House offer accepted - how long to complete?

[BERGS2]

Straw poll here (hence temporarily housed in the lounge - am sure will be moved to the barran lands of finance/property soon )

Have just accepted an offer on our place from a chain free buyer with finances in place

We're moving out to rental so in effect the 'chain' is just the two of us....

house is a very std freehold Semi in SW london (see other thread)

given the radically reduced volume of property transactions right now - how long are things taking to go through at the moment?

Would aiming for two months be unrealistic?

BERGS jnr scheduled for arrival en july/early august so ideally want to be moved by end on June

any recent experiences?

cheer in advance y'all

BERGS

[anonymous-user]

If there's just the 2 of you in the chain and you have an AIP, 6-8 weeks is normal, can be done a lot quicker, just depends how lazy your Solicitor is.

[scotal]

THe only way you will get a quick exchange is to stay on at the agent to stay on at the buyer.

You want to know as soon as they have the survey booked, which will mean the mortgage app is done.

You also want to make sure your solicitor knows you are keen to get things done and quickly. If he/she gets questions he needs to answer them fast (and there's no point you going on at him if you haven't got back to him pretty sharpish with the details of anything he asks you for.
Laywers ask for all sorts of odd st, so keep copies of your council tax bill, water bill etc to hand. (Those seem to be two that get asked for regularly. )
Also check that their lawyer knows you want to get it done fast. (again do it through the agent.) Oh, but don't over do it or you'll face a gazundering on the day of exchange as the buyer thinks you are desperate to sell......

[miniman]

My solicitor told me that one of the current holdups is that (it's easier to describe as a list)

- bank reposesses house
- house is in negative equity
- bank demands paperwork from solicitor
- bank goes through with fine tooth comb looking for anything that wasn't declared to them
- bank claims with full disclosure they wouldn't have lent
- bank sues solicitor

so...

- solicitor declares **everything** to bank
- bank can't cope with all the paperwork
- everything slows down

In other words, the solicitors are scared of getting sued so they are bombarding the banks with documents for approval and so everything goes slow. It took us about 14 weeks offer to completion in a chain with an investor buying from us and us buying new build.

[fido]

Took me 8-10 weeks last time to complete a chain-free move. Not sure why it took them so long to get the mortgage sorted as they had a hefty deposit, but this appeared to be the sticking point. My solicitors sorted out ALL the forms at the start to avoid any excuses from the buyers' solicitors, but it still took longer than i expected.

[Planet Claire]

I was a first time buyer of my flat. It was being rented out and the tenants were about to move out and the owner lived elsewhere. From putting in my offer to picking up the keys took 7 weeks exactly.

[Dave_ST220]

Same situtation twice(no chain), us as first time buyer with mortgage in place & vendor moving back home took 14 weeks, us selling & going into rented and buyer a BTL investor has taken 12 weeks.

[garycat]

Took less than 6 weeks for me, including arranging mortgage etc.

[shirt]

same here, think it was 4-5 weeks in total. the seller gave me a date to complete by else she'd accept a different offer so i had to move quickly. i was recommended a great solicitor who had everything ready ahead of time, it was almost too easy.