How long does it take a FTB to get their mortgage and searches done?

A question about : How long does it take a FTB to get their mortgage and searches done?

Our (short) chain was formed on 15th December. Our vendors are chain-free and our buyers are FTBs, and we are in the middle.

We have had our mortgage offer, done our searches, had our enquiries back and are pretty much ready to exchange, but despite asking my solicitor to find out where the buyers are at several times, we haven't heard a peep out of them. Afaik no survey has been done and no enquiries have been raised despite having the draft contract and property details forms since 6th January.

I don't want to put the house back on the market unless I have to, but if I do have to, then I want to do it sooner rather than later, so I'm wondering if anyone can give me a timescale of when the buyers should be ready? Should we have heard something by now, or are there still lengthy delays getting appointments with lenders to make mortgage applications?

Last summer, one of my colleagues had to wait over 4 weeks between his 3 hour phone application and appointment in-branch, and took almost 4 months to go from making an offer to completion, so I do understand if this was the case that they might have told their solicitor to hold back on doing searches until they had their offer through, especially as they seemed right at the top of their budget.

So what should we do?

Best answers:

• They should be able to tell you something, sounds like something has gone wrong or having second thoughts.
  If they apply for the mortgage first you would expect the valuation to have been done by now. If they wanted to do a survey first it should have been done by now.
• In 2013 it took my mortgage provider 7 weeks to get a HomeBuyer survey done, due to the backlog at the big surveying firms. This was common across all mortgages at the time though, so the agent and vendor couldn't do much.
  It may be a simple issue like this, or something else - I would get your solicitor to firmly state that you expect a progress update in x timescale or the house goes back on the market. Actually, it may be quicker and more effective getting the agent to contact the buyer.
• Your story sounds like ours
  We are buying a newbuild, ftb are buying ours so just us in the chain.
  After our first buyer pulled out we accepted an offer around 18th December, our solicitor sent draft contracts over 6th January, not heard anything since, no valuation arranged yet.
  Rang our solicitor last week to ask what was going on, the buyers solicitor has got all searches back but is yet to receive a mortgage offer
  Rang the Ea last week & she contacted the buyers broker, apparently they have changed mortgage companies
  Ea rang with an update today, broker awaiting some paperwork from buyer supposedly posted at the weekend so was hoping to receive it today & then get the mortage app in & valuation to follow
  Obviously we are pretty worried that the buyer isn't going to be able to get the mortgage, plus as we have been in this situation b4 it's even more stressful
• I was a FTB buying a chain free house. We offered in late October, and completed December 19th. Didn't bother with a survey thought.
  It can be done, but I gather not everyone is as quick.
• Most of us have to have surveys.
  When selling we used the speed of getting a surveyor is as a gauge of how serious the buyer was.
  When buying, we were so smitten we asked the vendors when would be a good time in the coming week for us to get a surveyor in. As there were plenty of RICS grade surveyors, but we didn't want to mess the vendors around.
• We have only had updates because we kept on at the estate agent, the first time round when it fell through we didn't hear anything from anyone.
  We changed our solicitor to a better one who are more on the ball.
  You have to keep on at them all the time otherwise you don't get anywhere
• We sold at the end of 2014 and our buyers (not FTB though) had their survey done within the first two weeks. Their searches otoh, took four weeks to come back. Different parts of the country vary for search results as our own - different location entirely - took only a fortnight.
  Overall the process - selling and buying - was fairly quick (offer accepted 7th Oct, completed 16th Dec) but we didn't bother with a survey and it was a short chain of four.
  The house we sold before that - 2011 - our buyers' survey was carried out late in the process and I remember then being concerned that they were going to pull out.
  This time we kept a much tighter rein on things - chasing where possible as often as we could. We also were in contact with our buyers via email which all concerned agreed kept us sane
• The moral of this story, which I told sellers time and time again.....
  Do not take you property off the market until the 'purchaser' has a survey carried out, as this is the first point they put their money where their mouth is....
  If you make this clear to the buyer, and they are serious, they can get a survey done within a week, especially currently as surveyors do not have a great deal of work on......
• Well our buyer's sprang into life shortly after this post, and have had their mortgage valuation and searches done, however they have now gone quiet again, and although they do reply to our queries, their answers are always vague and lacking in detail.
  We are getting pretty frustrated really, as we have been ready to exchange for several weeks.
• We have been told our buyers finally has their mortgage offer , all the searches were back ages ago and the solicitors were apparently just waiting on the offer so fingers crossed we will be exchanging very soon & finally moving!
  Samba - we have been the same, been so fed up & worrying that they wouldn't get the offer or pull out ,like the last lot of buyers!
  I'm now having a fight with our developers trying to get snagging done! Be glad when it is all over
• Got a message from the buyers over the weekend saying that they need to provide another document to their mortgage provider, despite the survey being done weeks ago.
  Is is normal for mortgage companies to request more documentation after performing a valuation? Seems odd to me, and I'm struggling to work out what's going on. Clearly the best thing is to ask them what's going on, but I've tried that and they keep replying with positive answers with absolutely no content,just vagueness - I think they would make good politicians.
• Getting totally fed up with this.
  Latest update (via EA) is that they need an updated P60 as one of the buyers has had a payrise and the tax code is wrong. This makes no sense at all, and I think someone doesn't know what they're talking about.
  I hope they are not waiting for the next P60, as that may not be before 31 May, or perhaps they are waiting for the next payslip? Why don't they just get a letter from their employer?
  What makes it worse is that they are using a mortgage broker - shouldn't he/she have sorted all this out beforehand?
• I wouldn't get too worked up about it. I'm using a broker and have had to submit the same P60 twice which delayed things.
  Documents seem to get lost or overlooked, then you have to wait for someone to get around to your application again.