Ways (tactics?) to make a UK property chain move quickly?
May 2, 2023 1:00 AM   Subscribe

How can a property chain be made to move faster (if all parties want to move quickly?)

This is a UK-specific property question. We are in a chain of 3 properties (1 flat, 2 houses). We all want (and need) to buy and sell quickly, no one is still looking for another property, etc. The buying parties need mortgages, but these have been agreed in principle. Properties all in good condition (I mean survey could reveal hidden things, of course, but these are not fixer-uppers.)

We are at the start of this (just appointing solicitors now) and we are worried it will take a long time (and we might lose one of the parties in this case.). Are there any ways I'm not thinking of that we can all work together to make this happen as fast as possible?

Many thanks!
posted by heavenknows to Home & Garden (10 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Go on your local Facebook group, or wherever people in your town chat about things, and get recommendations for solicitors and mortgage companies that move quickly (or anti-recommendations for ones that don't).

For example, I had a mortgage at an excellent rate fully approved start to finish (including the survey) in a week, via the post office (Bank of Ireland underneath). There was some well made online system for submitting documents, so no need to wait on the post for every little thing. That's certainly not everyone's experience with UK mortgages!
posted by quacks like a duck at 1:22 AM on May 2, 2023 [1 favorite]


The way to get a property chain to move quickly is to have a conveyancer that gets a move on, and then for each party in the chain to be really diligent about completing all paperwork promptly and just solving whatever problem arises. The best thing that you can do is understand anything that is non standard in your sale, and be flexible with your buyer.

I used one of the big box conveyancers and my house sale went from offer in December to completion in April. If you can't find a recommendation for a fast solicitor, then I suggest using a big box firm because they have good processes and things don't get lost as such, which may not be the absolute fastest and best but avoids the risk of being very slow. I could have made my sale go faster by being a bit quicker to resolve an issue relating to the alleyway next to my house.

At the same time, I was purchasing a house. This went from offer in October to completion in May. The reason that this was so slow is that the people selling the house needed to get permission from the courts to do so (which they did not admit to until late in the process). There was nothing I could have done to make it go faster.

What are your expectations about timescales? All the chain sales I'm aware of have involved mortgages and surveys, and at least one piece of minor wrangling in the middle about one thing or another. Fastest has been 3 months, and 3-4 months seems reasonable best case.
posted by plonkee at 2:57 AM on May 2, 2023


I used a big-box conveyancing firm for a re-mortgage last year, and i would enthusiastically anti-recommend them (memail if you want their name in order to avoid). They had all sorts of process, but they used it mainly to soak up incoming work & trap it in a holding pattern, which works as a bottleneck so as not to overload the actually legally qualified staff who do the real work. Once my case reached an actual solicitor it went quickly, but they sat on it for many weeks with bullshit meaningless updates before it got there.

I had much better & faster results in the past (different transaction) with a named human being at a local firm of solicitors - whose name i got from the selling estate agent in answer to the question: which solicitor do you like working with the best?
posted by Puppy McSock at 4:29 AM on May 2, 2023


Also, just for fun & distraction - there’s an 80s made-for-TV film called The Chain that you can find on ITV Player, about all the people in a chain who are moving on the same day through different parts of London. Full of great character actors & highly recommended. It’s old in some ways, but plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
posted by Puppy McSock at 4:49 AM on May 2, 2023 [2 favorites]


The way to speed this up is as follows;

- if any of the borrowers are using a mortgage broker, they need the broker to ensure that all the paperwork the lender needs to see is in order, and chase up the lender to make sure the valuation inspection has been carried out.

- if anyone isn't using a mortgage broker, they need to sort this out themselves, and keep on at the mortgage adviser they're dealing with at their lender to make sure the underwriters have all they need, so that the mortgage offers are issued and then everyone can move on to working out when to exchange contracts and fix a completion date.

- the estate agents acting for the various sellers (for those outside the US, only the sellers use an estate agent, not the buyer) need to liaise about completion dates. There's a common myth that solicitors will do this, but (as a former conveyancing solicitor myself), this is better left to the buyers/sellers themselves or the estate agents to sort out and then tell solicitors, so that everyone exchanges contracts on the same day, with the same completion date fixed (usually 28 days away, but can be sooner by agreement with all parties).

In my experience, the delays are usually in getting the mortgage offer issued, so everyone needs to be on top of this and make sure the lenders have all they need so the mortgage offers can be issued as quickly as possible. An agreement in principle isn't an offer, and there are many, many variables that can come up to affect this. For example, the property might not fit the lender's criteria (e.g. new flats with cladding, or if the building is a particular types of construction that the lender doesn't like, such as thatched roofs, Grade II listed, etc., flats over shops or near industrial premises, ex-local authority properties where the majority of the estate is still council, etc.). Also, once there is a detailed analysis of finances, the amount a lender is prepared to lend might be revised.

Generally lender's don't publish their detailed criteria, but if you search for "[lender's name] for intermediaries" it'll bring up the website for mortgage brokers where there's more detailed info on lending criteria for your particular lender. It's not a definitive list of criteria (that's usually commercially sensitive, only for underwriters), but it's more detailed than the info for consumers on the public-facing website.

If you need any further help, drop me a MeMail and I'll see if I can give you a steer on what to do to speed things up.
posted by essexjan at 5:44 AM on May 2, 2023 [2 favorites]


And yes, as others have said above, a local, experienced solicitor is the way to go. They will charge more than a big box firm in a call centre 300 miles from where you live, but it is definitely worth paying more for the service of an experienced professional. BUT you must make sure they're on your lender's panel os they can act for you on the conveyancing and for the lender on the mortgage, or otherwise the lender will instruct its own solicitors to put the mortgage in place, and you'll have to pay for them too. (Although to the lay person this seems like a single transaction, the purchase and mortgage involve two separate clients - the person purchasing the property and the business lending the money to buy it - and so the solicitor has to work for both purchaser and lender if they're on the lender's panel.)

The big box conveyancing firms generally use unqualified staff with things given a cursory sign-off by a qualified person. They're ... okay... if it's a very straightforward registered title. But it's less likely that they'd spot an anomaly with the legal title than if you're using an experienced solicitor.
posted by essexjan at 5:54 AM on May 2, 2023


Just staying on top of all the people and pushing for frequent updates goes a long way. They budget a standard amount of time for the work. If they have to talk to you every day they are wayyyyy over budget for your transaction. They will go to great length to get you out of their hair. Clearly don't be nasty to people you talk to but you're not there to make friends either - you're just trying to stay at the top of their list/shout loudest.
posted by koahiatamadl at 8:17 AM on May 2, 2023


Been through this recently and depending on the details of the properties and other participants there can be a lot of delays which are simply outside your control. I'd try to establish early on (via your solicitor) whether there are likely to be any legal complexities with any of the properties, especially any issues that might require involvement of the land registry - this can add months to the process. I'd also suggest trying to decide up front how long you are prepared for the process to take, and whether there's a point at which you'd be considering pulling out and starting again. Ours took over a year despite having a good and efficient solicitor on our side. In the end we're happy we stuck with it, but it certainly was not clear at the outset that this would be the case.
posted by d11 at 9:56 AM on May 2, 2023


The solicitors you use will have an idea how long searches will take. Get that from them ASAP, because there doesn't seem to be much they can do to speed the process.

It's surprisingly common that solicitor A requires something from estate agent B and estate agent B doesn't know it / is on holiday / has forgotten how to read. Whenever you get an 'it's not my fault' response from anybody, go talk to the person they're blaming. They may not be at fault, in my experience, so 'can you resend...' is a good opening line.
posted by How much is that froggie in the window at 10:44 AM on May 2, 2023


Be wary of the time cost of battling with the other side. I've had a solicitor get into (and win) repeated pissing contests with the other side over who had to pay fees that were relatively small in context (like ~£500), which was nice except that the 2 months spent on resolving the fights cost both sides more than the amount being argued over, plus a lot of stress.
posted by Urtylug at 11:56 AM on May 2, 2023


« Older How will AI affect potential career prospects   |   Simpsons ep where Father Lovejoy goes to the... Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.