How long does it take to move house with no chain?

Moving house can be an exciting yet nerve racking experience. After your offer is accepted, your estate agent will notify both the buyer and the sellers solicitors. Without a chain, you could be moving house in as little as four weeks. However, only 32% of properties sold in the UK have no chain.

This article will cover how long it takes to move house with no chain, when selling your house before buying a new one, and what can delay moving homes.

Moving house with no chain

A chain in the conveyancing sense is the number of people reliant on one another to sell their homes. Say someone is trying to sell their home to you, but you need to sell your property first before you can move on the next.

The process can be a lot smoother when you're buying a house with no chain. Not buying a house with a chain typically leads to a quicker sale or purchase as you aren't reliant on others to finalise your own deal, decreasing the likelihood of the process collapsing.

How long does it take to move house with a chain?

If you're needing to sell your home to buy a new one, most estate agents will not accept your offer for the new property until you have accepted an offer on your current home as they don't want to delay the onward chain.

Sellers prefer offers from buyers who have secured their own sale to release the funds for this purchase. Sellers do not want to wait around while you market your property and wait for offers.

If your sellers are reliant on an onward purchase to move out, find out what you can about this onward chain from the estate agent during the viewing. Any complications with their transaction will delay your own move. For example, your seller is buying a probate property and their solicitors haven't got a grant of probate yet.

How long does it take to move?

The average time to move houses in the UK with a chain ranges from 11 to 21 weeks. While less common, no onward chains are more desirable as they speed up the moving process from 6 to 8 weeks on average.

How long does each stage of a home move take?

Let's take a look at the home moving process step by step:

• 1
  Instruct solicitor: 10 minutes

It's important to spend a while choosing a good solicitor, so we recommend that you shop around first. You will save time and place yourself at an advantage if you instruct your solicitor before your offer is accepted. As long as you have chosen your solicitor by then, formally instructing should only take 10 minutes.

Once your offer has been accepted, the buyer's solicitor begins the conveyancing process by reviewing the legal title of the property. The sellers solicitor will send through the draft contract.

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• 2
  Mortgage application: 1-2 weeks

You should be submitting your mortgage application as soon as possible. If you have time to be cautious, you shouldn't spend anymore money on survey and searches until the lender has confirmed they're willing to lend on the property.

• 3
  Order survey and searches: 1-2 weeks

Your SAM Conveyancing executive will book in the surveys and searches you require for the property. This can be done at the same time as step two, streamlining the process even more outside of any delays. Many of the searches we offer are returned in as little as two hours.

Your survey will be carried out by one of our specialist local RICS surveyors, we have same week appointments available and your report will be delivered in 5 working days.

• 4
  Legal enquiries: 1-3 weeks

With the property survey and searches in the books, you will now contact the seller's solicitor to ask questions about the property. An experienced solicitor is valuable during this period as you buy the property 'as seen'. Meaning if the correct questions aren't addressed now, it'll be costly for you in the future.

• 5
  Negotiations: Varies

Your solicitors will now negotiate on your behalf regarding the details they learned about the property. Negotiating a house price can take as long as both parties continue to engage and can happen at any stage up to completion. If there are any problems, most reasonable sellers will adjust the cost to accommodate it will take you to fix the issues.

• 6
  Exchange contracts: 1-2 days

The contract exchange is a quick process. After an agreement has been reached, both parties sign the contract. You return your wet-signed contract to your solicitor in person or by post. Your solicitor transfers your deposit to the seller and now you are legally bound to buy the property.

• 7
  Draw down mortgage: 5 days

Your mortgage application should have gone through by now. Your solicitor sends the executed contract of exchange to your lender. It usually takes 5 days for the Lender to send through the money for the purchase. Cash buyers skip this 5-day step.

• 8
  Pack & Prepare

• 9
  Complete & Move

Your solicitor sends the completion monies to the seller's solicitor. The seller's solicitor will release the keys. Your solicitor will pay the SDLT (if applicable) and register the property at the Land Registry.

What can delay the moving process?

As well as delays related to the chain, even chain-free purchases can be slowed down.

• Missing or incomplete information on Title deed at the Land Registry

Uncertainty over ownership can cause delays until they can be confirmed as the Title deed needs to showcase ownership history.

Other missing or incomplete documents including EPC, building regulation certificate, leaseholder information pack (if applicable), and gas safety certificate can also delay the process.

• Valuation disputes

If your lender's valuation undervalues the property, you will have to dispute the valuer's decision or negotiate the price down to match, which can cause significant delays depending on the cooperation of the parties.

• Survey delays

We always recommend that buyers get a survey done before purchasing the property. This is to ensure as the buyer you have as much information on the property as possible. We have a panel of RICS regulated surveyors who will thoroughly inspect the property.

If the seller doesn't let the surveyor into the property or access to parts of the property are obstructed, the surveyor may have to revisit the property. Even once you have gotten a survey, the seller can still disagree with the findings and refuse to budge on adjusting the offer. These issues will delay or derail the moving process.

• Property defects

If defects are discovered, further surveys including specialist surveys conducted by a structural engineer may be required to determine the extent of the issue. This will likely add time and work onto the negotiations period, where you may ask the seller to rectify the defects or bring their price down accordingly.

• Bottlenecks with Local Authorities

Local authority searches are the most common property search which faces bottlenecks at peak times of the year. We aim to mitigate this risk by using a regulated local authority search which is conducted by a search agent who can turn around the report much faster. However, some lenders will not accept this type of local authority search.

• Lender is slow to release funds

If the mortgage provider is slow in either issuing final approval for the loan, or simply releasing the money in time for you to complete, this can add delays close to the deadline. This can be caused by inefficient lenders, or by complexities on your side such as bad credit score or self employment.