House Buying and Selling

Buying your new house

Moving house is often described as one of the most traumatic events in life, ranking alongside bereavement and divorce. To a large extent the difficulties of the day are inevitable – you have to pack up everything you own, move it all out of the house at a given time and move it into a strange and unknown property (which may even be many miles away so that the very surroundings are alien).

A feeling somewhere between adventure and alienation; the friction in getting all the family involved; the sheer practicalities of dealing with electricity, water, gas and removal companies; the bureaucracy of Council Tax, insurance and address-changing in general: none of these can be reduced by your solicitor. Where we can make a difference is by ensuring that dealing with the many stages in the conveyancing process does not add to these inherent difficulties.

That is why we have ensured that our conveyancing team is not only technically excellent (which you would expect) but is sensitive, empathetic and available – which you will not find in many larger organisations where the work is done by a computer or a department with no visible face.

We use all the latest technology, including a direct line to the Land Registry and our own terminal for electronic transfer of funds, but you will still deal with named individuals in a small friendly team.

A broad outline of the work involved in buying your new home is as follows: –

  • Obtaining information about the property from your sellers and forwarding it to you
  • Checking the Contract and that the sellers have good Title to the property
  • Checking the Home Information Pack
  • Making all further necessary searches and enquiries to Local Authorities etc.
  • Reporting to you on the Contract
  • Agreeing the Contract and obtaining your signature to that
  • Obtaining from you the deposit required to enable the exchange to take place
  • When all parties in the chain of transactions are ready to proceed agreeing the completion date and exchanging Contracts. This is the stage at which you are committed to the purchase
  • Reporting on Title to your lenders and checking that all mortgage conditions have been met
  • Preparing the Transfer and Mortgage Deeds and obtaining your signature to them
  • Obtaining advance monies from your lender and any monies from you to complete the transaction
  • Completing your purchase and dealing with the Transfer Deed and Stamp Duty Land Tax, and lodging application to register your Title to the property. (This may take several weeks – but you will have moved in!)
  • Lodging the Title Deeds with the mortgagee and supplying you with confirmation

Selling your house

A broad outline of the work involved in the sale of your house is as follows: –

  • Assembling your Home Information Pack (HIP)
  • Obtaining detailed particulars about your property from you and supplying it to your buyers
  • Obtaining your Title Deeds and Official Copy Entries from the Land Registry
  • Checking your Title to the property.
  • Preparing the sale contract and forwarding it with copy documents for approval by the buyer’s Solicitors and dealing with their enquiries
  • Obtaining your signature to the approved contract and agreeing the completion date with yourselves and the other parties in the chain of transactions
  • Exchanging contracts, including co-ordinating an exchange of contracts on any related transaction of yours, and probably co-ordinating with a chain of transactions. At this stage you are committed to the sale and to vacate the property on the agreed completion date
  • Dealing with title enquiries and approving draft Transfer Deed
  • Obtaining your signature to the engrossment of the Transfer Deed
  • Advising your mortgagee of the exchange and requesting a redemption statement
  • On the day of completion receiving the balance of purchase money, paying off your mortgage and handing over the Title Deeds
  • Settling the Estate Agents’ commission account and sending the net balance in hand to you, unless required in connection with a related transaction

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