5 weeks and no draft contract - so pissed off

[Mynewplace9]

First time buyer here. I've just been advised by my solicitor that she's still not received the draft contract after 5 weeks. She's been chasing the sellers solicitor and he told her that he's contacted the vendor but still hasn't received instructions yet. I only emailed her as the estate agent rang me on Monday for an update for the vendor (WTF?). I thought my searches had been ordered 3 weeks ago as my solicitor asked for confirmation via email which I gave but now I have no idea if they've even been ordered (waiting for her to confirm this) as I thought they required the draft contract to do this.

I'm so upset that nobody told me and I've been sat waiting for 3 weeks thinking it was the searches holding things up!!! I've just rang the agent and she sounded surprised and said she would find out what's going on.

This is a vacant property with no chain so should be fairly straightforward as well ffs!!!

I'm surprised you've asked for searches already, have you already secured your mortgage and had a survey which you're happy with? We didn't get searches requested for many weeks, as a waste of money doing them until you get mortgage offer and are happy with survey.

Yes survey done and mortgage offer received. Searches here are taking 3-4 weeks so I wanted to get them done asap as they seem to be what's holding transactions up.

Although my purchase is probably not the norm, we're 12 weeks in and searches have only just been ordered.

The vendor is elderly and doesn't really understand the process.
Is your vacant property probate? I definitely agree that mortgage should be in place before searches commence and survey if you're doing one (probably recommended of the property is vacant.!l)
5 weeks isn't that long in conveyancing but your solicitor should have heard.from the vendors solicitor by now.

FYI our solicitor only recoced the contract three weeks ago. We made our offer in June!

Don't commit money to the searches until you've received the draft contract. If the Vendors haven't committed themselves by confirming instructions with the solicitors, that would suggest a problem. Is it a probate or divorce sale? Joint owners who can't agree on something? Probe the agent to find out the reason for the delay.
Tell them that if draft contracts are not received by the end of this week, you'll start looking at other properties.

From the Memorandum of sale it looks to be a single woman selling the property. It was an ex rental.

I was under the impression that draft contracts were sent straight away so searches could be ordered. That's why I'm annoyed that it's been 5 weeks and nothings been done as it will be another 3-4 weeks before we get anything back.

Also frustrated that my solicitor didn't advise me of this as I could have chased the estate agent much sooner.

Looking back on my emails and my solicitor received the title plan back in August and sent me this:

"We have received the attached plan from the seller’s solicitor. This shows the extent of the property edged red thereon. Please note that the Land Registry Title Plan does not reveal the physical extent of a registered title.
Please confirm it accords with your understanding of the boundaries. If so we will carry out the searches, unless you wish to wait for the results of your survey (if applicable)."
I'm assuming this means that she has ordered the searches and is just waiting for the draft contract now?

My recent experience is they don't order the searches until they receive the draft contract, no matter how many times you ask. They simply ignored my emails.

I think they do it because they've seen it happen so many times - the contract never arrives because there's a problem the buyer isn't being told about. We walked away from the purchase in the end and only had a £28 bill to pay.

And I specifically asked them to order them, twice. Turns out they were doing the right thing all along - even though I said if we lose the search money, it doesn't matter.