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Join our Property forum for renovation, DIY, and house selling advice.

Join our Property forum for renovation, DIY, and house selling advice.

Property/DIY

Time between making an offer and exchanging contracts?

19 replies

DebiTheScot · 26/09/2009 14:49

How long roughly does it take between having an offer accepted on a house and exchanging?

We've accepted an offer on our house but haven't found anything to buy yet. We have to do ds1's school application by 20th November and I'd like to have at least exchanged by then so we've got some chance of getting him into the school in the area we want to live in.

What are our chances do you think of this happening?

OP posts:

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Onlyaphase · 26/09/2009 15:03

Depends on lots of things, like the length of the chain when you eventually do find somewhere to buy.

FWIW, it has taken me in the past between 10 and 20 weeks to get from offer to exchange. And the 10 weeks was with a chain-free purchase.

Are you looking hard for a house at the moment?

cat64 · 26/09/2009 15:08

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DebiTheScot · 26/09/2009 15:09

We are looking on rightmove every day and getting emails from most of the estate agents when things are coming on. There's just hardly anything up for sale at the right size and price.

I guess I should maybe email the school and ask what the situation would be if we had exchanged but not moved and if we'd had an offer accepted but not exchanged.

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DebiTheScot · 26/09/2009 15:11

Feb- July! And all with what should be easy chains. That's depressing. We're not going to be out of here before Christmas are we??

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bran · 26/09/2009 15:17

If you've accepted an offer on your house could you rent for a while? It's a pain because you have to move twice, but on the other hand you will be in a good position when you come to buy. Are there any reasonable houses available to rent in the catchment area that you want?

HeadFairy · 26/09/2009 15:19

It varies... we accepted an offer on our flat in March and eventually exchanged mid July, but it was leasehold, and they are always more complicated to sort out than freehold sales.

We had our offer on another house accepted in late July and we still haven't exchanged.. expecting to do it on Tuesday next week. We've been held up big time by the postal strike, several documents have gone astray and had to be resent, slowing things down considerably.

LIZS · 26/09/2009 15:21

Offer early Dec, exchange mid Feb, we had cash buyer nad there was no onward chain above. Allow 8-10 weeks, so tight for your deadline.

DebiTheScot · 26/09/2009 15:25

Problem with renting is the price. Our mortgage payments are going to almost double when we buy because at the moment we're on a very, very low variable rate and obviously we won't get a rate anywhere near as good on the new mortgage.
Rent would cost about the same as the new mortgage but I can't bring myself to pay that much a month to a landlord.

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ilove · 26/09/2009 15:34

From the day we saw this house to moving in, including selling ours, took 3.5 weeks. Yes, WEEKS. You have to be totally on top of everything and ring and nag several times a day...even the searches didn'thold us up as I rang the council myself and told them if they weren't found/faxed by the end of that day I'd come and do it myself.

slowreadingprogress · 26/09/2009 15:44

agree with ilove that it will be quicker if you really hassle your solicitor etc. But I have to say I'd be surprised if you are out before christmas if you're in a chain and you're only just now at offer stage. Sorry.

We were in your situation re: moving/school place and we ended up having to rent. Otherwise there was no way we would have been in catchment for school in time.

Actually for us it was brilliant. OK, not the best thing to move twice, but it allowed us 6 months to live in our new village and really get to know it, to know exactly what roads were good, etc. Often when you really know a place you go for a different location than you would just going from rightmove imo. If you're moving within the same town though this is not so relevant of course

But renting still gives you a lack of stress all round imo; you can just let your sale go through, then later when you do come to buy you are a great buyer because you're chain free

Jux · 26/09/2009 15:54

We made the offer on our current house in early November and moved in on 20 Dec. Mind you, there was no chain anywhere in sight and the two solicitors were shit hot and decided to make it a competition between themselves as to who could finish first (ours won).

HeadFairy · 26/09/2009 17:23

Debi... is there someone you can live with for a few weeks if you need to? We moved in with my mum and dad for 8 weeks between selling our house and buying the next one. It did give us an opportunity to save a bit of money. Mind you, we ported over our old mortgage, and we bought for the same money we got for our flat, so didn't have to change the value of the mortgage, and our mortgage payments will remain the same.

DebiTheScot · 26/09/2009 19:49

We're staying in the same area and are also hoping to move back to Scotland in the next few years so the thought of moving twice isn't appealing. We might have to though. I don't want to risk ds having to go to the school we're in catchment for now. partly because it's in a really rough area and partly because it'll be a pain in the bum to get to from where we will hopefully end up.

HeadFairy- no family nearby so noone we could live with for a few weeks. Do have 2 good friends who are a couple in a big house but they're not keen on kids so that probably wouldn't work!

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cat64 · 26/09/2009 22:49

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VinoEsmeralda · 26/09/2009 22:57

We made an offer, was accepted and exchanged within 5 weeks and completed 2 weeks later.

Exchange could have been quicker but we (read Dh) was very thorough about certain issues which is why it took five weeks. Could have been 2 weeks....

smugmumofboys · 26/09/2009 22:58

It took us 10 months.

Don't ask.

FimboFortunaFeet · 26/09/2009 23:10

Debi we were in a similar position regarding schooling. We had exchanged but not completed by the time the deadline came round. We had to send a copy of the solicitors letter saying we had exchanged on the property to the LEA admissions dept.

rebl · 27/09/2009 21:38

We're in this situation now. We've accepted offer on our place, had offer accepted on place we're buying. I've spoken to LEA and been told that we have to have exchanged by the time we put the form in. We accepted offer a while back but they're happy to wait for us. The place we're buying accepted our offer nearly 4 weeks ago. They're meant to be working to complete in 8 weeks and they've not even managed to get the solicitor to talk to ours yet .

Our current house from offer to moving in was 6 weeks but the vendors had had their sale fall through on day of completion and were on bridging and were pushing hard to move quickly. We had my dad working as our solicitor so was pushing hard as well. So 6 weeks is doable but all parties need to be pushing hard.

navyeyelasH · 27/09/2009 21:46

5 weeks as first time buyers, buying a house with no chain and mortgage approved before we offered. HTH

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