This depends on a number of factors including whether you are involved in a chain transaction, how soon your loan is available and how prepared the vendor is.  After you go “sale agreed” and pay the booking deposit, assuming the seller’s solicitor is ready to go, contracts should issue about 1-2 weeks later from the seller’s solicitor to us.  If you have your homework done (e.g. survey completed and final mortgage approval in place) and the title is in order normally you can expect to get the keys approximately 4-6 weeks after contract signing.  A “watch out” is that not everything said or implied in discussions holds true.  This is especially true of timelines.  In negotiations a vendor or an agent may say a sale will close quickly without properly factoring in that the vendor is him or herself involved in a purchase (or chain of purchases) or, for other reasons, does not in fact control the timeline.  The best tip is that while it is good to make plans don’t make them irreversible until at least the contract is signed by both parties.
How the Conveyancing Process Works:
Once you find a property and go “sale agreed” a typical residential purchase can be broken down into six main stages as shown in the diagram below.