A Concise Overview Of How The “buy House” – “sell My House” Procedure Functions In The United Kingdom
Wednesday, October 8th, 2008 Subscribe To Our Feed
House Sales UK is not a single discipline. A separate legal code operates in England and Wales on the one hand and Scotland on the other.
The first thing you absolutely must have before you even start the “Buy house” or “Sell my house” process in either England and Wales or Scotland, is a good solicitor with a good reputation for conveyancing. Personal recommendation is the best way to get one or you could simply call the Law Society.
Next, unless you’re lucky enough to have the funds ready to buy a property, you will definitely need to have a mortgage agreed. All the High Street Banks and the few remaining Building Societies will issue mortgage in principle agreements showing that, subject to valuation and status, you are a guaranteed a loan up to a certain sum.
A mortgage in principle and your solicitor’s details will persuade the vendor that you are serious, and so should speed up things.
If you’re selling your property; make sure that the potential purchasers have already sorted out these 2 very basic steps. If they haven’t you’ll almost certainly be wasting your time.
Once you’ve chosen a property you want to have, and agreed the price, you instruct your solicitor to draw up a Buy my home contract, and the vendor’s solicitors in co-operation draws up a property sales contract. When everything is agreed the contracts are “exchanged” between the solicitors, and the buyer’s solicitor transfers a deposit of usually ten percent of the total agreed property price to the Vendor’s solicitor.
Once the contracts have been exchanged, the Vendor is legally committed to “Sell my house” at the agreed price, and subject to the terms & conditions of the contract. At the same time, the buyer is committed to “Buy house” on the same terms. If the buyer backs out or cannot complete the deal, he loses the deposit. If the Vendor fails to complete the deal he can be sued for damages.
From this moment on, the deal is fixed, and the buyer can’t be “gazumped” (that is where another buyer suddenly appears and offers more money), nor can the Vendor be “gazundered” (where the buyer suddenly decides to pay a lower price that that agreed in the exchanged contracts.
The final step is to arrange completion. This is where the remaining cash passes from the buyer’s to the Vendor’s solicitor, and the change of ownership becomes effective. This step can be on the same day as exchange, but most solicitors prefer to have a few days gap between the two steps.
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