We accepted an offer on our detached house in early September and had an offer accepted on a bungalow in Leicestershire the same week. Everything seemed to be moving along nicely at first, but we are now nearly seven weeks in and it feels like nothing is actually happening.
Our solicitor (Geldards in Derby) has done the searches and received them back, but seems to be waiting on something from the seller’s side before they can proceed. Meanwhile our buyer’s solicitor has raised a set of enquiries which our solicitor answered about two weeks ago, and we have heard nothing since. I have chased twice by email and once by phone and each time I am told they are “waiting to hear back”.
A few specific questions:
- Is seven weeks without exchange realistic for a three-person chain, or does this suggest something is stuck somewhere?
- Should I be contacting my buyer’s estate agent directly to ask what is happening at their end, or is that overstepping?
- Our solicitor charges a fixed fee so presumably has no financial incentive to drag things out, but I am starting to wonder whether they simply have too many cases on. Is it reasonable to ask how many active files a conveyancer is handling?
I would have thought that with the stamp duty threshold changes coming in April next year, everyone would want to get things done promptly. Any advice very welcome.
Seven weeks without exchange in a three-person chain is frustrating but honestly not unusual. When we bought our place it took closer to twelve weeks and that was only a two-person chain. The bottleneck was always the other side’s solicitor, and our solicitor couldn’t do much except chase.
On your second question, I would absolutely contact the estate agent directly. They have a financial interest in the sale completing, so they tend to be more responsive than solicitors when it comes to chasing. Our agent was the one who actually identified that the hold-up was a missing management pack from a freeholder, which nobody had told us about.
I wouldn’t bother asking about caseload though. They’ll just give you a diplomatic non-answer. If you’re genuinely worried, a polite but firm email saying you’d like a written update on exactly what is outstanding and who is responsible for each item tends to concentrate minds.
@Ferngate52, thank you, that is reassuring to hear. Twelve weeks for a two-person chain does put things into perspective.
A small update: I rang the solicitor yesterday afternoon and they confirmed they have now sent a chaser to the buyer’s solicitor about the outstanding enquiry responses. They said they would follow up again on Friday if nothing came back. That is progress of a sort, I suppose.
My question is whether it is worth me also contacting the estate agent who is handling the sale of our house, to ask them to apply a bit of pressure from their end. I know the agent technically works for us as the seller, but I am not sure how much they can really do at this stage. Has anyone found that a nudge from the agent actually speeds things up, or does it just create noise?