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Original poster

FTB feeling stuck help

4 replies

NotLongNow9 · 19/12/2025 14:20

How much pressure should I be putting on my solicitor and estate agents? To give some context the agent is a fairly popular agent in SE London and my solicitor is from a well renowned firm. I’m a FTB in a fairly long chain. We found a great flat made an offer and things have progressed. At the moment things are moving relatively well (or so I thought) however I’m starting to get extremely frustrated with our solicitor annd agents. Our agent are meant to be handling our sellers (and sellers sellers) expectations on a timelines for exchange and completion and likewise our solicitor. Instead they have been useless. Solicitor is slow at responding to our sellers solicitor and estate agents are equally have not updated our sellers on how far along we are. I’m starting to find the whole process super stressful. What’s made things worse is our seller wanted to exchange before Christmas which I had no idea about except from an annoyed call from our estate agents explaining that “everyone else up the chain is more progressed than you are” making me feel like all our fault and we are slowing the process. Is there anything I should be doing to make this situation better?

OP posts:
ByQuaintAzureWasp · 19/12/2025 14:46

Ask the person complaining what you can do?

housethatbuiltme · 19/12/2025 14:49

NotLongNow9 · 19/12/2025 14:20

How much pressure should I be putting on my solicitor and estate agents? To give some context the agent is a fairly popular agent in SE London and my solicitor is from a well renowned firm. I’m a FTB in a fairly long chain. We found a great flat made an offer and things have progressed. At the moment things are moving relatively well (or so I thought) however I’m starting to get extremely frustrated with our solicitor annd agents. Our agent are meant to be handling our sellers (and sellers sellers) expectations on a timelines for exchange and completion and likewise our solicitor. Instead they have been useless. Solicitor is slow at responding to our sellers solicitor and estate agents are equally have not updated our sellers on how far along we are. I’m starting to find the whole process super stressful. What’s made things worse is our seller wanted to exchange before Christmas which I had no idea about except from an annoyed call from our estate agents explaining that “everyone else up the chain is more progressed than you are” making me feel like all our fault and we are slowing the process. Is there anything I should be doing to make this situation better?

Yeah EA cannot do timelines, they literally have zero power in this so I'm not sure what your expecting. That's the solicitors job.

Really once the memorandum is done the only job for the EA is sorting access times/dates for any agreed things like surveys or pre-exchange viewings and possibly handing keys over.

These things take time, they can't be rushed and often solicitors cannot go faster, the hold up is almost always return times for searches (which take twice as long during the holidays) so unless you are going to proceed with out them (which is a risk) then theres nothing they can do to speed stuff up.

Constant chasing for updates when there is nothing to update slows everything down more for everyone too as instead of reviewing the clients whose searches have returned they having to mess on updating people who aren't even at that point yet.

Original poster
NotLongNow9 · 19/12/2025 15:14

ByQuaintAzureWasp · 19/12/2025 14:46

Ask the person complaining what you can do?

Well that’s helpful response(!) I can’t ask my seller, or sellers sellee as all contact is through the solicitors, who at this point are useless…a bit like your response :-)

OP posts:
Original poster
NotLongNow9 · 19/12/2025 15:17

housethatbuiltme · 19/12/2025 14:49

Yeah EA cannot do timelines, they literally have zero power in this so I'm not sure what your expecting. That's the solicitors job.

Really once the memorandum is done the only job for the EA is sorting access times/dates for any agreed things like surveys or pre-exchange viewings and possibly handing keys over.

These things take time, they can't be rushed and often solicitors cannot go faster, the hold up is almost always return times for searches (which take twice as long during the holidays) so unless you are going to proceed with out them (which is a risk) then theres nothing they can do to speed stuff up.

Constant chasing for updates when there is nothing to update slows everything down more for everyone too as instead of reviewing the clients whose searches have returned they having to mess on updating people who aren't even at that point yet.

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Ok that makes sense - thanks for your response. I'm also aware most solicitors are closing for Christmas so it’s going to be quiet now. I’m hoping things pick up again in January and I’ll be closer to exchanging then.

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