Accepting an offer As soon as you accept an offer on your own home you become a vendor ("the Seller") and your house is classified as being 'sold subject to contract'. This means that the house is reserved until you have signed and exchanged contracts with the Buyer. However, until contracts are exchanged both the Buyer and Seller can pull out of the deal. Timing is important. Make sure, if you find a house to buy before you have sold (or the other way around), you know how long the other person is willing to wait. Appointing a solicitor You will now need to appoint a solicitor to organise the paperwork (Deeds e.t.c). The solicitor will ask you to complete a Seller's Property Information Form on which you will be asked to state things such as whether you have done any building work, received any notices affecting property, had any disputes with anyone about the property e.t.c. You must be honest and accurate in the replies you give on this questionnaire as it forms part of the contract papers. You will be asked to provide any paperwork you have in connection to the property. You will also need to complete a Fixtures, Fittings and Contents Form. On this form you can state what you will be leaving and what will you will be taking away with you when you move. If you remove fixtures you must make good any damage cause by the removal. Before Exchanging Contracts We will ask you for your mortgage account number as this is needed to obtain your title deeds from the mortgagee. If you do not have a mortgage please let us have the deeds, if you have them in your possession, or let us know where they are. We prepare the contract based upon the information in the title deeds and send this, copies of all relevant title deeds and documents, the Seller's Property Information Form and the Fixtures, Fittings and Contents Form to the Buyer's solicitors. The Buyer's solicitors will then have a good look through the papers they receive and raise any concerns or queries. A search (or possibly more than one) will be organised. These deal with planning details, new roads, rail links, environmental issues, waterways, railways, contamination e.t.c. Once the Buyer's solicitors are happy with the title one part of the contract will be returned. Then, and provided they have received the Buyer's mortgage offer and are ready to proceed on any sale in which your Buyer is involved they will indicate a readiness to proceed to exchange contracts. The Contracts We will forward your contract to you for the signature and then (if we haven't already done so) ask you for your preferred completion date. The Deposit The deposit system is designed to make sure that Buyers are realistically committed. A deposit is usually 10% and this will be paid to us as the Seller's solicitors. However, if the Buyer of your house is having a 95% mortgage they may not have the full 10% deposit. This is not necessarily a problem as there is clause within our contract which states that if we agree to accept less than 10% and the Buyer then pulls out (which is rare) the additional amount required to make up the 10% becomes a debt due to the Seller. If you are selling and buying you should be able to use the deposit from your sale as the deposit on your new home but if you are buying a new property or a much more expensive property we may have to ask to "top-up" the deposit we receive on your sale to ensure a satisfactory deposit for your purchase. Exchange on Contracts We are now ready to exchange contracts. We will only exchange contracts if we are ready on both your sale and any purchase you might have and will always report to you before we exchange contracts. We exchange contracts with the other side's solicitors by telephone. It is at this stage that you are legally bound to buy. We will then send the signed contract to the Buyer's solicitor. The Buyer's solicitors will send the signed contract and the deposit to the Seller's solicitor. Both sides are now legally bound. Before Completion We will ask your Estate Agent to send to us a copy of your account and then forward it to you for approval. If approved we will settle it from the proceeds of the sale. We will secure a redemption figure from your mortgagee. This will show us the exact amount required to pay off your mortgage on the completion date. Again we will copy this to you but you need take no action (unless you dispute the figure stated in it) as we will telegraphically transfer sufficient sums to pay off the mortgage. We will send you a completion statement setting out everything we will have paid out and everything we will have received either before or at completion (If you are buying a house too the Completion Statement will also incorporate all of the financial details relating to the purchase). If there is a balance shown as due to you after all the expenses are paid out then a cheque in that sum will be sent to you on completion by post. If you are buying another property through us we will have a forwarding address for you but if you are not buying a new property please let us have a forwarding address to ensure your cheque reaches you. We will do a final check on all documentation, making sure that everything is signed and insurances are set up. Completion On completion day we will telephone you as soon as we receive the Buyer's money into our account and we will then authorise the release of the keys to the Buyers. You really need vacate the property by approximately 1:00pm as the property belongs to the Buyer once we receive the money! Please do not however hand over any of your keys to the house yourself until we tell you that you can! |