 weeks later. No explanation, no apology, just she had changed her mind.

As a result I was landed with a Solicitors bill of £1k. I disputed that with my Solicitor but he argued that that was the cost of making up his files, issuing a contract etc.

She will have had no legal bill because she had changed her mind about the Solicitor she was using and was just at appointment stage. My vendor had no additional legal bills because they had already had an aborted sale and were dragging their feet on selling to me until after I evidenced I had appointed a Surveyor.

This time, I will be much slower in commencing the legal process. The trigger for me will be that my buyer appoints a Surveyor.

You should also recognise just how much of a tortoise and hare the whole legal process is. You might be first out of the gate, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be issues from you that cause delays further into the process.

The English conveyancing process is a nightmare and in my opinion just needs to be approached with patience and an attitude of simply getting through one issue at a time.

I’ve just recently moved house. Similar to you - our buyers were renting, chain of three.

I had instructed a solicitor on my sale so we could finalise the memo, but hadn’t filled in any forms until I’d found somewhere to buy. I didn’t instruct the solicitor on my onwards purchase until I’d found somewhere and I then did the paperwork at the same time.

Not really fair on the lawyers, who are usually working on a fixed fee that doesn’t get paid if the sale falls through, to get them doing too much before you know the chain is complete. And if you’re instructing lawyers who aren’t on a “no sale no fee” arrangement why would you pay them before you know the chain is complete?

We accepted our offer in July. Didn’t finally find a house to buy until September (having missed out on a couple in between). I think we did a few forms then but to be honest it didn’t really kick off until around October/November when our sellers found somewhere. Then the legals took a few months. We completed start of Feb.

If you sold within a week, seems like you’d probably be able to find a new buyer relatively quickly anyway. And if there are lots of comparable houses your buyers could easily buy instead, seems a bit strange you managed to sell so quickly - I sold mine within a week but the buyers had offered and missed out on two on the same street not long before…

We have just accepted an offer, our buyer is fully aware we haven’t found a house, so no rush is needed. If they pull out because we are slow then we will go back to the alternative offers.

Some people may have other things happening in their life as well as moving house. Everything is slow when you're buying and selling. Try not to get stressed at this stage, it only gets worse as you go on!

@scribblyscribbles sending solidarity. I'm still waiting on the contract pack from my vendors and I'm a month now since memo of sale went out. Estate agent assured me over a week ago that they'd sent the paperwork to their solicitor and apparently solicitor had promised they'd get everything to my solicitor by end of last week (haven't been able to check this happened yet). My mortgage was approved almost as soon as the solicitor was appointed. Meanwhile my sale has progressed to a point where I'm intentionally being a bit slow to respond to some very run-of-the-mill enquiries because everything is so massively out of synch. I know this is not out of the ordinary, but it's definitely stressful. I'm worried my buyers are going to start talking exchange dates really soon now and I'm prepared to put my stuff in storage for a bit and stagger things if need be, but until we actually get some sense of what's happening with the purchase it's so hard to make any calls.
It's just so stressful when so much is out of your hands. I totally feel your pain!

I hope things get moving soon for you!

I think you are being unreasonable. Personally I think a month to find a house is pretty reasonable. Until you have sold a house you will struggle to be in a position to place an offer on another house.