Buying or selling your home

Whether you are buying your first home, moving on, or buying for investment purposes, we can support you through the whole process. We understand how important your purchase is to you, so we will provide the high level of service you deserve.

Our freehold purchase experts can assist with every part of the process, including:

• Reviewing the contracts of sale and raising enquiries
• Arranging conveyancing searches
• Handling the transfer of funds
• Exchanging contracts
• Scheduling completion of the sale
• Registering the change of ownership with HM Land Registry

Buying a leasehold property is in many ways the same as buying a freehold property, but there are additional issues that must be accounted for. Failing to properly understand what it means to buy a leasehold and what the terms of your lease are can have significant consequences.

Our leasehold purchase experts can assist with all the standard aspects of buying a property, as well as specific leasehold matters, including:

• Confirming the terms of the lease
• Advising you of any limitations on your rights as the leaseholder
• Confirming the remaining time left on the lease and any impact this may have on the value of the leasehold
• Advising on ground rent and service charges and other costs you may not have considered
• Ensuring the property is properly managed

When selling a property, you must make sure the contract of sale is watertight and provide a lot of information to the purchaser. Getting expert help makes sure no issues are overlooked that could put you at legal risk, as well as helping to ensure a smooth sale.

Our residential sale experts can assist with matters including:

• Preparing the contracts of sale
• Answering any enquiries raised by the buyer’s solicitors
• Handling exchange of contracts
• Arranging completion
• Dealing with the transfer of funds
• Dealing with the redemption of any mortgages or secured loans

Contract Enquiries

The seller’s solicitors will prepare the contracts of sale and send them to your solicitors for review. Your solicitor will then raise any enquiries they have about the property or the terms of the contract with the seller’s solicitors. If the property is a leasehold, this should be confirmed at this stage and the details of the lease clarified.

Conveyancing Checks

Your solicitor will arrange for conveyancing checks to be carried out, including Local Authority and Environment Agency searches. These checks identify any issues that could potentially impact you once the purchase is complete.

Property Survey

While this step is optional, you should think carefully about having a property survey carried out. This means getting a surveyor to check the condition of the property for any potential problems you would need to fix. There are different levels of survey you can have carried out, depending on how thorough an inspection you would like and how much detail you would like concerning any problems.

Paying the Deposit

You will need to transfer a deposit of 10% of the purchase price to your solicitor. They will hold this for you to transfer to the seller’s solicitors when you exchange contracts.

Exchange of Contracts

Once you and your solicitor are happy with the contracts of sale, both you and the seller will sign copies, then exchange them via your solicitors. At this point, you are legally committed to buying the property and the seller is legally committed to sell. If you were to pull out for any reason after this point, your 10% deposit could be kept by the seller.

Completion

Completion is the date on which the balance of the purchase price is transferred to the seller. If you are paying a larger than 10% deposit, you will need to transfer the rest of your funds to your solicitor in advance. If the rest is being covered by a mortgage, your mortgage provider will take care of this for you. Once completion has taken place, the property is now legally yours.

Registering Your Ownership

After completion, your solicitor will record the details of your new ownership and any mortgage provider with HM Land Registry. It typically takes anywhere from a few months to a year for the Registry to be updated.

Providing Key Information

You will need to provide various key pieces of information for the purposes of drawing up the contracts of sale. Your conveyancing solicitor will guide you through this process.

Draft Contract

Once they have all of the necessary information, your solicitor will prepare the draft contracts of sale setting out the terms of the transaction.

Answering Enquiries

It is likely that the buyer’s solicitor will raise various enquiries about the property, so your solicitor may need further information from you in order to answer these points. This is a normal part of the process and should not be cause for concern.

Exchange

Once both sides are happy with the terms of the contract, you and the buyer will each sign copies and these will be exchanged via your solicitors. From this point on, you are legally obligated to see the sale through, as is the buyer. Failure to complete on your part could result in the buyer raising a legal claim against you. The buyer will pay a 10% deposit at this point and, if they were to pull out, you would be legally entitled to keep the deposit.

Completion

On the agreed date, the outstanding balance will be transferred by the buyer’s solicitor to your solicitor. At this point, the sale is complete and the buyer is the new owner of the property. Your solicitor will then use the funds to pay off any outstanding mortgage balance you have and pay you the remainder.