How long from sale agreed to keys?

Sesame

Just wondering on the straightforward sales with no receivers involved or waiting around for chains or complications, how long should I expect a sale to take?
Is it closer to two months or five months?
I've heard both so just wondering if any of you have had recent sales/purchases, what length of time were you waiting?

Thanks.

MarkAnthony

The very definition of a how long is a piece of string question I'm afraid.

6 months one week for me. A sale can be completed in as little time as the parties are prepared to commit to really.

Sesame

Really, so there's no ball park figure?

6 months seems long to me. What was taking the bulk of the time, was it the solicitors on either side, waiting on official documents, or sellers slow to respond or what?

I'd like some sort of idea how long I need to find somewhere to live for in the meantime.

Gasherbraun

I bought a vacant property, no bank issues, for cash last year and it took three months. Delays were mainly down to deeds being released from vendor's bank, fairly standard queries on boundaries and solicitors just working at their own pace.

I was not surprised at the three month timescale.

Rew

2 months for us (selling). There was a lot of paperwork to chase down on my side (vendor).

MarkAnthony

To be fair I had boundary issues - 4 1/2 months was the average last time I read something on the subject. Realistically you could close in a week. It's purely down to the vendors and the solicitors. A friends parents have been trying to get a property closed for 18 months.

Sesame

Massive variation so. Sale agreed today woo hoo. Will report back!

CBFi

For me it was 2 months, pretty much bang on. vacant property, vendors solicitor had the deeds as there was no mortgage, and both parties were very motivated. there were a few bits and pieces to check out on vendors side but nothing major. we're now living here a month

tigershould

Took me 3 months most recently. Make sure you solicitor is on the case everyday.

pasquale83

Sale agreed at the start on March, I should close tomorrow, but I really don't think it is going to happen...just spoke with the solicitor this morning and he said I am first of the list tomorrow...but didn't hear from him since then...

karenalot

Recently purchased a place and from offer to keys it was all wrapped in 5 weeks. This included a week where my solicitor was on holidays.

I bought directly from the seller and paid cash so cutting out the estate agent and a mortgage from bank would have hurried things up considerably.

jayjay2010

Sale agreed since 2nd of April, was promised for the deal to close within 3-4 weeks....9 weeks later and I'm still waiting to move in. Found out the property was in negative equity only after signing contract so there could be huge delays......

ElectraX

Sale Agreed Start of April and we are due to get the keys 18th June. Held up slightly by us being on holidays in May so we were unavailable to sign contracts until our return. So roughly speaking 8 weeks.

whippet

I am hoping to hand over the keys on friday / monday for a house I have sold. The house in unoccupied, the buyers had everything in order and the sale was agreed on the 7th May.

It was totally straight forward and the only delays were around .. getting paperwork from Management Company and Council ref LPT etc.

Archaeoliz

We went sale agreed at the end of Feb. Still no end in sight. Vendor trying to get his paperwork together. Contracts haven't even been issued yet. That makes it three and a half months and counting.

House is worth waiting for so we wait (and the vendor has kept us sort of up to date and he's waiting in turn for people to get back to him - so not his fault entirely). Although the other side of me wants to rant that the place has been on the market for seven years so you'd think he might have sorted it all out before now *sigh*.

Pain in the backside as house valuation is more than 2 months old so we've had to get another one done and paid for and our 3 month mortgage approval expires at the end of this month (new rules luckily). Although the bank say they will extend this for up to 30 days if the underwriters agree.

There's no chain and we're in rental accommodation.

Shedite27

Is it in solicitors interests to delay it? Do they charge more billable hours then?

I wonder if there's some way you could incentivise them - offer them an extra €1k if they get you the keys in 2mths or whatever.

MarkAnthony

Shedite27 wrote: »

Is it in solicitors interests to delay it? Do they charge more billable hours then?

I wonder if there's some way you could incentivise them - offer them an extra €1k if they get you the keys in 2mths or whatever.

Had this discussion with a few quite knowledgeable people in Legal Discussions. Most would like to get things done and dusted as they charge a set fee. I don't know anyone who has paid an hourly basis. This really is the grunt work of the legal profession and can easily be handed off to an exec.

What usually holds things up is a lack of chasing, and vendors/buyers raising little things, or at least that was the consensus as I recall it.

Rew

We went sale agreed to sold in 2 months and the hold up was me getting the docs I was told on day 1 I would need by my very good solicitor.

The easy stuff:
Proof of ID
Proof of PPS
Marriage Cert
2 Authorisation docs (deeds and to act)
Waste Payment Proof
Water Payment Proof
Pay property Tax to end of year and supply proof (had been monthly DD previously)
BER Cert - guy came out within a day or so of a call, about a week to return it. BY+TW if you do work to the house you need to keep recipts/proof of the work for the BER guy to give any insulation credits etc. He doesn't have xray vision.

Harder (because I dragged my heels):
NPPR Exemption cert - CC required an notarised affidavit, approx. 2 weeks from submission to receipt
Architects/Engineers certs for extension and porch - killed me to pay someone to say the porch was within planning but had to man up about it
LPT Specific Clearance - Approx. 2 weeks from submission to receipt. Submitted via email and included scans of myhome.ie ads and PPR info.

Other delay was a full week for their solicitor to turn around any correspondence (minor contract things), this added up to about 2 weeks.

Rew

Other delay, have a solicitor lined up before you go sale agreed.

bidiots

16 weeks since booking deposit and have diddly squat since:mad:
Chasing solicitors,auctioneers,vendors just result in me losing my mind.
Was told at the start this was not a bank sale, only to be told a few weeks ago that it was.
It's almost certain by the end of the 17th week that I will have kicked the **** out of all involved
Engineers report/valuation for mortgage/solicitor = money wasted.

House purchase procedure in this country is depressingly corrupt, antiquated and useless.
And the worst part is, it is accepted as the norm.
When told by all involved that 'this is the way it is', I asked my solicitor how can this level of incompetence be accepted? 'Well you can just pull out if you are not happy with it'
That's it, the only option I have is to pull out of the purchase of a house I want.
All time and money wasted, other houses I was interested in either sold or gone up in asking price. And the only option I have is to pull out - infuriating.
I'm actually considering emigrating to a country that has at least 1% more competence than the shower involved in this,that would make them 100% better to deal with!
****.

Archaeoliz

bidiots wrote: »

16 weeks since booking deposit and have diddly squat since:mad:
Chasing solicitors,auctioneers,vendors just result in me losing my mind.
Was told at the start this was not a bank sale, only to be told a few weeks ago that it was.
It's almost certain by the end of the 17th week that I will have kicked the **** out of all involved
Engineers report/valuation for mortgage/solicitor = money wasted.

House purchase procedure in this country is depressingly corrupt, antiquated and useless.
And the worst part is, it is accepted as the norm.
When told by all involved that 'this is the way it is', I asked my solicitor how can this level of incompetence be accepted? 'Well you can just pull out if you are not happy with it'
That's it, the only option I have is to pull out of the purchase of a house I want.
All time and money wasted, other houses I was interested in either sold or gone up in asking price. And the only option I have is to pull out - infuriating.
I'm actually considering emigrating to a country that has at least 1% more competence than the shower involved in this,that would make them 100% better to deal with!
****.

I utterly feel your pain (16 weeks since sale agreed too)! The only difference in our current situation is that I am not buying via an EA so have the opportunity to ask the vendor questions directly. He won't tell me what the hold up is, but I do know it is generally paperwork from his end and not the EA or either solicitor. Not professional conspiracy, just documentation and bureaucracy getting paperwork together from the right authorities.

Rew's post above was really interesting about what paperwork was needed from a vendor's point of view. I can see that those kinds of things some people are better at getting on with than others....

I thought the UK was moving towards a sellers pack so all that kind of paperwork was ready to go before the house goes on the market.

Little Miss Cutie

Ours took 6 weeks from sale agreed to keys in hand

Woshy

Ours was 7 weeks from sale agreed to keys in hand - it would have only been 4 or 5 weeks except we waited a couple of weeks for our mortgage approval to come through. The vendors had everything ready to go with their solicitors before we went sale agreed and we had everything as much in order as we could have too so it was very straightforward. It was an executors sale so they just wanted to get it sold and sorted ASAP.

seamus

Absolutely, straight-forward, where you are ready to move, the property is vacant and the paperwork and documentation is already done by the vendors, you can expect about six weeks. Your bank will need at least two weeks to issue mortgage approval, and then you won't be able to drawn down until two weeks after you've sent back the signed loan documents (and everything else). Your solicitor will need about four weeks for contractual and land registry queries, etc.

Typical time from going sale agreed to signing contracts is about six weeks, so if you have everything aligned you could potentially close in six weeks. If everyone was really on the ball, you could potentially compress it into 4 weeks, but you'd probably want to be paying your solicitor a hefty fee to get that level of attention. Plus it's next to impossible to get banks to be straightforward and upfront, so if there's a bank involved there's no way you'll ever get it less than six weeks.

donnem33

went sale agreed on an apartment back in April. Spoke today, contracts were received approx 2 weeks ago, but waiting for documentation from management company and bank before contracts will be signed.

Does anyone have any experience of this and could suggest how long this would take to complete. Coming up to the last month of my rented accommodation and was hoping to move directly from rented house into new apartment.

seamus

donnem33 wrote: »

went sale agreed on an apartment back in April. Spoke today, contracts were received approx 2 weeks ago, but waiting for documentation from management company and bank before contracts will be signed.

You could be two weeks at this. The management company piece in particular, I can tell you from the vendor's side that the vendor will have to pay some fee upfront - by the time that's all transferred across, four days have gone by. Then the management company have to send someone out to photocopy some documents and send them back to your solicitor. Another four working days gone. And then the solicitor has to review them. Easily another 2-4 working days.

Not sure what's been waited on from the bank - your loan offer, or something to do with the vendors' mortgage?

Miamiheat

bidiots wrote: »

16 weeks since booking deposit and have diddly squat since:mad:
Chasing solicitors,auctioneers,vendors just result in me losing my mind.
Was told at the start this was not a bank sale, only to be told a few weeks ago that it was.
It's almost certain by the end of the 17th week that I will have kicked the **** out of all involved
Engineers report/valuation for mortgage/solicitor = money wasted.

House purchase procedure in this country is depressingly corrupt, antiquated and useless.
And the worst part is, it is accepted as the norm.
When told by all involved that 'this is the way it is', I asked my solicitor how can this level of incompetence be accepted? 'Well you can just pull out if you are not happy with it'
That's it, the only option I have is to pull out of the purchase of a house I want.
All time and money wasted, other houses I was interested in either sold or gone up in asking price. And the only option I have is to pull out - infuriating.
I'm actually considering emigrating to a country that has at least 1% more competence than the shower involved in this,that would make them 100% better to deal with!
****.

+1 on that - I am on my second sale agreed in 6 months search and based on readings far from being a worst case scenario. If this one does not go through I will do something else with my money.

James Bond Junior

I went sale agreed last March. I caused a delay as we were signing contracts which has now been resolved but both my solicitor and the vendors solicitor are on 2 weeks holidays. Fingers crossed I'll have keys by the end of this month.