How long did your house purchase take?

[lovehearts]

Hi,

Sooooo as im sat here everyday wondering WTH takes so long when you buy a house i thought id ask all of you about it.

How long did it take for your house sale to go through? from offer to completion, was there a chain?

We had our offer accepted 3 weeks ago, there is no chain as we are renting out the flat we own and we are buying an empty property. I have been on at EVERYONE every day, im pretty sure i am hated by all right now We bought our flat from the builder and i think it took 7 weeks to go through but it was a new build.

And seeing as we are living with my parents right now I would like to hear how long it took for everyone else so i know what to expect.

 

[Redhead84]

The average is about 12 weeks.

The process involves quite a lot of paperwork and form filling by the solicitors/conveyancers on both sides, and as these are sent to places such as the Land Registry they can take some time to come back. Once these forms are back and assuming they are to everyone's satisfaction, then clearly the contract has to be drawn up which needs communication between the 2 firms for the vendor and purchaser - not the easiest thing to do.

I understand your frustrations however, so let me give you a tip on how law firms generally deal with their work. Firms usually work on a "post" system, which means that they will deal with whatever comes in to them via their in-tray each day. It's not the most efficient of systems, however it does ensure that urgent matters are dealt with on time (usually things that are deadline limited from the courts etc). If, for instance, the Land Registry has had a surge in post and it is taking time for them to get around to dealing with the OC1 (or whatever firm it happens to be) then it will take time for the solicitor to notice it hasn't come through and deal with it.

This is not by any means perfect, but what is? A word of warning on contacting people every day - you will be charged for time by the solicitor each time you call (we lawyers are nothing if not mercenary and work in blocks of 6 mins or units and each of these is chargeable) so beware unless you have already agreed a fixed cost. A call on a Monday morning should be enough to keep it in their mind to look out for it, or if not chase it at the end of the week.

Good luck, I hope you get it done soon and you can enjoy your new home

 

[Beccaboop]

We had the offer excepted 3 days before my birthday on 10th feb and finally moved in on the 4th may so not that long realy but it felt like it took forever!!

 

[lovehearts]

The average is about 12 weeks.

The process involves quite a lot of paperwork and form filling by the solicitors/conveyancers on both sides, and as these are sent to places such as the Land Registry they can take some time to come back. Once these forms are back and assuming they are to everyone's satisfaction, then clearly the contract has to be drawn up which needs communication between the 2 firms for the vendor and purchaser - not the easiest thing to do.

I understand your frustrations however, so let me give you a tip on how law firms generally deal with their work. Firms usually work on a "post" system, which means that they will deal with whatever comes in to them via their in-tray each day. It's not the most efficient of systems, however it does ensure that urgent matters are dealt with on time (usually things that are deadline limited from the courts etc). If, for instance, the Land Registry has had a surge in post and it is taking time for them to get around to dealing with the OC1 (or whatever firm it happens to be) then it will take time for the solicitor to notice it hasn't come through and deal with it.

This is not by any means perfect, but what is? A word of warning on contacting people every day - you will be charged for time by the solicitor each time you call (we lawyers are nothing if not mercenary and work in blocks of 6 mins or units and each of these is chargeable) so beware unless you have already agreed a fixed cost. A call on a Monday morning should be enough to keep it in their mind to look out for it, or if not chase it at the end of the week.

Good luck, I hope you get it done soon and you can enjoy your new home

Thank you for this We do have an agreed cost with the conveyancer. I have been on at the estate agent more as she has contact with both sides. Its just frustrating, i get its just their job at the end of the day. I was expecting 12 weeks tbh and was just wondering what everyone elses experiences were.

How long did everyone elses take?

x

 

[smelly07]

Ours took 5 months - we bought the place we were renting x

 

[Mrs R]

Ours only took 3 weeks but this was at the time where they were handing out mortgages like sweets lol DH's sister was our solicitor so it was rushed through. I think 3 months is about average

 

[lucy_x]

Cant speak from experience, But my grandmothers is taking the piss , the offer was put in in February, a few weeks later they asked for a reduction in price....all started going well and then another ask for a drop in price, which she refused and they continued, Now THREE DAYS before completion, there has been a "hitch" in the chain.

Ugh.

 

[lovehearts]

Oh no Lucy I hope it's resolved soon and ur grandma can complete! X

 

[binxyboo]

I moved into an empty property and rented our old house out, so no chain what-so-ever.
We put in an offer in september, but due to things being done wrong (we also bought a piece of derelict land directly behind our house so we could landscape it into a large garden - when we got the new map back, they had tried to give our next door neighbours 2 parking spaces out of the land we were paying for free of charge!! - I have a feeling my neighbours tried it on and asked for it, but we fought our corner and got the whole lot - we said we would buy all the land for a certain price, our offer was accepted, so 2 parking spaces for next door should never have been considered!!)

Anyway, I digress - because of the holdup, we didn't actually complete until the second week of november!

 

[Blah11]

ours took a good few months (2-3). we bought in start of may may and moved in mid july. no chain as we were first time buyers.

 

[lovehearts]

Thanks for the replies. The sale fell through today so I'm back to hunting x

 

[kmumtobe]

September to December and we only found out the day before we moved it was so rediculous with chains and issues (we were shared ownership that flagged up loads of stuff), it literally got down to we're moving tomorrow if this peice of paperwork can be signed by the right person or it will have to be january (cos of Xmas) never again, so stressful! Sorry your place fell through, fx you find somewhere soon

 

[Kay_Baby]

Early August to the week before Christmas. It was a nightmare. The people we were buying off didn't even want to take our offer as our house wasn't sold yet but they were the ones who held everything up, had to be chased for paper work the whole time.

The day we moved we sat outside the house for 2 hours as they were still packing and didn’t finish until 4.30. Nothing quite like moving in in the dark.

We had two buyers pull out on us. It really is such a frustrating thing.

 

[MrsPoodle]

Ours only took about 3 months from first viewing to completion, although we were moving from rented and the lady we were buying from was moving into a new build, so no chains.

 

[Mummy Bean]

even if there no chain there are soooo many things that could happen to hold up the process.

- survery - if anything comes back that needs looking at
- if there has EVER been work done on the house the sol have to find the certificate for it (this is what held ours up).
- water works/drainage surverys
- mortgage companies can also take there sweet time.
- as pp postage is always a bitch and then waiting for the various transfers to go through.
- i know a few of the big solcitors these days have an online system that will keep you informed and often the mortgage companies will txt you an update on your application.

one piece of advice although it cost make sure anything you put in the post is done as recorded delievery...as things have a way of getting lost!

if you can get it done it 12 weeks you are doing good but to be more realistic i would say 4-5 months.

just being realistic - but hope it all goes quickly for you!

 

[lovehearts]

even if there no chain there are soooo many things that could happen to hold up the process.

- survery - if anything comes back that needs looking at
- if there has EVER been work done on the house the sol have to find the certificate for it (this is what held ours up).
- water works/drainage surverys
- mortgage companies can also take there sweet time.
- as pp postage is always a bitch and then waiting for the various transfers to go through.
- i know a few of the big solcitors these days have an online system that will keep you informed and often the mortgage companies will txt you an update on your application.

one piece of advice although it cost make sure anything you put in the post is done as recorded delievery...as things have a way of getting lost!

if you can get it done it 12 weeks you are doing good but to be more realistic i would say 4-5 months.

just being realistic - but hope it all goes quickly for you!

Thank you for the reply but the sale fell through yesterday so we are back to square one

x

 

[Red Rose]

Sorry to hear the sale fell through Hopefully you'll find something perfect v.soon.

We had an offer accepted beginning of Feb and completed mid march so took 6 weeks. We were very lucky. We were chain free with about 3 others above us so fairly small.

We had very pushy solicitors that helped get the sale through fast (managed to get the sale through quick to avoid stamp duty for fist time buyers deadline) even though we stumbled across many issues along the way.

HTH x