okay in this video i want to address a question that i am frequently asked by anybody who's
involved in buying or selling a property and that is how long is the process going to take
and if i give you an example you'll see what i mean when i say it really depends let's just
say for the sake of argument that i'm acting for the purchaser of a property okay the first thing
that's going to happen is the new client that i have the purchaser will let me know and will let
the auctioneer know that i'm acting for him or her and the auctioneer will then send a sales advice
note to me and to the vendor solicitor the vendor solicitor then must issue contracts and copy title
documents to me to prove title now if the other solicitor the vendor solicitor doesn't have the
title documents for example or if there are any other cause of a delay in issuing the contracts
or if the other solicitor is a little bit tardy in drawing up the contracts or if there's some
outstanding issue to do with for example planning or a certificate of compliance with planning
or perhaps a certificate of compliance or a certificate of exemption or discharge for nppr tax
or something to do with lpt tax run a number of things the fact is that i am completely dependent
on the other solicitor the vendor solicitor sending the contracts and title documents to me
so that is something that is completely outside my control nothing i can do about i have to wait for
those contracts to come to me to this office it's like playing a football match or a tennis match
you need someone to play with and so the other side must essentially kick the ball or poke
the ball out and i can then respond but only then can i respond i can't do anything about
the title documents or the contracts which the vendor or solicitor must draw up then when the
documents come in here to my office and i review them and i go through them i'm going to raise
some pre-contract inquiries i must do that in order to protect my clients interest and to
ensure that we get good title to the property and that there's no problems with title or planning
or anything of that nature so i'm going to raise queries then the ball goes back to the other side
to the vendor solicitor and they may or may not be tardy and slow in responding if they respond
quickly well and good we're off to the races again if they don't if they're overwhelmed with work or
if they for some reason are unable or unwilling to answer my queries then it's going to cause a delay
the next step after satisfaction applies i get my client in to sign contracts and loan documents and
so on the mention of loan documents means that there is a lender involved the bank involved
so in order to complete the sale we're going to need the bank to give us the money the loan
however the bank won't do so unless all the eyes are dotted and the t's are crossed which means
that essentially everything that the bank requires prior to releasing the funds the loan funds
must be in place so again that is something that's completely outside my control that's
something that's within the control of my client or perhaps the person company that's providing
the life assurance who is organizing the home insurance and so forth so again there's another
point there the third point at which it's outside my control there's nothing i can do with the best
will in the world i can try to speed things up but if i get onto the bank and say look we want to
close this deal on friday please send me the money they'll say the life insurance is outstanding
or your client didn't sign the direct debit mandate or something of that nature
so i hope you see from this video that it's a two step or a two sided process a two-party process
as i say it's like playing some sports some team sport where one side must poke the ball out or
kick the ball out or kick it off and get the thing started and a solicitor acting for a vendor or a
purchaser doesn't act in a vacuum he or she is dependent on the other side the other solicitor
providing the relevant documents and contracts and so forth and he may well be or she may well be
completely dependent obviously on their client providing them with certain information
so that can lead to uncertainty but by and large then you're probably looking at a reasonable
average of eight weeks from start to finish that is just an estimate though as i say it will depend
on both sets of solicitors working in a sort of a fairly timely manner in a business-like industrial
sort of a way and that nothing derails the process and as i say the fact of the bank being involved
as well is another moving part that you know an individual solicitor doesn't have much control
over so it's very very difficult to be absolutely certain or prescriptive as to how long the process
starts i hope though i have indicated to you where the breakdown or the slowdown might occur and um
you get a better idea i think eight weeks probably is an average or general enough six to eight weeks
but again it will depend and just to give you one simple example before i wind up this video
that's so you say my client has bought a property and the other solicitor is now
instructed by his client to draw up contacts if the other solicitor doesn't have title documents
there's probably going to be 10 days or a fortnight between getting his client to sign
the authority and getting the title deeds from the lender and that's before he even
starts the process of drawing up the conflicts now he may well have them in advance but his
client the vendor may not have understood that in order to speed the thing up from the word goal
it would have been useful if he'd given his client or a solicitor rather instructions
well in advance of putting the property on the market with the auctioneer
to get the title documents out and get ready to go so that when they do get a buyer do get a pointer
for the property they can issue contracts in a very timely fashion anyway i hope you find this
video useful i hope it does answer the question as best i can there's a lot of moving parts and as i
said if you find a video useful i'd appreciate if you gave it the thumbs up down below thanks a lot