How Long After Searches To Exchange & Completion?

The process of selling a house is a daunting one to say the least. The market is flooded with horror stories of nightmare estate agents and solicitors and buyer drop-outs, so it’s no wonder people like you are trying to find out how long the whole thing will take before getting in too deep.

No matter where you are in the process, it’s important to do your research and know what your options are, including whether or not you need to wait so long and how you can sell your house faster.

You can use this guide to set yourself up for the best experience when it comes to selling your house, so let’s dive in.

Table of Contents

• How long does it take to sell a house?

• How long do property searches take?

• How long does it take to exchange contracts?

• How long does it take to complete on a house?

• How to sell your house faster

How long does it take to sell a house?

There’s no exact science to buying or selling a house—indeed, it’ll be a whole different picture from one house to the next, even on the same street. The process is broadly the same, but the ways in which they are approached by different solicitors and conveyancers and estate agents and all the rest can vary wildly.

Property searches are an absolutely necessary part of the process and it’s here that most of the delays can crop up—we’ll get into that in more detail below. Firstly, let’s take a quick look at a typical timeline of what you can expect at every stage of the selling process. Bear in mind that these are rough timings and they may be different to your experience if you’re actively trying to sell now.

You can find out more about the average time it takes to sell a house in the UK here. There are so many factors and they’re different for every sale, so let’s take a look at the most common ones.

How long do property searches take?

There are many factors at play here. Property searches can take anything from weeks to months to complete and it doesn’t help that there are so many different searches to carry out. These include:

The government stipulates a maximum of 10 working days for returning local searches, but, naturally, every council across the UK is dealing with different backlogs. As reported by the HomeOwners Alliance, people relying on Sheffield City Council are looking at 28 days, while those under the London Borough of Hackney council are facing delays of 103 days.

So, the searches themselves can take a few weeks to complete, but that’s not the extent of the wait involved. The conveyancer will then need a few weeks to compile the reports of the search results, so you won’t get them straight away by any means.

How long does it take to exchange contracts?

Once the results of the searches get back to the solicitors, they’ll need to spend some time reviewing them and working through any issues before they can develop the paperwork for the contracts.

If, for instance, there are any missing planning permissions pertaining to any part of the property in question, the whole process can get delayed. Moreover, mortgage approvals take time and so do everyday communications between solicitors, so there’s a raft of factors that can push a sale back.

For the paperwork to be drawn up and completed as ready-to-sign contracts, you’ll typically be looking at 4-6 weeks. It’s at this point that the exchange can happen and a completion date can be agreed upon—but that’s assuming that everything goes to plan:

How long does it take to complete on a house?

After the signing of the contracts, when everything becomes legally binding, the completion date will be set and everyone can set their sights on that. It’s when the property officially changes hands, so the funds are transferred and the keys are given to the buyer. 

This can, indeed, happen on the same day as the exchange outlined above, but that takes a lot of planning and relies on everything going smoothly without any chinks in the chain. Normally, there’ll be a delay of a few days to a few weeks for final preparations to take place, such as organising removals and making mortgage arrangements. 

The next step for the buyer’s solicitor is to register the new ownership with the Land Registry and then the whole process should be wrapped up. Some sales go smoothly, but most don’t, unfortunately…

How to sell your house faster

It can be a long, drawn-out affair selling your house on the open market—we’ve seen so many customer stories of people being let down by buyers pulling out or estate agents not pulling their weight.

Many people are surprised by how quickly you can complete with a cash buyer like us and they wish they’d tried this route sooner. Here’s how you can sell your house faster than you will selling on the open market:

The advantages of selling to cash house buyers are plentiful and you can trust us when we say you won’t miss the open market… here are some of the top benefits of selling to The Property Buying Company

Take advantage of quicker cash buyer timelines

If you’re in need of a quick house sale for whatever reason—you might need to relocate or your buyer might have pulled out at the last minute—you can keep the chain together by selling to a cash buyer like The Property Buying Company.

Sell your house fast in days instead of waiting for months to find the right buyer on the open market. All that’s required to get the process started is your postcode—enter it into our quick form below to see if your house is eligible and, if it is, we’ll be in touch with a cash offer within hours.

Don’t just take our word for it—check out our customer stories and our Trustpilot reviews to find out more about how quickly we can help you sell your house.