Same day exchange and completion worries

[Alwaystressed95]

Hi!

Can anyone shed some light/news on same day exchange and completion? Was supposed to have had weeks in between exchange and completion and suddenly it has come to needing to complete for this Friday so in 2 days due to solicitors being slow! Never have I been so stressed as this was literally the last resort I wanted after hearing horror stories!

Help 😫

What horror stories have you heard/what's your worry? Who is it that's saying you 'need' to do simultaneous exchange/completion and/or complete by this Friday - is it your buyer/seller or your solicitor? Are you in a chain? Is everyone in the chain ready to go?

I've never done it myself but have known friends/family do it and it's gone fine, no horror stories here but equally if you feel it's too big a risk no-one has exchanged yet so you can hard ball it with your seller/buyer/whoever is pushing for the Friday completion and say no, you need however many weeks notice in between, but obviously then you do risk the sale collapsing - only you know how much of an issue that is to you!

Basically being all packed up ready to go etc then for some reason people suddenly pull out or it doesn't go through for another reason and gets pushed back etc! We're buying a new build which is ready, we've all agreed on this date all along and suddenly my solicitors are saying because everything has been left until so late from both sides that it may have to be both on Friday 😐

How long is the chain? That has a lot to do with it I think.

I've done it once before but as a FTB buying a chain free property. It took till about 2pm to all be final due to some solicitor delays- if everything had to then pass up a long chain I'm not sure it would have been done same day.

Also bear in mind if a suggested exchange/completion date doesnt work for you, you can say. Everyone in the chain has to agree to the dates.

We exchanged and complete ld the same day, all by midday in fact. Went smoothly. As we were in a rental, thankfully we had 2 more weeks to get out though!

Thanks! the chain is FTB, us & new build so very short. The buyers and us were happy with this Friday (no one wants a huge first mortgage interest payment!) and the new build especially as I believe it's also the end of the quarter. The solicitors each side keep blaming each other for not being exchanged yet and the whole thing has just worn me out 😪

No one should be pushed into it

are the others in the chain happy? What does the new build company say?

is effectively that inefficient solicitors missed the feasible date to leave the gap you wanted?

Years ago, it was quite common to exchange and complete on the same day, I think out of the nine house moves I’ve had, five of them were same day exchange and complete. Even in a fairly long chain, the money transfers are done very quickly, each one progressing as soon as the sellers solicitor has received to final 90% of the sale price.

However, I’m not sure I would agree to it again after selling my mums house last year. The buyers pulled out of the sale on the day we were due to exchange so we had to re market the house. Luckily it was already empty and no one was living there.

I should add, I’ve done it, it was fine but there was literally no chain. I don’t think I’d want to do it if there was a chain.

We did it, it was a condition of purchase actually. But no chain. Just us as FTB buying a repossession.

DD's just done it. It was the lack of a single piece of paper which was holding it all up, when that was finally created, there was nothing else holding it up, so on the Wednesday, they decided to exchange and complete on the same day. Very short/no chain, she was coming from rental, seller was moving in with partner.

We bought a property from a couple who were getting divorced so they had two solicitors dealing with the divorce and property sale, causing delays because both sides had to agree to everything on the sale and the divorce finances.
As time dragged on and on I took a massive risk by completing on my sale the day before exchanging & completing on the house purchase.
We ended up on exchange and completion day waiting for hours with our furniture on the removal van but all eventually went through at about 3pm.
It was a stressful time but we didn't want to lose the sale.

It works best if there's no chain either side.

In this case you're the only ones having to pack up and move on completion day, and take the risk that something might go wrong. FTBs won't need to move anywhere on completion day, and a new house will obviously already be vacant.

I would always want at least a week or 2 if it were me.

Well your solicitors work for you, so if you would prefer an interval then make sure they know that and are clear with you about why it is that they're recommending simultaneous. They don't get to dictate to you, they can advise and also pass on the preferences from the other parties but you're in the driving seat at the end of the day (I know it doesn't always feel that way!). If an interval is preferable to you why not call them up and say you're happy to exchange Friday but can you complete a week Friday or in 2 weeks and get them to test that with the rest of the chain. The FTB would presumably prefer a bit of a gap too for certainty like you, and while the new-build company probably just want their money ASAP, a week or two's delay probably isn't a total deal breaker - even if they get charged extra interest for going over the quarter mark you do actually have all the leverage here because if you pulled out of the purchase now as you'd be fully entitled to, you'd only lose your legal fees etc whereas they'd lose their legal fees AND have to pay the mortgage costs etc.

But of course if it's actually in your interests to complete on Friday and you still want to, I'd actually probably ask the solicitors to press ahead with the simultaneous exchange and completion (or to try and exchange today/tomorrow with completion for Friday). Like others have said it's not that unusual to do both on the same day and in most cases it goes very smoothly. You may well have to wait until the afternoon for confirmation the completion has gone through and to be able to pick up the keys but I'm afraid that's pretty commonplace even if you'd exchanged a week earlier, just how it goes. My practice when moving house is to book the movers to come in first thing and try and clear out of old house ASAP, you usually do then have to wait nervously around in limbo for a few hours before you can get the keys to your new place but movers should be understanding as it's a common situation.

Good luck!

I've done it a few times and all was fine. I would however never do it again as last time we did it (3 in chain) we were told all was going through, packed van ,removal company left we dropped the keys off at the estate agent only to be told the solicitor above had gone awol and nothing could be done, we couldn't go back to our home as no longer ours but didn't own the new house so couldn't have the keys. The estate agent was crying, I was just bewildered (just me and 3 very young dc). Ended up booking into a hotel for the night, and completed next day at noon. No apologise and no money back for out of pocket expenses (extra removal time and strage, hotel, meals etc) because no one broke the contract.

I did it .. completed and exchanged on the same day
Packed 2 cats in the car and drove 3 hrs in torrential rain to be NOT met by anyone at other side , no one answering phone and now after 3 pm , locked house.
It was the most stressful hour of my life but eventually home seller came flying round corner very apologetic as had got caught up at school pick up
All was well but I definitely had a chippie tea that night
4 years ago now and still can't hear the cats crying the whole way in their carriers ☹️

It will be short term stress but then all ok OP

The main problem for you is having a van / removals team booked that you have to pay for if it doesn’t happen.

We exchanged on the Wednesday, moved on the Friday after last minute hold ups (the sellers ex boyfriend was listed as having an interest, and she was trying to find him... bearing in mind she was married with a teenager from the current relationship!).

It all went smoothly... however we had our rental property still for a month afterwards so rush moving.

Try and getting g a packing service if you haven't done anything... they are the best thing ever for just getting it done. Dont worry about any sorting.

We've done it twice. I said never again after the shitshow the first time but for reasons relating to others in the chain it had to happen the second time or the chain would have collapsed.

The first time the vendors hadn't moved out when we arrived and it took them hours to shift stuff. We ended up bunging our movers some money to help them get out. We eventually got in around 7pm having handed over the keys to our old house around lunchtime. We had a five month old baby and it was December so being "homeless" for a while was awful.

The second time we still hadn't exchanged at noon when all of our stuff was packed into three lorries (six bedroom house, so there was a lot). We thought we were going to have to unpack everything. Exchange eventually happened but the money took a while to move and as we were at the top of the chain it looked like it wasn't going to go through. We were trying to find somewhere for us and two pissed off cats to go for the night when the money eventually came through as the solicitors were closing. The movers threw everything into two downstairs rooms and fucked off as it was so late, despite the fact that we had paid for a package where they were supposed to put furniture back together. We ended up sleeping on camping rolls as the beds and mattresses were buried under all of stuff the movers had dumped.

NEVER AGAIN (and I mean it this time).

I've worked in the property industry for about 30 years now, and never known it to be a common thing (aside from a brief period during COVID).

It's unnecessarily stressful, and with any sort of chain should be avoided.

Thanks for everyone's replies! So us and the buyers and developers all said we were happy with this Friday weeks ago. Roll on in time and our buyers solicitors ignore mine for 3 weeks and only came back this Tuesday to say yes we're ready to exchange after our estate agent intervened. Then mine have had a moan to say this is short notice we need to sort everything out etc so it may have to be same day for it to be that date! It's been nearly 5 months for a simple chain 😰

we had three days between exchange and completion and the FTB at the bottom of our chain, who were buying our buyer's house, gazundered us all - demanded a huge reduction, which my buyer and I agreed to split between us to keep the chain going. I was downsizing so it ate into my future living budget, but they were happy to pull out completely as they were in rented, had already sold, were cash buyers. Oh and it was during lockdown.

They knew the rest of the chain had to move for one reason or another, schools, new job and relocating to another part of the UK etc. So they were total bastards.

Sadly even if everyone has exchanged, someone can back out and that's event worse, no one moves, all the stress of reclaiming costs.

Over the years I've made three purchases and two sales - three of those completed on the day. Solicitors will know they've got to do this on the day on top of everything else, so it'll be an early morning priority. Also, much of the after exchange correspondence will probably be prepared in advance. For reassurance, speak to your solicitors secretary and they will be able to advise if everything looks ok for the following day.

I was a legal secretary for 11 years, and things have moved on since then in terms of internet, transferring money so it's a lot easier.

Sadly even if everyone has exchanged, someone can back out

But that's astonishingly rare, because the costs of doing so are massive.

We have done it twice, both times with no chain. Not sure I would have done it with a chain though yours is short and includes an empty new build so should be fine.

OK, so I'm one of the horror stories in that my sellers pulled out 5 minutes before exchange, 2 days before completion. The whole chain collapsed.

But your chain feels very safe to me, very short, first time buyers are very unlikely to pull out,new build aren't going to pull out.