Help! What can I do to get chain moving

PhlebasThePhoenecian · 04/12/2024 22:28

Escalating it does sound like a good option. I'd either get your solicitor to contact the head of their firm, or get your EA to contact the manager of their branch and let them know that the chain is at risk of collapse. April to December seems like a long wait!

Nic834 · 05/12/2024 08:13

MyGoldBear · 04/12/2024 16:41

our Process has been on going since April. Both myself and our seller have been ready to exchange for weeks. However, for the past 5 weeks our buyers file has been stuck in an internal audit. We’ve had random queries pushed back at us and then it takes 5 working days for the buyers solicitor to confirm if they are happy. Last Thursday we sent over the remaining 5 answers to their queries in the early morning. Since then, we have chased through our solicitor and our EA, to get a response on whether the audit has finished and can we proceed to exchange. We’ve had radio silence from our buyers solicitor, no one can get hold of them at all. We are desperate to get this closed but feel like we are completely stuck. Other than our solicitor and EA chasing countless times a day is there a way we can either contact someone else in the firm or escalate? We just need answers!

Wow that’s a long wait.

A couple of questions for you;

1 Does anyone in the chain have a mortgage deal that will expire soon? That would worry me the most to be honest.

2 Do you want to move before or after Christmas? If after then perhaps this delay is a blessing in disguise?

Original poster

MyGoldBear · 05/12/2024 08:58

Nic834 · 05/12/2024 08:13

Wow that’s a long wait.

A couple of questions for you;

1 Does anyone in the chain have a mortgage deal that will expire soon? That would worry me the most to be honest.

2 Do you want to move before or after Christmas? If after then perhaps this delay is a blessing in disguise?

Show quote history

ours runs out in January and I’m not sure about our seller or buyer. (There’s only 3 of us in the chain)

we want to be in before. Original was supposed to complete in September, then October, then they said definitely November and here we are…

I feel at my wits end with it! If it were my solicitors, I would camp out in their reception until something was done.

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Needanadultgapyear · 05/12/2024 09:07

@MyGoldBear is it the firm of solicitors audit? This would be raising alarm bells to me if I was their client, I once had something similar happen and then the firm was shut down by the SRA and our file moved to another firm and then things got moving again,
I would be asking pointed questions along the lines if is the buyer actually still proceedable or should you be remarketing.

Original poster

MyGoldBear · 05/12/2024 09:11

Needanadultgapyear · 05/12/2024 09:07

@MyGoldBear is it the firm of solicitors audit? This would be raising alarm bells to me if I was their client, I once had something similar happen and then the firm was shut down by the SRA and our file moved to another firm and then things got moving again,
I would be asking pointed questions along the lines if is the buyer actually still proceedable or should you be remarketing.

It’s an internal audit from what I’ve been told, because the solicitor is new to the firm

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GreengrassofW · 05/12/2024 09:13

Could you complain to the ombudsman

Nic834 · 05/12/2024 09:13

MyGoldBear · 05/12/2024 08:58

ours runs out in January and I’m not sure about our seller or buyer. (There’s only 3 of us in the chain)

we want to be in before. Original was supposed to complete in September, then October, then they said definitely November and here we are…

I feel at my wits end with it! If it were my solicitors, I would camp out in their reception until something was done.

Show quote history

Oh gosh that does sound stressful. It’s the not knowing what’s going on isn’t that’s the hardest? So frustrating.

I really wish in the house buying process that a date of completion could be set in stone way ahead of time so that everyone knows what they’re doing, can inform suppliers etc. and book movers!

At my work we work to set deadlines,I don’t know why solicitors can’t do that as well.

LaPalmaLlama · 05/12/2024 09:19

Your EA needs to contact your buyer and tell them to put a rocket up their solicitor's arse because they are the client and the solicitor is most likely to call them back - if the firm isn't happy with the work of the person they've assigned then they need to give it to someone else and it doesn't take 5 weeks to review conveyancing work.

Conveyancing solicitors are proof that "the squeaky wheel gets the oil". Don't email. Tell the EA or the buyer to keep calling direct line until they call back.

Original poster

MyGoldBear · 05/12/2024 09:21

GreengrassofW · 05/12/2024 09:13

Could you complain to the ombudsman

I don’t know how that works when it’s not our solicitor, it’s our buyers

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Original poster

MyGoldBear · 05/12/2024 09:22

LaPalmaLlama · 05/12/2024 09:19

Your EA needs to contact your buyer and tell them to put a rocket up their solicitor's arse because they are the client and the solicitor is most likely to call them back - if the firm isn't happy with the work of the person they've assigned then they need to give it to someone else and it doesn't take 5 weeks to review conveyancing work.

Conveyancing solicitors are proof that "the squeaky wheel gets the oil". Don't email. Tell the EA or the buyer to keep calling direct line until they call back.

I have asked them to call everyday to get a response, sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. Which is frustrating.

right!?! 5 weeks is so long. And then to go silent

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Doris86 · 05/12/2024 09:55

I’d tell your estate agent to put it back on the market. If they think they are going to lose their commission it should put a rocket up their arse, and get them chasing the buyer and their solicitor a lot more vigourously.

Doris86 · 05/12/2024 10:01

It would also put a rocket up your buyers arse to chase if they thought they were going to lose the house.

YouveGotAFastCar · 05/12/2024 10:32

I'm not sure you can, really.

You can threaten to put your house back on the market - which I'd genuinely have already done if we were due to complete in September and it was months late, with an offer that expires in a month - or you can actually instruct your estate agent to do it, and hope that lights a rocket up the buyer.

Or you can encourage them to push, but they'll only push as much as they want to...

I am, admittedly, a bit cynical, because we ended up waiting 4 months for our buyer for a similar reason the last time we moved - he had to get a new mortgage, and then there was a hold up with his solicitors, and he got quieter and quieter... and then he confirmed he couldn't proceed, he didn't have access to the funds any longer. He'd been waiting on some money to come in but it hadn't. To hold the rest of the chain together, we had to then re-offer to our second offer, who then knew the first one had pulled out and negotiated hard on price... Chaos.

Original poster

MyGoldBear · 05/12/2024 16:46

I honestly don’t know if I have the energy for re-listing :(

just praying we hear good news and we can

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