Seller's solicitor is slow and unresponsive

[needybaby]

Hi all,
Just need some general advice about the following.
We are purchasing a house and have had mortgage offer sent through to us, searches ordered and a surveyor in (the surveyor has highlighted a few issues with the property that the seller is unaware of so far). This has cost us quite a bit so far (London surveyors and solicitors cost an arm and leg).

It's been about 5 weeks since offer acceptance, and my solicitors have been fine and they emailed the seller's solicitor the initial enquiries.

Now two weeks later we've found out that we still haven't had the initial enquiries resolved. I called the agent and he has agreed this is a bit too long on the seller's part considering we've done so much on our end already. He spoke to the seller and they've said they haven't heard anything about initial enquiries from their own solicitor.

So obviously, I'm quite f'd off today knowing that the seller's solicitor hasn't relayed the initial enquiries to the seller and that the seller themselves hasn't bothered to think or check where the hell are the initial enquiries!

We got a nonsense email from the estate agent trying to reassure us that the seller is committed to selling to us.

It's been 5 whole weeks and we've done all our parts, but need to get a few specialists in to check and quote for the problems the surveyor rightly mentioned in their report.

I'm starting to go off the house now today and pissed off with my husband who still wants to send in specialists as per the surveyor (I think this is a waste of our time and money right now until the seller takes some action first).

I'm not sure if it's my anger and feeling completely disrespected for my time and money while the seller does fuck all.

You may find the survey uses words that doesn't actually say it is unsafe just that its not clear from their limited check that it is.

So, for example, my daughter was told water, gas and electrics are always a red grade simply because the surveyor does not have the engagement to test them. That doesn't mean they are unsafe if they were fully tested.

You need to read the report calmly as even a good one can read as worrying because of the cover their arse language they have to use.

No, no law is broken. Let’s not make things up.

Conveyancers are notoriously slow. Many of them aren’t smart. Many of them are in a sausage factory where they have case after case. That’s what causes house purchasers to take a long time - the conveyancers. Unfortunately this is the nature of the transaction and it’s very much a case of they (the vendors) get what they pay for. Go for someone cheap and it’s going to be a crap service.

thanks for this, it's good advice.
we already read the report and discussed it with the surveyor in person. there have been a few red flags which i don't want to list. i have the resources to fix those issues if i buy the house, but i know the seller won't and building control may inspect and enforce action.

to those who think it's funny. honestly, you really don't want to piss off knowledgeable buyers who know how the building control and enforcement system works and what ground they will happily knock your extension down on.

wait til you piss off your buyers. good luck with that. you do realise that most buyers today are tech and information savvy right. this isn't the 90s and 80s and all those decades before when you were at the mercy of sellers. this is the information age and buyers will use information so keep pissing people off, your house will never sell

Crikey, you might have a barrister in the family but you sound very unaware, very entitled and pretty rude!

Hate to say it, but this sounds pretty typical. Every time we’ve moved there’s been one idiot somewhere. Also conveyancing solicitors usually have loads of clients at once, so whoever is shouting the loudest gets done first. Our last move was a nightmare and took over 8 months. We were also in rental as our own house sold very quickly and as it was a harder one to sell, we didn’t want to lose our cash buyer, so we took a rental. In our case it was our solicitor initially who unknown to us, snuck off and retired before we exchanged! 🙄 Thank goodness the lady who took over was much better. Then our seller and their estate agent were dragging their feet and we got nervous in case they withdrew it from the market. However it turns out they were concealing the fact they were waiting for probate to come through on their purchase. Buying/selling houses is very stressful!! Nobody seems upfront which is very frustrating.

thanks for sharing. that sounds like a nightmare . glad to hear you got through to the end though.

You need to calm down, your choice of insults and your temper is ridiculous, are you usually so quick to turn nasty?

How do you know the vendors are idiots or morons? If they haven't been told, then they're just normal sellers waiting for an update.

But even if they are being slow, they may just be juggling busy lives and doing the best they can.

Your poor husband. Calm down. Stop raging. And wait patiently. If you thought moving was a quick process, you were wrong, and even morons knows that.

Your posts are so ironic. If anyone is being "thick as shit", "moronic" or "idiotic", it's you. Of course you can't sue.

I've heard it all now.

House buying is notoriously a slow and frustrating process. Why would you expect it to be different for you?

i'd think you're a moron if you're sitting there for 5 weeks waiting for the first enquiries, so yes, i'd say that would make you a moron if that were you

Except you said it's been 5 weeks since the offer was accepted, not 5 weeks waiting for the enquiries (which don't happen that early).

There is no contract between you and your vendor's solicitors and they have no duty of care to you. Their responsibility is to their client, the vendor.

OP, you seem to be completely unaware of long this process takes. Perhaps the solicitor was on holiday for a week and then had a pile.of cases to go through when they got back? I doubt anyone is deliberately slowing the process down.

5 weeks is really not that long for initial enquiries, it sometimes take a couple weeks to hire a suitable solicitor and then find the money to engage etc etc.

People work 9-5, some people work shifts. Not everyone can complete paperwork the day it is sent.

As for suing... Good lord, are you serious? Its your choice to carry out a survey, no one made you. If you've spent money it's off your own decision. Welcome to the process.

You will lose money if the sale falls through, what's the difference?

As for having to extend your rent period.... so what? Did you really expect to be at exchange after 7 weeks? How naive.

12 weeks is often quoted as the average time for a house sale but this is very very rarely aheadered to. I'd say 4 months is more likely and 5 month still within the norms.

Tbh you sound like the nightmare party in this deal.

Oh and 5 weeks for enquires is absolutely normal. Week one after offer I wouldn't expect anyone to do anything expect engage a solicitor, could stretch to week 2. Week 3/4 order searches week 5/6/7 expect some replies.

Are you FTB? You are coming across as very ill informed.

There’s a good reason they say moving house is one of life’s most stressful things along with divorce and bereavement. Two moves back we were very fortunate to have a great estate agent ourselves who rang everyone’s solicitor/estate agent in the chain almost daily. This did help with knowing what was going on and what hold ups were. Often silly/routine things. However it still didn’t stop the so called cash buyer at the bottom of the chain, tacking on an extra house sale to fund his purchase!! He wasn’t a cash buyer at all! Held us all up months. I think you have to resign yourself to the fact it’s an absolute horrible process. Nothing is certain until exchange and anyone can pull out whenever they want with no consequences up until then. I have to say though, if you get the right house it’s all worth it and soon forgotten as you settle in.

You need to learn some patience. I get the impression that stamping your feet and going WAAAAAAAAH! has got results for you in the past, but that strategy won't work in your current situation. The other parties involved aren't your mum and dad and they don't care whether you are happy or not.

Here's an approximate Timeline, which would be average for most transactions:

Week 1 - Offer accepted from buyer. Seller and Buyer instruct their solicitors. EA sends out the Sales Memorandum to each party - i.e. each solicitor, seller and buyer.

Week 1 - Buyer's solicitor sends welcome pack and initial instruction documents to buyer to complete, sign and return. The buyer will need to provide ID. The solicitor will do ID and AML checks. No work will begin until these early stages are complete. The solicitor will probably want some money paid on account in order for the solicitor to start work.

Week 1 - Seller's solicitor sends welcome pack and initial instruction documents (including PIF, F&C, LIF etc) to seller to complete, sign and return. Seller to provide ID. The solicitor will do ID and AML checks. No work will begin until these early stages are complete. The solicitor may need monies on account to pay for Land Registry documents.

Week 2 - Once Sales Memorandum received, buyers solicitor and sellers solicitor send each other an 'initial' letter introducing themselves to state that they are acting in the transaction.

Week 2 & 3 - Buyer and seller return completed documents, monies etc. to their respective solicitors.

Week 3 - Seller's solicitor gathers/obtains the initial documents required to form a draft contract pack, i.e. Land Registry title, plan and transfers noted in the title, together with the F&C, PIF and any other necessary papers such as certificates and warranties provided by the seller relating to the property. Seller's solicitor will draft the contract.

Week 3 - Seller's solicitor will write to seller's lender to obtain an up to date mortgage statement. They will write to any freeholder/management company to obtain details of any management pack needed and the associated fee for providing it.

Week 3 & 4 - Seller's solicitor will send the draft contract pack to the buyer's solicitor and will ask them to confirm their approval of the contract, provide a draft transfer and raise any initial enquiries.

Week 4 - Buyer's solicitor receives the draft contract pack together with draft contract. The buyer's solicitor will now need some time to peruse all the title documents and the F&C, PIF etc before they can be in a position to raise enquiries. Bear in mind, some legal documents are lengthy and it is therefore a fairly lengthy amount of time to properly go through everything. Solicitors are busy with other clients too, so perusing these documents is not done in a day, more like a week or more.

Week 4 & 5 - Buyer's solicitor will check the buyer's mortgage offer and will often wait until this is received before ordering searches, providing they have received monies from the buyer to pay for these. Searches can take several weeks to receive - the local search usually takes the longest.

Week 5 - hopefully all searches are back, mortgage offer is approved and the seller's solicitor, having perused the draft contract pack, is now in a position to start initial enquiries. Don't think that the buyer's solicitor will raise enquiries before searches are back, they often don't because they like to do things in one go, rather than piecemeal.

Week 6 - The seller's solicitor will go through the initial enquiries, answering the questions that they can answer and referring all the others to the various third parties, i.e. the seller, the lender, the council, the land registry, the management company/freeholder etc. They may wait until all parties have responded to the enquiries before forwarding them together to the buyer's solicitor, rather than send them piecemeal. Bear in mind, that answers to enquiries may result in further additional enquiries being raised by the buyer's solicitor.

While this is an "average" timescale, it does give you some idea how weeks can go by with a seller and buyer both thinking that nothing has been done. There isn't a lot of progress achieved so far in the timeline above, as the preliminary (or pre-contract) work has only just been completed. The actual legal work doesn't really start until this point, i.e. raising enquiries and progressing the transaction to exchange and completion.

I'm not a solicitor, but have extensive experience working for a conveyancing 'factory'.

I'm buying a house. I'm 10 weeks in and enquiries have only been answered and finalised this week. Only 2 of us in the chain, neither of us need a mortgage so very simple.

It took my sale (very straightforward with no chain) 13 weeks to go through.

We are currently living with my parents and have been since 28th May when the sale completed. We are desperate to move but are at the mercy of the solicitors who work to their own timescale.

The only thing you can do is politely and calmly email or ring the solicitor and estate agents to enquire where you are with the purchase every week and ask if there is anything you can do to get it moving quicker.

I'm always super polite, graceful and humble in all correspondence.

Ranting and raving will get you nowhere.

We are hoping to exchange and compete in the next week or so, again this will be 12 weeks from offer accepted, which is average.