Step by step conveyancing guide to buying a house

Step by step conveyancing guide to buying a house

Step One

You instruct us. We will send you a full estimate of our charges and our terms of engagement. You will need to complete a simple questionnaire and return this with the signed terms of engagement. We will request some funds on account from you so we may undertake the searches.

Step Two

We will acknowledge receipt of your papers and cheque and tell you if we need anything else from you. We must have I.D from all clients and details of the source of your funds. We will usually tell you in detail at this stage what we need from you. We will now request the papers from the seller’s lawyer

Step Three

We cannot do much else until the papers turn up. Once they are to hand we shall send you an email copying the deeds, the plan and other documents such as fixtures list and certain answers to standard enquiries about the property. We can now begin the searches. We will also raise whatever relevant enquiries we need to with the seller.

Step Four

We will get your mortgage offer (if you need one). We then prepare a full report on the offer for you. The original mortgage deed has to be sent to you so this letter will be posted to you to sign and return to us in preparation for exchange.

Step Five

We receive the searches back. We then email you or post you a report on the search and will let you know if it is clear or if there are any matters that need investigating. We’ll let you know if there is also anything else outstanding

Step Six

The seller’s reply to our enquiries. Provided those replies are OK and don’t call for us to clarify any answers we can now prepare and email you our full report and the contract for signature. You’ll need to read this carefully and if you’re happy with everything we have found out for you about the property you will return the contract and report to us. At this stage we will request the deposit from you and once this has been paid to us and it is cleared we will be ready to exchange.

Step Seven

We’ll call the seller and try to exchange for you. Naturally this depends on the seller being ready. If they are then we can exchange and hopefully agree a completion date that everyone is happy with. Once exchange has taken place neither you nor the seller can withdraw without incurring substantial penalties

Step Eight

Once we get a statement from the seller detailing what is due to complete we will work out the bill and tell you what funds we need from you. (See FAQ’s). The bill is 99 times out of 100 exactly as the estimate provided. It will change if you have asked us or we have agreed with you to carry out extra work for you. You will pay these funds to us (as cleared items- usually chaps bank payments) and we will complete

Step Nine

Once we have your money and the mortgage money (and if you are selling your buyer’s money) we will send the funds to the seller. Once he has those funds he will telephone the agent and ask him to give you the keys. The place is then yours! Congratulations!