Buying process guide
How long buying a house really takes
Plan for three to five months from accepted offer to keys for a conventional mortgaged purchase in England and Wales — and know which stages you can compress and which you can only endure. This guide walks the timeline stage by stage, including the one most guides skip: the lag before your purchase shows up in public sold-price data (currently updated through July 2026).
The timeline, stage by stage
Preparation (before offering)
Days to weeks — largely under your control
Mortgage decision in principle, deposit evidence, conveyancer chosen. Buyers who arrive prepared compress everything that follows.
Offer accepted → conveyancing starts
About a week
Memorandum of sale issued, solicitors exchange details, ID and source-of-funds checks run.
Searches, survey and mortgage offer
Several weeks, often in parallel
Local authority search speed varies enormously by council. The survey and the formal mortgage offer usually land within this window.
Enquiries → exchange of contracts
The long tail — weeks, chain-dependent
Solicitors raise and answer enquiries; leasehold management packs and chain coordination cause most overruns here. Exchange makes it binding.
Exchange → completion
One to two weeks (sometimes same day)
Funds are arranged and transferred; you get the keys on completion day.
Completion → public record
Weeks to months afterwards
Registration and monthly publication mean your purchase appears in public price paid data with a lag — relevant when reading recent market data.
What actually causes delays
- Chains. Every extra link multiplies coordination: the slowest conveyancer, slowest lender and slowest decision-maker anywhere in the chain set everyone’s pace. Chain-free purchases avoid this entirely.
- Leasehold packs. Management information packs from freeholders or managing agents routinely take weeks and cannot be ordered by anyone but the seller — sellers who order them at listing save the whole chain a month.
- Search backlogs. Local authority search times range from days to many weeks depending on the council. Your conveyancer knows the local turnaround — ask before you plan dates.
- Renegotiation loops. Survey findings or a down valuation reopen the price conversation; each loop adds weeks. Anchoring your offer to local sold evidence up front reduces the chance of the loop happening at all.
Important limitation
Timings here are planning ranges for England and Wales, not promises — Scotland follows a different legal process. Individual purchases vary widely.
Prepare with the data
Frequently asked questions
How long does buying a house take from offer to completion?
For a conventional purchase with a mortgage, roughly three to five months from an accepted offer is a realistic planning range — conveyancing and searches dominate the middle of it. Chain-free cash purchases can be much faster; long chains and leasehold complications can push well beyond it.
What takes the longest in the process?
Conveyancing — the legal work between accepted offer and exchange of contracts. Local authority search turnaround, leasehold management pack delays and slow responses along a chain are the usual bottlenecks, and they stack rather than overlap.
What is exchange of contracts?
Exchange is the moment the sale becomes legally binding and the deposit goes at risk. Everything before exchange — however advanced — can still collapse without penalty in England and Wales. Completion (getting the keys) is usually one to two weeks after exchange.
Why does a sale not appear in Land Registry data immediately?
After completion, the buyer’s solicitor applies to register the transfer, and HM Land Registry processes and publishes it in its monthly price paid releases. The lag between completion and appearing in public data is commonly weeks to a few months — so the newest sales in any area are always undercounted in recent data.
How can I make my purchase faster?
Instruct a conveyancer and get your mortgage decision in principle before offering, return forms same-day, order searches immediately, and if leasehold, chase the management pack from day one. You cannot control the chain, but being the fastest link in it removes your name from every delay conversation.