Buying a house

[Tommyb]

Our solicitor seems really good. Really prompt responses. Recommended to us by the estate agent things are moving along. One question .. we have out survey booked for a couple of weeks time. Did you wait to go ahead with your mortgage application until after your survey was done?

Some of the mortgage booking fees are £1.5k and non refundable if we choose not to proceed so hesitant to do this before survey is complete.

 

[Sunflower91]

Don’t want to de-rail the thread or anything but feeling a little stuck and anxious I’m not going to be completed by Christmas. Currently there’s the back and forth with enquiries. My solicitor says there’s 7 outstanding. Is that a lot? Or is it more dependent on what kind of enquiries they are?

 

[Sslb_18]

First time buyers - 14 weeks and that was with no chain.

could have been so much quicker if we had decent solicitors!

 

[AnonyGoss]

Anyone from London? Which part of London would you recommend buying? Or would you say outside of London is a better choice?

 

[Former_Antelopee]

Can I also ask a question please I’m looking to buy a house. I did find one and get my offer accepted at the end of August. But due to a problem on the survey I pulled out. I just was wondering as in the 8 weeks between getting my solicitor and pulling out is it normal that they just sent off for the land reports? Or would it be expected to be further along at that point?
They said they were still waiting on the sellers solictor to send the pack? But they’d also not said they’d recieved my mortgage offer which I got end of September (although I just recieved these documents in the post today). The seller was also using the same solicitors.
Just wanted to know if this is normal as I was thinking of using a different solictor next time.
These solicitors were recommended via my mortgage advisor.

 

[Kim Mild]

Can I also ask a question please I’m looking to buy a house. I did find one and get my offer accepted at the end of August. But due to a problem on the survey I pulled out. I just was wondering as in the 8 weeks between getting my solicitor and pulling out is it normal that they just sent off for the land reports? Or would it be expected to be further along at that point?
They said they were still waiting on the sellers solictor to send the pack? But they’d also not said they’d recieved my mortgage offer which I got end of September (although I just recieved these documents in the post today). The seller was also using the same solicitors.
Just wanted to know if this is normal as I was thinking of using a different solictor next time.
These solicitors were recommended via my mortgage advisor.

I was always led to believe the same solicitor couldn't act for both seller and buyer

 

[Sunflower91]

Can I also ask a question please I’m looking to buy a house. I did find one and get my offer accepted at the end of August. But due to a problem on the survey I pulled out. I just was wondering as in the 8 weeks between getting my solicitor and pulling out is it normal that they just sent off for the land reports? Or would it be expected to be further along at that point?
They said they were still waiting on the sellers solictor to send the pack? But they’d also not said they’d recieved my mortgage offer which I got end of September (although I just recieved these documents in the post today). The seller was also using the same solicitors.
Just wanted to know if this is normal as I was thinking of using a different solictor next time.
These solicitors were recommended via my mortgage advisor.

This is what happened to me/ what I’m still in the middle of. My solicitors have been okay its the sellers. They said they hadn’t received the welcome pack and the property was going through probate. I started chasing via the estate agent as the sellers solicitors were recommended by them. That day (October 28th ish) I received a fair bit of progress and a load of docs came through signed and dated on the 28th sept and it had gone through probate in March/ April. I think it’s sadly a fairly normal thing but not always something you have control over- especially if it’s the sellers solicitor. The only way I’ve been getting progress is by chasing things up every other day.

 

[Former_Antelopee]

I was always led to believe the same solicitor couldn't act for both seller and buyer

Someone else told me this as well, it was the same company but we had different solictors

 

[WilmaHun]

Don’t want to de-rail the thread or anything but feeling a little stuck and anxious I’m not going to be completed by Christmas. Currently there’s the back and forth with enquiries. My solicitor says there’s 7 outstanding. Is that a lot? Or is it more dependent on what kind of enquiries they are?

I work in conveyancing. This is a bit of a "how long is a piece of string" question I'm afraid. It depends on what the enquiries are and if they'll need any action - for example if there's a defect with the title which needs rectifying at the Land Registry, that could cause a delay. But if the enquiries are more simple like "please get the boiler serviced or provide a copy of a recent report" these can be resolved quite quickly!

I was always led to believe the same solicitor couldn't act for both seller and buyer

The same individual person cannot act for both, but two solicitors within the same firm can,

Can I also ask a question please I’m looking to buy a house. I did find one and get my offer accepted at the end of August. But due to a problem on the survey I pulled out. I just was wondering as in the 8 weeks between getting my solicitor and pulling out is it normal that they just sent off for the land reports? Or would it be expected to be further along at that point?
They said they were still waiting on the sellers solictor to send the pack? But they’d also not said they’d recieved my mortgage offer which I got end of September (although I just recieved these documents in the post today). The seller was also using the same solicitors.
Just wanted to know if this is normal as I was thinking of using a different solictor next time.
These solicitors were recommended via my mortgage advisor.

My advice would be to use an independent firm, normally when an estate agent or mortgage advisor recommends a solicitor it's because they're getting commission for doing so!

By "land reports" I assume you mean searches? The solicitor cannot apply for searches without the contract pack as they require the plan from the office copy title documents in order to submit searches - so that would be dependant on when the seller provided the contract pack.

 

[JoeBloggs]

We were first time buyers for an empty property, took 3 months.

 

[Be More Pacific]

Our solicitor seems really good. Really prompt responses. Recommended to us by the estate agent things are moving along. One question .. we have out survey booked for a couple of weeks time. Did you wait to go ahead with your mortgage application until after your survey was done?

Some of the mortgage booking fees are £1.5k and non refundable if we choose not to proceed so hesitant to do this before survey is complete.

The lender's survey is usually done as part of your mortgage application. Application is submitted, approved in principle by the underwriters and survey instructed.

So I assume you are talking about having your own survey done. If so, I would absolutely say it would be prudent to wait especially with those kinds of non refundable booking fees.