Offer accepted on your house, so what happens next? If you are moving yourself you need to find a new place to live and have an offer accepted yourself.
When you’ve had an offer accepted on your house get conveyancing solicitors quotes
Typically you compare conveyancing solicitors quotes and appoint a firm once you have had an offer accepted on your house. It is worth noting that some of these conveyancing firms even offer a no sale no fee insurance type policy. It depends how confident you are of the sale going through. However, it may be worth spending the extra money to find a conveyancing firm that offers this.
This usually means you only pay for a small amount for the legal work done should the chain break. This is where buyers or sellers can pull out. Fees can be sizeable when you are close to completion and for one reason or another the deal falls through. Not all solicitors offer this and also there may be terms and conditions about what it does and does not cover. Do your homework!
Conveyancing solicitors fees may differ for leasehold and freehold property
Conveyancing solicitors fees may differ depending on the whether the property is leasehold or freehold. So a leasehold property may take more time and effort to sell than a freehold property due to the extra work involved to find out the leasehold details and deal with any questions.
Your conveyancing solicitors quotes will usually have a breakdown that includes their legal fees, the bank transfer fee which covers the bank’s charge for notification of the monies coming in and accounts administration. You may also have a quote that includes the land registry document fee.
Instructing a conveyancing solicitor when you’ve had an offer accepted on your house
Once appointed they will need to verify who you are. Once completed they get the ball rolling by sending your the sales checklist and instruction form. This sets out what you want from them and also gives them details of your mortgage account number (if you have one).
Information required by conveyancing solicitors to get you to the exchange contract point
If the property is leasehold you will more than likely need to complete a leasehold information form where they find out more about the property and who the management company is as they will need to contact them to agree details and transfer ownership. There is also a property information form where you say what type of property you have, any work done and supporting documentation. You will also need to send in relevant paperwork such as planning permission agreed forms, boiler warranty, fixture and fittings and an EPC certificate.
Agreeing the completion date
This is pretty much the point of no return! There are usually queries raised by the buyers solicitor so there may be toing and froing to provide answers before you can exchange contracts. Leasehold usually takes longer due to this and trying to get the answers back from the right people.
Once the solicitors agree then contracts can be exchange and a completion date can be agreed. Typically it is around 2 weeks from contract signing to completion taking place. However, this is not set in stone and there are instances where completion and exchange take place on the same day. Having them both on the same day can be extremely tense as there is always the chance someone could pull out literally at the last minute. Also, it gives you no time to prepare for movings.
This is where your moving home checklist kicks in! One of the first tasks once you have agreed a completion date is to get compare removals companies quotes.
