Another hurdle over

The surveyor has just been. "This won't hurt a bit," he said, as he marched around the house scribbling at top speed onto lots of forms.
As he was leaving, I asked "Is it still standing, then?" Apparently it is, and we've got nothing to worry about. Phew.
However, on the letting front, there were a few crossed wires. On Monday, a new and inexperienced member of staff encouraged me to submit all the application forms, despite me telling her we had not got a date to exchange contracts. It was a race to get everything off to them on Monday, then an agonising wait for a phone call on Tuesday morning.
"I need to know your exchange date," an efficient voice demanded over the phone.
"We haven't got one yet."
"Then you can't apply for anything."
I really wish I'd known that on Monday.
However, I'm feeling quite prosaic about it now. We are going to have to wait until we have exchanged contracts, and have a bigger gap between exchange and completion. I've told our buyer this, and he is completely supportive. It is so nice being directly in touch with our buyers.