How long to receive contracts from vendor's solicitor?

Capet

Hi,
Just wondering what is the average length of time to wait until you receive contracts from vendor's solicitor?
And should you be worried if it takes longer than expected?
Went sale agreed at end of October and still no word from vendor's solicitor.
Should I be concerned at this point or is this not unusual?

Quandary

We went sale agreed in the middle of July and only received contracts at the start of November. Contracts can take a long time, depending on the sellers situation.

April 73

We were sale agreed at the end of Oct 2014. Contracts were received at the end of Jan 2015.
It can take time to get deeds back from banks of there is a mortgage on the property you are buying. This is only one of a multitude of reasons why contracts are slow to be issued.
Patience is a virtue in the case of house purchases.

Capet

Thanks for the replies. Solicitor said they would normally receive contracts in 3-4 weeks so was bit worried the delay could have meant something is up.
Loan offer will expire in 3 months so will be a pain if sale hasn't closed by then.
But reassuring to know that this isn't unusual

Slunk

Went sale agreed in June and only signed contracts at start of November. Was getting a little worried myself. On the final stretch now and hopento have keys before Xmas

April 73

After getting the contracts in Jan, we didn't close until the end of April. We were in a chain though so it was slow & complicated.
Our loan offer was due to expire on the 1st Jan. Our solicitor wrote to the bank & requested an extension which was granted for a further three months.
Just stay on the ball & act well in advance if it looks like closing will happen after the loan offer expires.

The_Conductor

My father-in-law went sale agreed in February- and signed contracts yesterday- just under 11 months later.

It really depends on the seller's circumstances. In my father-in-laws case- the seller didn't really want to sell, but was being forced to (its a former BTL property which has been vacant since September 2014- so its going to need some TLC).

3-4 weeks for exchange of signed contracts- is an ideal situation- unfortunately- its not an ideal world.........

Capet

Just to give an update in case anyone is/will be in a similar situation. It turned out the the vendor had to get permission from bank to sell. Which led to the delay in getting contracts. We eventually got them about 5 weeks ago, signed 4 weeks ago, mortgage drawn down this week and hopefully close next week.
So so nearly five months after going sale agreed. Hopefully everything goes smoothly next week. Excited and glad it's all finally coming to an end.
We were not aware when bidding/going sale agreed that property was in negative equity etc. I believe the vendor had verbal agreement to sell prior to accepting our offer, otherwise it would have potentially been a longer process or indeed not gone through at all