We're about to exchange on the house we're buying - does anyone know how long it takes for the Building Society to transfer the money to the solicitor's account after exchange?
... I can't imagine they're too busy at the mo with mortgage approvals being 50% down on this time last year!!
Roger, When you exchange contracts, you should have an agreed day of completion. That's the day the money gets transferred. Or sometimes your solicitor may request funds the day before to mitigate any delay by the lender. Either way, you should already know. SM
Most lenders need about week's notice to get the money to a solcitor. If you try to exchange with completion in too short a time you can have problems. We can often get it more quickly from the big well known ones - provided they are not too busy.
We often do order the money before exchange in the hope that exchange and completion happen when we expect, but we have to warn a client that there could be extra costs in sending the money back if exchange and completion don't happen as expected.
Some of the less well known lenders are a right pain, and basically cannot be trusted to provide the money without a lot of chasing and often come up with strange reasons for not sending the money ("we need a photograph of the property..." or some other apparently random reason) so a solicitor will often want to allow longer than normal to get the money from them.
As a conveyancing solicitor I believe the information given in the post to be useful but I accept no liability except to fee-paying clients.
Roger, as SpampMan says above, you wont actually exchange until an agreed completion date has been agreed to, that way your solicitor knows exactly when to work for with regards requesting the money from your lender.
