UKC

As the title: how long, in peoples experience, has it taken to go from offers to moving? Given that I start my new job at the start of May at the other side of the country, I'm pretty sure I'm going to be living in my van

2-3 months from my experience of half a dozen house sales/buys.

Where do you live ? Took me a couple of weeks in Scotland although I don't know if that's typical & I suspect different in England

Took me 6 months! Should have been 3 but then, on the day of exchange, something went wrong further up the chain. I did negotiate some money back as a result of it though.

No chain? 6 weeks if you sit on the lazy estate agents. 2 weeks if no mortgage involved.

We're not in a chain, our offer was accepted start of December and our solicitor reckons she'll get us a completion date this week, hopefully in the next couple of weeks. Never bought a house in the UK before but it seems like a right faff, at least compared to Finland which is my only comparison.

So OP, we're on 3 months and not there yet!

Two weeks is exceptional! My Scottish/English experiences have been identical so far...

Hmm, looks like we may need some rental accommodation...

I'd say 6 months is a prudent estimate. Expect delays and incompetence at every turn.

Took me about 8 weeks, but I got the feeling it could have gone faster.

2004 in England, 8-9 weeks no chain, and putting a reasonable push on estate agents and solicitors 

6-8 weeks in my experience in the UK - managed it three times, but no real chain for any of them. A mortgage was required each time.

The lower end of the range was by being pushy with everyone involved and there was no chain at all. Upper end due to constantly pi$$ed solicitor not doing his job, until my wife and our vendor turned up at their office to give them a full-on bollocking. It moved very quickly then.

8 months for us... though even our solicitor said that was the longest she'd ever dealt with so yours won't be any longer than that! 

6 weeks and 9 weeks, fianance sorted out beforehand both times.  The quicker one didn’t involve estate agents, the longer one did.  

To get it below 6 weeks you would I think have to skip the information searches (mining, water, etc) as they become a limiting factor.  Doubt you can do that if you have a mortgage.

To repeat what others said, the key to keeping it quick is to keep on top of the estate agents and then the solicitors once they take over.  Get a timeline agreed with them and then check in every few days.

Got one done in 10 weeks, no chain, mortgage in principal with a 50% deposit and no surveys to do (due to the 50% dipper the bank didn't need them). We were promised 8 and the only reason we made 10 was because I took a day off to run paperwork from solicitor to solicitor and back to bank 2 days before the vendor went on a world cruise whilst their new house was being built. 

The next one took 3 months, again no chain, again mortgage in principal in place. My solicitor kept telling us that the buyers solicitor was dragging their feet but I knew the buyer very well and she was told the same by her solicitor. 

When we sold my mam's farm it was 6 months. There was no chain and half the money was paid in cash. The buyer wanted a quick sale but the solicitors were unbelievably slow. They dragged it on and on. In the end the buyer said he wanted to be in the farm within 2 weeks and then suddenly it all got sorted.

So, with a really good wind I could be living in my house, but most likely need to find alternative short term accommodation for 2 people, 4 dogs, 2 cats, 3 ferrets and 2 hamsters for a month or so :o (that's a lot to fit in a camper van....)

Offer accepted end of May and moved in mid August so 10 weeks. Could have saved a couple of weeks on that as we had a fortnight between exchange and completion to allow to give notice on our rental. No chain

I've bought three houses in my life. Fairly sure each took between 6-8 weeks and no longer.

We went 10 weeks from starting to look to the day we moved in, I think about 7-8 of those weeks were between offer and moving in.

There are so many variables.

Is the seller wanting to move out quickly?

Are you a cash buyer or do you need to arrange a mortgage?

Are there any problems with the house that a mortgage provider would baulk at?

How good is your solicitor? Are they a small practice and your solicitor is off on a 2 week holiday?

I have bought and sold a few houses in Scotland and the average time was 3 months from viewing to moving in.

In England I've bought 2 houses, one took 3 months, one took 10 months. 

Very unlikely to be quicker than a couple of months.  Could be a lot longer but usually isn't.  Might be not at all - chains can break at any point up to the day you get the keys.

6 weeks for us in Scotland.  No chain though so all we had to do really was get the mortgage in place.