Chain complete conveyancing support thread

[BakedPotatoBeansCheeseColeslaw]

My chain completed on Monday. I’ve booked my survey, instructed my solicitor and applied for my mortgage. Now begins the anxious wait to see if we will actually get to complete.

My friend once likened moving house to the first trimester - don’t talk about it to many people until you’re sure it’s happening.

Anyone else in the same boat? We are hoping for an August completion as chain short, and onward chain was already a way through the process before falling through and us joining 🙏🏻🙏🏻

We’re completing next week (having pushed back a couple of times). Exchanged last week. Time has gone so incredibly slowly since then and yet somehow I’m still declutterring and have to do some deep cleaning 😬

Everything has slowed down here. We are totally ready but the seller and buyer’s solicitors are now just ghosting mine. I’ll
be calling the estate agent again later!

our purchase crumbled, so we re looking again, and evaluating options. I m not going to rush, as we re now moving to rental anyway.

still hoping all will go ok on our sale, which is due to complete at the end of the summer.

Heard barely anything. Our buyer had the survey done on ours at the start of the week, so expecting to hear something soon.
Is it usual not to hear anything from estate agents/ solicitors in the first 2/3 weeks? Assume they are waiting for searches to come back.

We’ve had to pull out of our purchase! 😢
So now on the look out for a new house but there’s just nothing out there!

Bit worried we’re going to spend too much on something which needs so much work and then not be able to afford to make it what we want!

haven’t cried yet but it’s stressful!
we’ve said it has to be the right house and if we lose our buyer then we’ll just have to wait.

Nooo what happened? Completely agree though, there’s no point moving for just any old house, it’s too expensive and too stressful for that

Depends on your solicitor. Mine I actually can’t fault and I hear from every few days but many do just ghost you

We discovered a massive infestation of rats in the roof.
Estate agent tried to tell us that everyone has rats and we’ve probably got them in our roof - we do not!
It was horrendous and I don’t think any reduction in price would convince me to buy it.

Rats! That is grim!

OMG. Yeah, you gotta pull out of that one! How did you discover it??

Agree with PP that this whole process is so stressful it's absolutely only worth doing for the right house, which you will then ideally live in for the next thousand years. The system is urgently in need of reform, there is so much pointless back and forth between conveyancers and you're at the whim of so many different people!

Well we hadn’t had a chance to look in the roof… we’ve learnt that lesson - tiny low roof as bedrooms are in the roof and no ladder and each visit was rushed by estate agent.

We’d had builder check house over everywhere else and it was sound! So we went thinking just quick check in room with builder and DH and they opened the hatch and were rained on with rat poo. We’d taken a ladder so they stood on that and looked in and it was disgusting and could see scurrying!
Vendor was there, by accident, and had said her parent wouldn’t have had rats but I imagine no one had looked up there in years. They also told us next door (attached) had had problems with them but had someone in but still had problems. So they knew.

Trying to think of it as a good thing - so glad we hadn’t moved in and then discovered that!

We will find something better! Just feel like it could take years!

Yuck what a horror story @BraOffPjsOn, you had a seriously lucky escape!! You will definitely find something better.

Right now I feel like moving house is impossible! I can't believe anyone actually manages to do it!

RATSSSS! I am sorry, that is just so so gross, it was a good call to walk.

The very day I posted here, our searches returned and we have no enquiries... but still crickets from our buyers. They are now on holiday, we go next week, so more waiting around....

I can't believe this is house-buying in 2026. It is so slow😣

Thanks all!

We viewed another house. It needs some work but area is good and potential to make it what we need I think, if we have the funds.
Is anyone else struggling to see it prices are right for houses at the moment or what to even offer?
I think DH and I are struggling to trust ourselves now - he is wary because of the work needed.

I hope your moves all happen quickly and without issue.

Yes, I think house values have lost all meaning. Nobody knows anything any more! It’s promising that you’ve already found a rat-free potential alternative though

Maybe my criteria just needs to be lowered to: no rats! 😂🤪

@BraOffPjsOn glad you’ve seen something. House prices seem so incredibly random at the moment. We have no idea if our new house is a bargain or a rip off… prices just seem totally random and abstract.

Omg NOTHING has moved this week at all. I’m now calling my estate agent every other day. Why can’t solicitors just forward on a bloody email?

YES same story here and now they’ve all clocked off for the weekend! Meanwhile, my blood pressure continues to rise!

i swear, this process is making me physically sick...

I’m 19 weeks pregnant tomorrow and I so wanted to be in with a couple of months to spare before baby comes. Everyone is saying they are looking to move end of August beginning of September time but that means exchanging in about 4 weeks time! Tbh there’s no reason why we can’t if people just come the fuck on!

@BakedPotatoBeansCheeseColeslaw I have been stunned that in a modern world where information is so easy to come by… it still takes weeks and weeks for searches. Then all the the hand signing and returning of documents… ARGH!

6 sleeps until completion for us.

I don’t understand why searches have to be applied for. Surely they could just be available for all to see on some sort of local authority portal rather than having to be found individually each time. I’m so jealous you’re nearly over the finish line. I need some real progress next week

@BakedPotatoBeansCheeseColeslaw Exactly! It feels like a money making ploy from the council and solicitors to keep doing it this old fashioned way.

We’ve had quite a lot of stress to get to this point. Exchange dates pushed 3 times (the last due to our solicitor forgetting paperwork) and meanwhile someone in our chain has been deployed in the military making dates tricky to arrange!

It’s so stressful, we’ve had a week of silence despite chasing our agents everyday, it’s our buyers who seem to be holding things up as requested extra surveys (entirely their prerogative) but despite the fact they’ve been done we’ve heard nothing from them! So frustrating as we really just want to get on with it! Trying really hard not to get overly stressed by it as other than chasing daily there isn’t much we can do! This whole system needs an overhaul!