My house sale is dragging on. Where is it actually stuck?

Conveyancing is the legal work that transfers ownership of a property from you to your buyer. It covers the contract, the enquiries your buyer's solicitor raises, the local authority searches, and the money moving on completion day.

Is my sale actually slow, or does it just feel slow?

Compare it against the national picture before you compare it against your expectations. The gap between the two is where most of the worry sits.

Connells research director Aneisha Beveridge noted in that release that it was the first time on record the average sale had taken more than 100 days to get from offer agreed to exchange. Transactions are running roughly four weeks longer than they did in April 2019.

Where do house sale delays actually come from?

Rightmove asked where the biggest hold-ups sit and published the answer on 9 September 2026. The legal stage dominates, and most of the list sits outside your estate agent's direct control.

How do I find out where my own sale is stuck?

1. 1. Ask one question in writing

   Email your solicitor and your agent the same sentence: which single item is currently holding this sale up, and who is waiting on whom. A written question gets a written answer you can hold people to.

2. 2. Get the search dates

   Ask when the local authority searches were ordered and whether they have come back. Searches are 11% of the biggest delays and the ordering date is the one that quietly slips, because the buyer's solicitor usually waits for payment on account before placing them.

3. 3. Get the mortgage offer date

   Ask your agent whether the buyer's formal mortgage offer has been issued, not whether they have an agreement in principle. Those are different documents and only one of them means the lender has committed.

4. 4. Get the enquiries position

   Ask your solicitor how many enquiries are outstanding and how long they have been waiting on you. Sellers are sometimes the bottleneck without knowing, because a form or a guarantee is sitting in a pile at home.

5. 5. Check the chain above and below

   Ask your agent to confirm every link in the chain is agreed and instructed. Nine per cent of the biggest delays are chain-related, and a chain is only as quick as its slowest link.

6. 6. Set a review date, not an ultimatum

   Pick a date two or three weeks out and tell everyone that is when you will review progress. A named date moves files without burning the goodwill you still need.

What is normal, and what is a red flag?

A stuck sale is a question of fact, not a question of mood. Find the date that has not moved and you have found the delay.

How do I protect myself while I wait?

• Read commitment by what the buyer has spent, not what they have said. A solicitor instructed and paid, searches ordered and a survey booked are real. Enthusiasm is not.
• Keep your own spending in step with theirs. Instructing your solicitor early is inexpensive and keeps momentum, so do it. Larger irreversible costs are better held until the buyer's own money is committed.
• Ask your agent to keep in touch with anyone who viewed twice and did not offer. A warm second buyer is the difference between a wobble and a restart.
• Send everything your solicitor asks for the same week it is asked for. It is the one part of the timeline you control outright.
• Write down the four dates from the steps above and update them weekly. A one-page record turns a vague worry into a specific chase.

Is anything being done about the delays nationally?

The government published its home buying and selling reform roadmap on 19 June 2026. It proposes upfront property information from sellers and agents, digital identity checks and property logbooks, and estimates the changes could take around four weeks out of the average transaction and halve the number of failed sales, which it costs at £1.5bn a year to the economy.

None of that helps a sale agreed today, but it does confirm the pattern: the hold-up is structural rather than personal. Your sale is not slow because of anything you did.

ValuQ gives UK homeowners free, side-by-side property valuations from competing local estate agents. Seeing how several agents would price, market and manage the sale before you instruct one is the earliest point at which you can influence how smoothly the months after the offer will run.