What’s the earliest anyone has got their keys on completion day?

[Ohwheretobegin]

We are finally completing today, it’s been nearly a year and in the end our seller broke their chain and moved into rented. House is empty.
Our solicitor drew down our mortgage yesterday and we are moving from rented so doing it gradually.
Just wondering, as there are no major hurdles, what time we are likely to get the keys today? What happens? Will the solicitor call us or the estate agent? Thanks! Clueless but excited first time buyers.

We got our keys to an empty house around 11. The estate agent called and said they were ready to collect. About 3 hours later the solicitor emailed with a gushing congratulations you can collect your keys email. I was already in the house. But that just summed them up really.

Congratulations on your house 🏠 how exciting for you.

Tends to be around 12pm for the first in the chain. Can be earlier if they are very quick, and can be later if there are any delays.

Estate agent will call to say you can collect keys. Solicitor will normally call as well to confirm it’s all gone through.

Congratulations!!! We pick up the keys around 12.30pm after solicitor confirmed around 11.30am. A chain of 3 and we were in the middle.

When we we FTB, 11am. Second time was 2pm.

Last time...well. we picked up the keys at 1pm, but had to shuffle the vendors out at 4 with the threat that they would pay our extra costs if they didn't hurry. They had though they could empty a cluttered 5 bed house on the day (without pre-packing) in a Luton van when moving 300 miles away 🙄 It all ended up in a neighbour's garage/on neighbour's lawn etc. Thankfully the whole street knew that they were like this and have never held it against us.

Mine was half five . Was absolutely furious as we spent a wasted day off work.

it was stressful as well , in the last hour we were just sat at the estate agents waiting.

It's usually been noon for me. Except this house which was much later but I wasn't moving in straight away.

Usually my solicitor rang me but with this one the EA and the solicitor rang.

It was about 12.30 in our chain free move.

We were told 11am in our first house. Got them at 3.30pm as the couple were moving themselves (with mates to help) and totally underestimated how long it would take.

Last house 11am on the dot. That seems to be a "standard time" so far as EA are concerned.

11am on last move - mid chain. A previous move was 4.30pm - we’d moved 200 miles with a baby & toddler, our whole lives in a removal van waiting for keys. Very stressful. Hope you get yours soon!

Thanks for all your responses and kind wishes. Sat here staring at my phone willing it to ring! I'm so excited and nervous I might combust!

Our sale was like this.😢

I had been sat in the empty house all day (we had already moved out so I went back to give it a final clean) as the EA said they would pop by to collect the keys as soon as the money had transferred. After 5pm I got a call from the solicitor to say it had (finally) happened, I rang the EA but they replied that they were now closed and I should drop the keys off with the solicitor (10-miles away). Drove over to the solicitor who was waiting to close but stayed open for me.

Turns out the new owner was not wanting to move in that day and (according to my old neighbours), did not show up for a couple of weeks.

All in all it was a hateful experience.☹️

Sold a probate property a few months later and that happened before midday.🙂

Got the call at 9:15 to say we’d completed and we dropped the keys over to the EA at 9:30 - we moved out and Into storage the previous day though.

Got an email about 10.30am (no chain either side) picked keys up about 2pm and actually went to the house about 6pm. To discover a gas leak! The not so lovely vendor knew about it week or 2 prior and didn't do anything about it. Luckily we weren't moving in properly until following week