Conveyancing timeline: how long completion actually takes

Conveyancing in England and Wales typically takes about 12 to 16 weeks from offer accepted to completion. Freehold house purchases with no chain can finish in eight to ten weeks. Leasehold flats, new builds and long chains regularly take five to six months. Scotland works differently: missives are concluded through solicitors and both parties are legally bound at that point, which is earlier in the process than exchange of contracts south of the border.

Conveyancing is not a fixed process with a fixed duration. It is a sequence of dependencies, and the whole chain moves at the speed of its slowest link. A local authority search can come back in three days from one council and six weeks from another. A leaseholder's managing agent can produce a management pack in a fortnight or sit on it for two months.

Your own solicitor's responsiveness matters, but so does the other side's, and you have no control over that. The single biggest predictor of a slow transaction is the number of parties involved.

The following is a realistic shape rather than a promise.

• Weeks 1 to 2. Offer accepted, the agent issues a memorandum of sale, both sides instruct solicitors, identity checks and source of funds checks are completed, and the seller completes the property information and fittings and contents forms. Your mortgage application goes in.
• Weeks 2 to 4. Draft contract pack sent to the buyer's solicitor. Searches are ordered. The lender instructs its valuation. If you are having your own survey, book it now.
• Weeks 4 to 8. Search results arrive. Your solicitor raises enquiries on the contract pack, the searches and the survey. The seller's solicitor obtains answers, often from the seller and sometimes from a freeholder or managing agent. Your formal mortgage offer is issued.
• Weeks 8 to 12. Enquiries are resolved. The contract is approved and signed. Your solicitor sends you a report on title and a completion statement. You transfer your deposit for exchange.
• Weeks 12 to 14. Exchange of contracts. The completion date is fixed and both parties are legally committed. Buildings insurance must be in place from exchange.
• Completion. Funds are drawn from the lender and transferred, keys are released, and your solicitor deals with the land tax return and registration afterwards.

Note that until exchange, in England and Wales, neither side is legally committed. Either party can withdraw with no liability beyond wasted costs. This is why gazumping and gazundering remain possible in the weeks before exchange.

Your solicitor typically orders three or four searches:

• Local authority search, covering planning history, building regulation matters, road adoption and local land charges. Turnaround varies enormously, from a few days to several weeks, depending on the council and whether the search is personal or official.
• Drainage and water search, confirming the property is connected to mains supply and sewer, usually one to three weeks.
• Environmental search, covering contaminated land, flood risk and ground stability, usually returned within days.
• Additional searches where relevant, such as coal mining, tin mining, chancel repair liability or a specific flood risk report.

Your lender will usually require searches, or a search indemnity policy in some circumstances. Ask your solicitor to order them in week one rather than waiting for the contract pack, because a slow council search sitting at the end of the queue can add a month to your timeline.

Enquiries are the questions your solicitor asks after reading the contract pack, the searches and any survey. Typical subjects are missing building regulation certificates for a loft conversion or replacement windows, boundary discrepancies, rights of way, planning permission for an extension, damp or structural comments from the survey, and unclear information about a shared driveway.

This is where most transactions lose weeks. An enquiry often has to travel from your solicitor to the seller's solicitor to the seller, and then possibly to a managing agent, a freeholder or a local authority, before an answer comes back. Each hop takes days.

You can help by asking your solicitor which enquiries are actually blocking and which are routine, and by chasing your estate agent to push the seller when answers stall.

Leasehold adds a step. The seller must obtain a management or leasehold information pack from the freeholder or managing agent, covering service charges, ground rent, major works planned, building insurance and the accounts. Packs are often chargeable and can take several weeks to arrive. Your solicitor then reviews the lease itself for the remaining term, ground rent escalation clauses, and any restrictions.

A short lease is a genuine problem. Many lenders will not lend where the remaining term falls below a threshold, and extending a lease is a separate legal process with its own cost and timetable.

New builds have their own rhythm. Developers commonly impose a reservation fee and a contractual deadline to exchange, often 28 days from reservation, which compresses everything. If the property is not yet built you will exchange on a plot with a long stop date, which is the latest date by which the developer must complete, and that can be many months away.

In a chain, nobody exchanges until everybody is ready. A four-property chain where three parties are ready and one is waiting on a slow probate grant moves at the speed of the probate.

Practical points that help: find out the length of the chain early and ask the agent for regular updates, be flexible on the completion date because a chain has to agree a single date, and get your own part of the process finished so you are never the blocker.

In Scotland the sequence is not the same and the terminology is different. Properties are usually marketed with a home report which the seller provides, including a single survey, an energy report and a property questionnaire. Buyers typically make an offer through their solicitor, often above a stated offers over figure.

Solicitors then exchange formal letters known as missives. When missives are concluded, both parties are legally bound. That happens earlier in the process than exchange of contracts in England and Wales, so the risk period during which either side can walk away is much shorter. It also means you need your mortgage and your survey position settled before missives conclude rather than afterwards.

The tax is also different. Scotland charges Land and Buildings Transaction Tax, Wales charges Land Transaction Tax, and England and Northern Ireland charge Stamp Duty Land Tax. Filing deadlines differ by regime, so check the requirements with the relevant tax authority or ask your solicitor to confirm.

Conveyancing fees vary by firm, property value and tenure. Budget for the legal fee itself plus disbursements, which commonly include the search pack, Land Registry fees, bankruptcy and title searches, and electronic transfer fees. Leasehold adds a management pack fee and, on completion, notice fees payable to the freeholder or managing agent. Ask for a written quote that separates fees from disbursements, and check whether it is fixed or hourly.

• Instruct a solicitor before your offer is accepted, and complete their identity and source of funds checks immediately
• Ask for searches to be ordered in the first week
• Return the property information forms and any paperwork the same week you receive them
• Have your deposit sitting in one accessible account with a clean paper trail
• Get your mortgage application in early rather than waiting for the contract pack
• Chase weekly, politely, and ask specifically what is outstanding and who holds it

If you want your mortgage side to keep pace with your solicitor, the MortgageMatch directory can help you find an FCA-authorised broker who will chase the lender while your conveyancer chases the paperwork.