Signing a contract without a completion date and authority to exchange

Signing and returning the contract to your solicitors just allows them to exchange contracts quickly when and only when you are ready and all monies are in place.

Well that is the theory and mostly practice.

I would have difficulty in believing a contract was sent to you with NO covering letter saying as an example " Please sign in the place indicated and return to theses offices where it will be held on file pending the formal exchange of contracts which will not take place WITHOUT YOUR PRIOR CONSENT "" To say that a new price has been agreed will NOT have prevented searches and enquiries been raised Tese are matters that have no relevance to searches and enquiries. The only slight delay to a revised price is where a mortgage was issued with the details of the OLD price and in that circumstance the lawyers will need and will have to advise the mortgage lender of the new price and that would generate a new offer showing the revised price

John PettmanLL.B (Hons)

The completion date is set at exchange, so you would normally return the signed contract prior to that but subsequently agree the dates with your solicitor. Delay in returning the contract will not help if you are seeking to expedite the transaction. He should confirm with you when he plans to exchange and complete - he will have to notify your lender of the dates for release of funds and you for your deposit. You should ask him/her what their procedure is but by not sending it back you are causing a delay.

Reply to the comment left by John Pettman at 26/10/2017 - 09:44
There is the 'authority to proceed to completion' form which we need to sign to give permission to exchange and complete but it asks us to send the 10% asap. Obviously this is not acceptable for us as no potential exchange/completion date (and we earn interest at 3% on this amount currently).

I agree, I was puzzled by how a renegotiated price would have delayed searches and enquiries on the property by 4 weeks!

I purchased a part exchange house and the new one was under construction, I exchanged with a clause of completion within or on three months from xxxx date, we completed the day before the last date

When I exchanged the new house was allegedly only a month away, the old owners got really funny with me (about nothing in particular) but on the last day they were sat outside the new house with 2 x furniture vans on the drive whilst waiting for monies to move etc...at which pouint the old owner rang me and asked if they could not complete could they stay in the old house for an extra week...my answer was NO

There's no need to send the deposit unless you want the money to be there ready. I would make sure it's there (cleared) about a week before and they should be able to give you that much notice especially as it is driven from another part of the chain.

You need to make a decision do you want to get this matter completed as soon as possible or not. If you do not want to send any money until everyone is ready to exchange that's fine but it will cause a delay. Your sellers are quite likely not to be too pleased to know that although you have been asked to send 10% deposit you have not done so , Bear in mind that your Solicitors will not have someone sitting by a screen just waiting for your deposit monies to arrive and also bear in mind that when everyone is ready to exchange a completion date will be put forward. By the time you get round to sending the deposit and your Solicitors receiving it as cleared funds people can and do change their minds. The choice is yours, but don't complain about the time the transaction has taken when you have the means to make it quicker.

John M. Pettman LL.B(Hons)

Reply to the comment left by Puzzler at 30/10/2017 - 09:10
From the authority to complete form: "There is a balance required of £XX,XXX, which needs to be received and cleared in our client account as soon as possible. We would prefer you to make the payment by money transfer (also known as CHAPS). CHAPS payments will clear in our account on the same day as they leave your account."

Agree with your second sentence, and it looks like we should be able to get our funds cleared with a working day's notice given the solicitor say CHAPS will clear in their account on the same day it leaves our account. I'm not transferring over £80k to them until I have a solid indication of when everyone else will be ready to exchange and complete, specially since I earn 3% interest on that balance (~£200 per month!) and my mortgage offer expires end of Jan 2018.

Reply to the comment left by John Pettman at 30/10/2017 - 10:48
Thank you, and we have made it clear to everyone else in the chain (our solicitor, agent and vendors) that we will transfer the required funds for exchange when everyone else have an idea of when they will be ready to exchange and complete as we have been waiting for 2 months now. Specially given our mortgage offer expires end of Jan 2018 and they have no idea yet when they will all be in a position to exchange.
Also see my comment above re cleared funds, so hopefully shouldn't delay exchange too long.

I think you just need to tell your solicitor that as soon as you have an idea of exchange date you will transfer the funds, so could they tell you when that is likely to be. I am sure I don't need to tell you to ring your solicitor before you do and verify their account details if you have received them by email. Just be careful this authority to complete has not come from a fraudulent account (which might explain their attempts at haste) as I don't think a solicitor would ask you for the funds "as soon as possible" without any indication of date. If they are local to you pop in and speak to their reception.