What’s the longest you’ve known it take between offer accepted and exchanging?

[Forgottenmyphone]

The house we’re buying is in a chain. What’s the longest you (or someone you know) have waited between your offer being accepted and actually moving in? I’m feeling impatient!

21 weeks. I was climbing the walls…

My son and DiL sold their house a year ago. They accepted an offer within days of it going on the market and continued with the buying process of the house they were buying.

After months of various delays the vendors of the house they were buying took it off the market, so they had to find another house to buy.

Their own buyer was still happy to wait, so by the time they exchanged contracts their buyer had waited over 11 months and they completed a month later, so just over a year in total.

That seems perfectly normal to me!

We had no chain (moving out of rented into an empty house) and it took 9 miserable months!

Yes that fits in with recent experiences of a friend and family members.

Jan- offer accepted. NOVEMBER completed. Not sure when exchange happened- if it was exchange and long time to complete or whatever. This was a house 2 doors down. When the new couple moved in they said the previous owners had been "in no rush" to find an onward purchase id have been going mad!!

Offer accepted November 2023. Moved October 2024. Took the vendors a while to find something and then we all had to wait for a new build up the chain which was delayed by months due to the crappy weather. We knew it would take a while, and actually while we waited we decided to sell ours rather than rent it out and although we did the 2 processes separately, they ended up closing within days of each other so kind of worked out well.

We accepted an offer on our property Nov 2020 and finally moved Nov 21, our buyer had numerous issues with her sale because of a boundary issue and the house we were buying changed their mind and pulled out so we had to find somewhere new. Thankfully due to our buyers issues that part of the chain stayed intact as her issues took so long to resolve, if our seller hadn’t pulled out we would have gone back onto the market as she was taking so long.

Oh my goodness, from reading these relies (thank you everyone), I’ll brace myself for a year. It means I could be moving just before Christmas. Cripes!

Not to completion but it took over a year (closer to a year and a half) of back and forth and stress before our last house we where buying fell through.

Only ended because the bank repossessed it and wouldn't honor selling for the agreed price (when they finally did sell they got 25% less than what we had agreed so they LOST money and cost us money).

The house we did buy only took like 15 weeks though from start to finish and that was with delays for the holidays.

Late MIL’s house went on the market 18 months ago. One offer accepted, deal fell through after 3 months as they lost the buyer for their house. Second offer accepted in July last year, still waiting and about to put the house back on the market as the guy probably doesn’t have the money.

Edited as some stray words that didn’t make sense had crept in!

When we last bought (2023) it took 7 months. No chain.

Last year it took us 18 weeks and 3 days in a chain of 5. The FTB at the start of the chain causes all sorts of delays due to having useless online conveyancers! I also sold my rental last year to FTB and that took 9 weeks exactly from offer to completion.

Another 9 months here - 4 house chain, buyers and sellers all on board and not being awkward.

Honestly, if I'd really wanted to move quickly I'd just have bought a different house as no-one in our chain was in a rush which is kind of unusual. It took ages because I was prepared to wait IYSWIM. We were bottom of the chain so had no pressure on us and I think also mentally I was putting off what has become an absolute budget buster of a renovation :-)

I was an executor for a family member and it took 8.5 months to complete the process from me accepting the offer and finally exchanging. A cash buyer looks promising on paper but the fact was that they owned several properties and their lender decided that our buyer was a bit over stretched financially so wouldn't lend him the full amount - only what they though he could afford... so he had to sell a property to free up the cash... and of course the estate agent hid a lot of this from us. They weren't the first cash buyer we had a problem with either - I'd look very closely into exactly why someone claims to be a cash buyer - one simply said they were a cash buyer, perhaps knowing that sellers would favour that and this pushes other buyers out of the loop who ten go on to find other properties... then months later it transpires that they are bot cash buyers at all.

Offer early March, vendor faffed and faffed, first child had to finish gcses, June, then no chain suddenly became a chain, September, then ‘ex’ wife popped her head over the parapet and put a financial interest application into the land registry end of October. I gave up and pulled out. Complete waste of time and money. Current offer went in in November, hoping to exchange this month. No chain, no probate, no ex wives.

You asked what was the longest people had waited and people have replied with examples of very long waits, but those aren't the norm.

If you'd asked for general examples then you would have had a whole lot of different replies with much shorter times.

Its quite unusual to wait a year and generally only happens when one party really really wants a particular house and there are problems on the way.

I'd say it was perfectly normal to have a 4 or 5 month wait, I have done it once from offer to completion in 9 weeks but that's unusual too.

Precisely this... in 2024 I bought and sold in a chain 4 in 9 weeks...

My neighbours sold their house on Valentine’s Day last year and the owners are Moving in today . Same owners and everything. I’d have given up by now . It’s taken nearly a year but the removal vans are currently on the drive .

My daughter sold her flat. Took 4 months get stuff done. No chain either side.
She put an offer in on a house in Scotland on 24th February 2021 and moved in on 19th March!
It was a good friend doing missives and the owner was moving to a friend's house.

It was 13 years ago and certainly wasn’t the norm for our area/friends and family then!

We were 14 months.

But we were buying off a pair of twats, who among other things, “couldn’t remember” if they had built the extension.

They were also not even packed up on completion. Their own solicitor had to tell them to vacate the property. They were there until 10pm.

Sold our house in a no chain situation, but as our solicitor did the searches it turned out that an outbuilding we thought belonged to us was actually still in the previous owners name and had been overlooked when we brought the house 15 years before. So we had to spend a long time dealing with the land registry and waiting for statutory periods of time to pass before the land registry could put the building in our name. And then our buyer had dreadful online solicitors who constantly dropped the ball regarding exchange and completion. So from offer to completion, around 10 months. A painful, expensive process all round!

Only us (from rented) and the the seller in the chain. Hoping to complete this month but has taken 4 months. A friend had 5 in her chain, and completed in 3 months. When I sold my previous house years ago, again only 2 in the chain and that took 5 months. I think largely depends on how proactive the solicitors are. I think that's why they say moving house is so stressful as you are waiting for things to happen that are out of your control. Hopefully you won't wait too long!