Completion is a relay of bank transfers: your lender releases the mortgage to your conveyancer, who sends the completion balance to the seller's conveyancer, who — on receipt — confirms completion and authorises key release. You spend the morning doing nothing but waiting well. Here is what the waiting actually contains.
The money's journey
Your conveyancer requested the mortgage funds for today (or banked them yesterday) and holds your deposit and costs per the completion statement. From bank opening they send the balance by same-day transfer. In a chain, each completion funds the next: the bottom completes first, and money climbs the chain link by link. Single purchases often complete by late morning; chains typically land between noon and 2pm.
The deadline that matters
Contracts set a completion deadline — commonly 1pm or 2pm — for funds to arrive. Miss it (a bank delay, a stuck link above you) and completion legally rolls to the next working day, with the delaying party owing penalty interest and everyone owing removals firms flexibility. It is rare, it is survivable, and it is why Friday completions are worst: the 'next working day' is Monday.
How to spend the morning
Load the van (you can usually pack out of your old place regardless), keep your phone loud, and resist calling your conveyancer hourly — they will call the moment there is news, and their morning is spent making your news happen. Plan lunch near the new house, not removals at its door for 9am. When the call comes — 'you have completed' — the agent is your next stop.
Your action list
Practical tips
- Agree with the removal firm in advance what happens if key release slips two hours — most have a standard, calm answer.
- In a chain, ask your conveyancer the day before roughly when your link is expected to complete; it calibrates your morning.
What can go wrong
- Booking the van for 8am at the new property assumes a completion time nobody can promise — vans wait, at hourly rates.
- If completion does roll to the next day, your contract and conveyancer handle it — expensive improvisation (hotels booked in panic, cancelled movers) usually costs more than the delay.
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