Tuesday 7th June. Another round of chasing phone calls and emails. The contract arrives. What’s more the council have played a blinder and the searches are back. No airports, no flood plain, no landfill. We’re good to go.
On previous posts I forgot to mention. Surveys were ordered by me via our lenders last week. Survey was done on friday a few days after offer. Results are in today so today is a busy day. Surveys all ok. Searches all ok. Draft contract is ok.
We give the thumbs up to our solicitor to proceed to exchange. We suggest a completion date of July 1st.
Then, there is another conveyancing oddity. These contracts seem to have a standard 10% ‘deposit’ that is paid to the other party should one party fail to complete following exchange. What could stop you completing? well there are a couple of searches for bankruptcy and some land registry stuff again that the solicitor will do on behalf of the buyer’s lender but only after exchange. This is bonkers. They wait until after you are commited to 10% and just before completion before finding out if you have a nasty surprise in store (perhaps you are a victim of ID theft and do not know it yet). Well, we do not need that kind of surprise thanks very much so I ask my solicitor how much to do these searches on my behalf and do them again after exchange on my lender’s behalf? I could barely believe the answer. £4. Yep, £4. So for £4 I can avoid having a nasty surprise that would put us in the hole for 10% of the purchase price. I order the searches. All clear as expected but you know what, I’ll be able to sleep now after exchange.