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I'm in the middle of buying a house, but seems to of stalled. So our mortgage has been fully approved, the house survey was good, the valuation for the mortgage all good, so from a money view all good! Offer on the house was accepted, seller is keen to sell and we want to buy.
The solicitor seems to be dragging his heels, to be honest I'm not even sure if he has done anything in the 4 week leading up to this.
His enquiries? what are they and how long do they take to come back? I call and he is busy, email and get a reply saying all is in order but no confirmation of a completion date, is this normal? first time buyer so unsure.
I get that the new stamp duty kicks in April 1st so buy to let might take priority but how long should all the paperwork take?
with a decent sol and everything else in order a purchase should take no longer than 6 weeks, 4 weeks if they pull their finger out.
Sols always seem to take longer than they should, don;t be afraid to make a pest of yourself, ring them everyday, you're employing them. Tell them what date you want to move and let them tell you why that date isn;t possible. It is their job to negioate the move in date so they'll put it back so they [s]can sit around looking the internet until they can be bothered to do anything. [/s] resolve things in their own time.
As said above, call, call, call and call.
Be a pain in the arse by asking for updates as often as possible. That tends to get them moving
I work in a conveyancing department for a year or so and the 'enquiries' do take a tediously long time.
Also, don't forget your solicitor isn't just working on your conveyance - they'll be doing a dozen or so and spending an hour or two a day at most on your file.
It is possible (and I've seen it done) to expedite everything and get the whole lot done in 48 hours. That though is going to cost you a lot of money...
What are the "enquiries"?
Local searches (any lodged planning applications for example that you might want to know about), water searches, depending where got are a mining search.
If the house you have bought has had any work done on it then enquiring with the vendor whether they have the guarantees, building regs, planning etc.
They'll check the deeds for any restrictive covenants and if it's leasehold then the whole lease needs to be examined.
They also have to satisfy the mortgage company so if that have any queries they need to be answered.
There's a surprising amount to it and because property transactions are strictly on the true legal basis of caveat emptor the selling solicitor's have to volunteer precisely **** all and it is the purchasing solicitor who has to do all the work and make all the enquiries.
By all accounts a lot of BTL numpties have been pouring into the market over the last few weeks to get ahead of the stamp duty headline, which coincidentally is April Fools' Day...