I'm a first time buyer in the process of buying a house with no chain and vacant possession.
Solicitors were instructed on the 22nd July. It seems to be going well, mortgage offer arrived last week, survey done and searches were requested just over 2 weeks ago. My mortgage broker advised that the local council were taking 3-4 weeks to return them and a website I found online suggested the same thing. I thought they would be back next week or the following week at the very latest.
I haven't needed to chase my solicitor as she's been fantastic and very efficient so far. They also have an online portal that I can log into to see what's happening. The estate agent phoned me earlier today as the seller had asked for an update and he couldn't reach either solicitors. I confirmed that the searches were requested 2 weeks ago but didn't know if they had been returned yet as I was advised what the timescales were but he said they were only taking around 2 weeks.
Normally I'd be thrilled by this but I've just had a pay increase at work and was planning to borrow a bit more from the lender. The problem is that the lender won't approve this until I get my next payslip which will be the last week of this month. It could then take another week to approve the additional borrowing and send out all the paperwork. I was under the impression that we wouldn't complete until the end of September at the very earliest and I thought I'd have plenty of time to borrow a bit more but now I'm worried it's going to hold things up?
I don't want to delay things, but the extra money would be helpful. Any ideas?