House purchase delay

Idle Passerby

We went sale agreed on a house back in July. Our offer was accepted on the condition we would have a quick sale. Suits us, we thought.

What we gather from our own solicitor is that the sellers solicitor is elderly and inexperienced in conveyancing. He seems to be slow to provide our solicitor with certain documents because we are constantly cc'd in emails requesting them. The sale seems to be stuck at this point for the last month or so.

How can we move this on? We had expected to be moved in by now but we don't even have a closing date yet.

Dolbhad

Idle Passerby wrote: »

We went sale agreed on a house back in July. Our offer was accepted on the condition we would have a quick sale. Suits us, we thought.

What we gather from our own solicitor is that the sellers solicitor is elderly and inexperienced in conveyancing. He seems to be slow to provide our solicitor with certain documents because we are constantly cc'd in emails requesting them. The sale seems to be stuck at this point for the last month or so.

How can we move this on? We had expected to be moved in by now but we don't even have a closing date yet.

Get onto the auctioneer. He can contact the solicitor (although may be no movement there if he’s not moving for your solicitor) but he can also contact the sellers directly. If sellers contact their own solicitor they could move him along quicker than anybody else. They may now know their holding it up. I’d be very firm with auctioneer telling him the sellers are holding it up esp if they wanted a quick sale. However I would try to find out if the slow down is on purpose. Are the sellers still living in the house? Have they a place lined up?

This is really unfair on you to do but is the paperwork something your solicitor could get themselves like copies of planning permission? Obviously you don’t want to incur costs but if it’s paperwork you could easily get, might be worth looking at that.

Idle Passerby

Yeah we were considering contacting the auctioneer but wern't sure if that was kosher, will do it now on Monday.

The house is empty so it's not a property chain issue.

Corruptedmorals

Yes definitely contact the auctioneer. No need to go in all guns blazing threatening to pull the sale (although that can of course produce results) but stating that you need to know the timeline and closing date and have done everything your end. If there is a delay re: missing paperwork or any property/planning issue then you need to be informed so you can fairly make a decision to proceed or not. The auctioneer will want the sale closed and can encourage the seller to get answers from their solicitor or even to switch solicitor if that's what's needed.

Our solicitor has been on the ball with requesting updates and the auctioneer has been helpful also with our delayed sale. It's extremely difficult to be kept in the dark....legal has a tendency to work in the background and produce the result eventually without giving feedback along the way.

spaceHopper

Covancying is bread a d butter to a solicitor you can be dam sure it's nit lack of experience. Either they don't have the paper work your solicitor is looking for and are waiting for you to give up and just buy it or there is a problem. Arranf a meeting with your solicitor review what he's looking for will the bank lend without it ge on to the EA and get them to talk directly the seller have a full list of what's needed from your solicitor and give it to them make it clear to everybody that it's the full list. They have to give it to your solicitor and they can't look for more.