Have we exchanged?

[Roseyposey1]

we are coming towards the end of a very long process of buying a house as first time buyers. It’s been a complicated process as it is a listed building and have had a few bumps in the road. We are ready to move on Friday 🎉

our solicitor today requested the deposit money, which we sent over. Does this mean we have exchanged? Or is it normal to send the deposit over a little in advance? He is hard to get hold of and didn’t reply to the email confirming it has been sent. Exchanging just feels like quite a big step in the process and we are unsure if it has happened! We haven’t bought a house before so unsure of the timelines…

It's normal to send deposit money in advance in preparation for exchange. Your solicitor will request permission from yourselves when everyone is ready. It may take a few attempts to exchange.

you send the money over, they hold it then they exhange with your money.

Then same day/few days later you complete and the house is yours!

I got a text both times to confirm

You'll know when you've exchanged. You are usually called to confirm instructions the morning of and then get email/text to confirm. I've just completed on a purchase, we exchanged Tuesday and completed Friday. I completed on a sale a few weeks ago, which exchanged and completed the same day. I'd recommend avoiding this if you can.

You should exchange soon. Once you’ve lodged the deposit, have insurance in place etc., your solicitor will contact you asking you to authorise exchange. Then they will let you know it’s happened. They have to request authorisation every day, if exchange hasn’t happened the previous day you authorised. It’s nail biting, but has to follow strict procedures.

no you have not yet exchanged
solicitors need the money in their own account before they will commit to an exchange otherwise there is a risk they could not actually undertake an exchange, To meet one of the requirements of the exchange, ie payment of money they need to be sure the money is available to send.

When you have physically exchanged you will be specifically notified of that fact

Thanks everyone for the replies! So we are one step closer but not quite there yet :)

We were asked for authority to exchange a few days after we had sent our deposit.