How long would you give before pulling out?

[sunnydays18]

I don't feel that I'm getting anywhere with my house purchase after 13 weeks.

This is a vacant property, no chain and I'm first time buyer.

Enquires were sent 4 weeks ago and 2 are still outstanding. The enquires were simple according to friends and family that have bought before - for example, my solicitor requested the electric test certificate which the seller said she had on the TA10 form but didn't attach.

The estate agent has been very helpful and chased many times throughout the process so I'd rather not ask her to email them again. My solicitor has also been very good.

I'm just extremely worried that this is going to drag on for months and I can't understand why it's taken so long already. I really thought I be a lot closer to exchange/completion.

I'm not sure wether to email the estate agent one last time and explain that I really want to complete as soon as possible and ask her to find out how long this is going to take now. What do you think?

I'd keep plugging away with this purchase, but keep looking on rightmove. If sonething better cones up, I'd view it, and then make a decision as to how to proceed with each house.

You've nothing to lose by still looking at other properties, bu the whole process can take forever!!

when you're at the end of your rope, just tell the Agent you don't feel they want to actually sell the the property & if they don't get a shift on you'll be withdrawing your offer.

Is it really worth withdrawing over a missing electric test certificate, even if it turns out they don't have one?

Either you have lost perspective or you don't really care about buying this house which is a good reason to withdraw.

You don't need to wait you can crack on with they surveys etc

@Twiglets1 it's my solicitor that's asked for it, not me and I don't think I can overrule her can I? Doesn't she have to satisfy herself and the lender before proceeding?

Also, I'm not insinuating that I'll withdraw over the certificate, I was just trying to explain that they were fairly straightforward enquires so I have no idea what's taking so long.

@Doggymummar I had my survey done, mortgage offer received back in August. It's just the enquires now.

Why the rush if you're a first time buyer anyway? Genuine question.

My son bought his first house in 2022, like yours an empty property. Offer accepted mid August got the keys just before Christmas. We haven't moved for many decades and couldn't believe how slow it was.

You’ve spent the money on surveys, you only plan to pull out because the sale process is taking longer…..

You’re throwing money away you’ve spent - unless the issues raised were drastic or a change of circumstances meaning that you don’t go ahead with the purchase then keep going.

I’d be more pushy with the solicitor etc - you are paying them for the service

I'm currently in rented and my landlord is planning to sell.

Even if that wasn't the case though, who wants to wait months and months to buy a house :/

@good96 yes that's true, it would be money down the drain and I also do really love the house.

I'm not sure how much more I can ask of my solicitor though. It's the other side that are being slow.

I thought sales took an average of 4 months from offer accepted to exchange?

We found that we were waiting ages for queries, then suddenly everything came back at once and we were exchanging with about 2 days’ notice (to transfer the deposit - it would probably have been even faster otherwise). 13 weeks and only two outstanding queries sounds pretty normal to me.

@AlwaysGardening oh gosh that is a long time! I thought mine would have gone a lot quicker tbh :(

@Saschka I was told 10-12 weeks, but I'm not sure if that was optimistic.

But if those two queries come back tomorrow, you can exchange on Thursday… you are really really close.

I wouldn’t pull out unless you have changed your mind about the house.

my first house took 5 month, I was a FTB and there was no chain, second there was a 3 people chain, took 6 months and we had to move into a rental to break the chain as the bottom of it refused to wait, and the last one six months again despite being no chain as she’d already moved into a care home. I’ve never known anyone complete before 14 weeks, I think solicitors just bullshit with 10-12 weeks!!

Your solicitor works for you so you could say you don’t care about the electric certificate as can organise that yourself once you’re in the house, if you want to.

Yes you can overrule your solicitor you are instructing them. If you are very concerned about the certificate I'd say go back to your solicitor, suggest that for any documents that are missing the sellers can provide you with an indemnity policy or a renewed certificate.

You can definitely over-rule your solicitor if you choose to. Some solicitors get a bee in their bonnet about details that don't necessarily matter to you too much. If you have every reason to believe from the house inspection, etc, that electrics are in good order and are prepared to pay for any upgrades then go for it. If there is a problem with lender because of it, I'm sure you could just pay for a quick electrical inspection.

For my current house my solicitor got completely derailed about confirmation of tree protection orders. I had viewed the property several times and knew there were no large trees on my property likely to be subject to a TPO. You could see from the Land Registry documents that said trees were near the boundary of my garden but not actually on my land. You could also see this clearly on Google satellite. I was away from work running training programmes but coming out on the breaks to try and convince them.

In the end, bless them, the vendors just went to the local authority and sat there until someone provided them with a statement that the s*dding trees weren't on the property.

On my previous house purchase I also had an issue with solicitor holding things up because they were worried about a flying freehold (bizarrely I actually knew what one was because of my previous house). The house I was buying and the house next door had small brick sheds which were semi-detached. They were worried that either an inch or so of mine went over the property line next door or vice versa.

I think I must have been spending far too much time on MN because from the title I thought this was a sex thread. I'm delighted to hear that it is not.

Oh and most people don’t have an electric certificate on their house. I refused to get one in my last sale and made the buyer pay for the gas check as I was really hard up.

True ... I only have one currently because we had some electrical work done recently. It's only rental properties that I believe have to get them done every year.

I sold an empty property over summer in ten weeks. They do seem exceptionally slow.

I'd ask the estate agent if they suggest you look at other properties? They might give you a steer and also nudge the vendor again. It's very odd.

As others have said you could exchange this week once the queries have been answered so the process could be very quick in the end! And yes, if the electrical certificate becomes the stalling point then tell them you want to go ahead without it.

Have you asked your solicitor that once the two queries are resolved there is nothing stopping the exchange of contracts going ahead? Also for example, tell them you are happy to exchange/complete on the same day or willing to exchange any day of the week, and can they confirm everything is signed, ready to go and your deposit is in a non-notice account.

Very frustrating when you think nothing is happening I know!