5 in a chain - anything I can do to speed up settling on a move-in date?

[Brightstarz98]

Our chain is now complete. We are 5 and we are bang in the middle. It’s been 2 weeks now of just trying to settle on a move in date. Is there anything I can do in my power to speed this up? Anyone I can chase? Can I ask solicitor to get in touch directly with our buyers’ buyers’ solicitor? Or is that not done? I feel being in the middle, we need to take a more active role to sort out the two sides. I am finding this so stressful and communication between solicitors painfully slow. Any advice is appreciated. Thanks

Oh the joys of moving. Sadly, in this day and age, Solicitors and EAgents all still like to communiicate (mostly) by snail mail. Usually things have to up the chain and then back down again, then if not agreed have to go up and then back down again. 2 weeks is nothing these days for moving house...it can take several weeks sometimes.

Have all the searches/surveys etc been back and ok'd as this could also hold things up?

Dont however feel pressured to make rash decisions just to speed things up.

@ParentOTeen thank you. We are not in a rush to move as such. We are in a rush to confirm the move-in date because of removals, nurseries, annual leave etc. so we are looking to move next month, which should allow time for searches etc. it seems it’s the deciding on the date that is holding things up mostly…

Recently a family member of mine moved and they had to postpone their removals 3 times because of hold ups. To move next month could be doable depends if all 5 searches and surveys have all been booked/completed etc.

I would certainly get a quote from 2 or 3 removals companies. If you say you have a complete chain but just waiting for a date they usually can give a quote at least.

Maybe spend time gathering paperwork on who do you need to contact to change address details (Bank/DVLA/Insurance companies etc) just so you can get cracking once you have a date. If you can find things to keep you busy hopefully things will feel "quicker"

We were in the middle of 5 for our recent house move. Our solicitor could only really liaise with those above and below, the estate agent got updates from the wider chain, but often those were pretty vague - we would often ask them to find out what was outstanding elsewhere in the chain to give us an idea of progress.

It took us 7 months from the chain being complete/closed - no particular issues, just took a while for searches, enquiries, mortgages. We only agreed a date one week in advance of the move, once everything was ready, which I think is fairly usual. Too many variables to agree a date before all paperwork done, though not unreasonable to share a target date with the chain.

As mentioned before though...dont feel pressured to make silly decisions. There are some agents who put real pressure on you and say things like "move into rented to free up your house to make things quicker". That would be disasterous if you do and then it all falls through...you could end up homeless if you are not careful (or paying ££s for rent and possibly storage).

Until you have "exchanged" you need to hold your ground and unfortuntaely wait for everyone to get their ducks in a row.

@ParentOTeen oh yeah definitely not doing that. We just need the solicitors to be more on it with communication… which is asking a lot it seems! They all seem to be OK with next month as move but lots of back and forth on getting a move-in date. I have requested to have the exchange done in advance by at least a week.

@neonleopard thanks. Presumably it took so long because no one was in a particular rush to move?

What you call 'move in date' I assume you mean completion date? You can't agree a completion date until all searches and enquiries are done so you will have to wait for that at least. Even then, completion date is not fixed until you exchange contracts.

Our chain so far have suggested completion dates of 1st week in September, then 1st week in October and now we are looking at 1st week in November. With 5 properties in a chain I wouldn't expect to be completing next month, sorry OP.