Personal injury

The sale of your home is an important financial transaction. Unfortunately at times it can also be stressful often because the public is unaware of the procedures, the number of people and organisations involved, and the fact that all the procedures do take a little time to complete. Our specialist Conveyancing Team will guide you through the process in "plain English".

We hope you find the guide helpful.

REMEMBER

• It would help if you could contact us as soon as you have decided to sell your property. We can then advise you upon the costs and any other implications of the sale e.g. tax implications. This is particularly important if you are selling only part of your property e.g. a building plot or a property that is not your only or main residence.
• We can if you wish recommend local reputable estate agents.
• Be patient. We will carry out your conveyancing as soon as possible and usually a house sale would take 6 - 8 weeks to complete. However this is dependent upon whether or not you are, for example, selling to a first time buyer, or purchasing another property yourself, and if so how long the chain is. Remember your transaction can only proceed as fast as the slowest link in the chain allows. Click here to see a diagram of the number of people and organisations that may be involved in a simple three party chain.

THE PROCEDURE

Step One:
After we have taken full details from you we will obtain your title deeds (or Land/Charge Certificate if your property is already registered with the Land Registry) from you or your mortgage lender. We will then prepare a contract package which comprises the contract itself, a copy of the title deeds, a fixtures fittings & contents list, and one or more property information forms. The fixtures, fittings & contents and general property information forms are completed by you. We will send the contract package to the buyer's solicitors so that the buyer can see that you own the property and are entitled to sell it. In addition the buyer will be able to see any rights of way, rights of drainage, or any covenants or restrictions affecting the property.

Step Two:
The buyer may raise additional enquiries about the property or the contract. With your assistance we will deal with those.

Step Three:
Once the buyer is happy with the contract package and has received satisfactory search results and a mortgage offer the contract will be signed by you and the buyer and a completion date (i.e. the moving in date), will be agreed.

Step Four:
Contracts are then exchanged. This means that the contract you have signed is swapped for the contract signed by the buyer and the buyer's deposit is paid to us on your behalf. This is the vitally important time when the contract becomes legally binding and neither the seller nor the buyer can withdraw from the contract or alter the price or the completion date without potentially incurring massive expense. If you are also purchasing we should be able to use your buyer's deposit as your deposit on the purchase.

Step Five:
We will approve the transfer deed on your behalf. This is the deed by which legal title to the property is transferred to the buyers. You will need to sign the Transfer before completion.

Step Six:
On the completion date the buyer pays the balance of the sale price to us and takes the title deeds. We will then repay your existing mortgage (if you have one) and pay the costs of sale i.e. our own fees and any estate agents fees. Any balance is either sent to you immediately or used in connection with your related purchase.