A guide for property sellers
When you have agreed a sale and withdrawn your property from the open market, you will immediately need to contact a solicitor/conveyancer to instruct them to proceed with the preliminary legal work. This is usually done by telephone and your solicitor will need details of the lender who has the mortgage on your property.
Once you have instructed a solicitor, there are five basic steps which are as follows;
Step one
- To return as soon as possible the property information form and fixtures/fitting list sent to you by your solicitors.
- Your solicitors will obtain your title deeds or if you hold them you will need to deliver them to your solicitor by hand.
Step two
- Your solicitors prepare a contract for the sale of your property in draft form and send it to the buyers solicitors together with the property information forms and copies of relevant deeds.
Step three
- Your solicitors will deal with any additional queries raised by the buyers solicitors; often your solicitor will need your help with these replies.
Step four
- Contracts are exchanged, at which point there is a legally binding agreement and a date is fixed for completion. This date is when the move takes place.
- Your solicitor will send you a note explaining what pre-completion arrangements you need to make.
Step five
- Completion of transaction.
- You will move out of the property on the completion date and the buyers will be entitled to move in.
- If you have a mortgage, this will be repaid on completion out of the sale proceeds by your solicitor.