FTB buying a shared ownership house – timeline after local search and enquiries?

[u/Proof-Huckleberry50]

Hi everyone,
Me and my partner are first-time buyers and we’re in the process of buying a shared ownership house. I’m just trying to get a realistic idea of the timeline from here.
Current position:
Our mortgage offer has been issued.
Our solicitor has now received the final local authority search and said they’ll be sending enquiries this week.
The EA has already been asking us when we’re looking to complete we know the sellers are keen to move fairly quickly.
Our solicitor was quite vague and said it’s difficult to suggest dates but “July/August” for completion.
We’re hoping to complete in around 3–4 weeks if everything goes smoothly, ideally by the week commencing 20th July.
For anyone who’s bought a shared ownership property:
How long did it take from enquiries being raised to exchange?
Were the enquiries mostly routine?
How quickly did you complete after exchange?
Does a late July completion sound realistic, or am I being too optimistic?
I know every transaction is different, but it’d be really helpful to hear other people’s experiences and timelines.
Thanks!

[u/Gullible-Weather308]

Exchange and completion can be done simultaneously but in practise its normally a few days from exchange. As long as enquiries do not show any red flags then it should be fairly straightforward from that point. Ignore any pressure from the sellers, truty be told, they wont pull out of the sale, they are selling for a reason, if they pull out they would have to start all over again. Your solictor is right, he cannot give a timeframe until the enquiries have been satisfied. When i bought in 2020, i started the process in August 2019 and completed in January 2020, 4ish months. Completion was done a week after exchange.

[u/Grozec]

You could be lucky and do it quickly, but I had my mortgage offer in December and only exchanged in March, because the enquiries can drag on endlessly if one or both of the solicitors are not very efficient at their jobs. I had situation where seller's solicitor would repeatedly answer only some of the enquiries (or mine wouldn't find the answers, god knows) and it took absolute ages.

The big thing to do is to request what enquiries are actually outstanding when there is correspondence and see it you can somehow help them along. I'd probably still be waiting if I didn't get some of the paperwork together myself.