Once you have made the decision to buy a house or flat and you have consulted us about the necessary legal work the following happens:
We will provide you with an estimate of how much the legal fees for the purchase will be based on the complexity of the transaction, and explain our terms of business to you. You can then decide whether you wish to use us as your legal advisors.
We will ask the sellers' solicitors for a contract and supporting documents which we will check in detail, report any relevant information to you with copies of the appropriate documents and, on receipt from you of the fee, apply electronically for searches - these include
- A Local Authority search,
- A contaminated land search,
- A plan search,
- Enquiries of the local Water Company
- Sometimes further specialised searches depending on the locality and other factors surrounding your new property.
Inspection and survey
Our enquiries do not relate to the physical condition of the property - this area should be dealt with by your own inspection and survey. Be aware of the limitations of certain types of surveys. We would advise you to consider a more detailed type of survey than the basic mortgage valuation.
If defects become apparent which were not clear when you made your offer for the property, it may sometimes be possible to re-negotiate the price.
Until these stages have been completed satisfactorily, neither seller nor buyer is legally bound to go ahead, and there is no penalty or compensation if either pulls out.
Exchanging Contracts
Exchanging contracts is the stage where both buyers and sellers become legally bound - and, if you are buying and selling at the same time, we will make sure that you do not become bound on one transaction without a binding agreement on the other. You should note that it is exchanging contracts, and not the physical signing of the contract, which is the binding act. You may, therefore, sign the contract some time before we exchange it.
If you are buying, you will need to pay a deposit of up to ten per cent of the price at exchange of contracts. We will need to have cleared funds - usually a bank draft or building society cheque - before we can pay over the deposit.
At exchange of contracts, a completion date is fixed. This is the date upon which the actual purchase will take place. The completion date is fixed by mutual agreement and this will be your moving day.You must have the property insured from exchange of contracts, and any life policies must be in force from then.
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Preparing for Completion
By the completion date all the final documents will already have been prepared and signed and all the financial aspects finalised. We will need to have all the necessary money, including our charges and expenses, and again in cleared funds, before completion.
You should arrange the takeover of the gas, electricity, telephone and other such supplies from exchange of contracts.
Completion
We will not normally be able to pay the purchase money to the seller until the property you are buying is empty. You should have agreed the hand over of keys, this is normally via the sellers’ estate agent, or handed over directly by the sellers
You will not normally be able to collect the keys until completion has taken place. If you are buying only, we will try and arrange for completion to occur as early as possible on the day of completion. If you are selling and buying, we will need to have received your sale money from your buyers' solicitors before we can complete the purchase with your sellers' solicitors. This can cause delays in the release of keys; we will do all we can to minimise these.
After Completion
After completion we will see to payment of Stamp Duty Land Tax, currently payable on residential purchases of £125,001 and higher (starting at 1% of the purchase price rising to 4% for purchases over £500,000), registration of your ownership and to other formalities. When the Land Registry has returned our completed application we will send a copy to your mortgage lender (if any) and will usually send the original deeds and documents to you. Evidence of your legal title is now stored electronically at the Land Registry and you have no title deeds as such, but we recommend that you keep the documents we send you safely as they may contain planning permissions, copies of old deeds and guarantees and so on which may well be needed on a future sale and which can cause a delay and expense if lost.
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