Selling a Property - Key Stages

Taking Instructions and Giving Initial Advice

After you have received and accepted our quote, we will send you the initial paperwork for you to sign including our Terms of Business and Confirmations of Instruction. We will also send a questionnaire for you to fill in, providing details about the transaction, property and your bank details for the proceeds of sale to be sent to on completion. We cannot commence legal work on your file until we have received your formal signed instructions.

We will also send you a Property Information Form and Fittings and Contents form for you to complete, which will form part of the Contract Pack.

Memorandum of Sale

If you are selling the property via an estate agent, they will send us a Memorandum of Sale when you have accepted an offer from the buyer. This document will confirm the sale price, the parties involved and the solicitors acting for each party.

Title Check and Drafting the Contract

We will order the title documents (known as ‘Official Copies’) from the Land Registry. These confirm your legal ownership of the property and give information about any mortgages that need to be repaid or restrictions on the title that need to be complied with. Once we are satisfied that you hold the legal title to the property, we will draft the contract and send it to the buyer’s solicitor for their approval. We recommend that you send us any documents relevant to the property as early as possible – there are prompts on the Property Information Form as to what documents the buyer’s may wish to see, such as Planning Permission and Building Regulations for any alterations or warranties/guarantees for works that have been carried out.

Redemption Statement

We will contact your existing mortgage lender(s) for a redemption statement, which shows how much is owing on your current mortgage. We will forward a copy to you. This will give you an idea as to how much money you will be receiving on completion of the transaction after your mortgage has been paid off.

Answering Enquiries

This stage of the transaction can be the longest, depending on how many enquiries are raised and how much work is required to provide satisfactory answers. Enquiries may be of a legal, technical nature (which we will endeavour to answer) or regarding the history or condition of the property (which we will forward to you for you to answer).

Signing the Legal Documents

When the buyers have confirmed that they are happy with the contract pack and all enquiries have been answered, we will forward you the final Contract and TR1 (Land Registry transfer form) for you to sign.

Agree a Completion Date

All parties must agree on a completion date before one can be set. If your sale is part of a chain of transactions, all parties in the chain must generally agree to complete each transaction on the same day. The longer the chain, the more chance there is of delays at this stage as each party in the chain must be ready, willing and able to complete on the same day.

Exchange Contracts

This is a very important stage, as it is the point at which each party becomes legally obliged to complete the transaction on the agreed completion date. Exchange of contracts is done over the telephone by the solicitors. We will contact you on the day to take your verbal authority to exchange contracts. This is, in layman’s terms, ‘the point of no return’ so it is vital that you only agree to exchange contracts if you are sure you wish to complete the transaction on the date agreed.

Completion

On the day of completion, we will receive the purchase monies from the buyer’s solicitor. We will use part of this money to redeem (i.e ‘pay off’) your existing mortgage(s) using the figure on the redemption statement. If applicable, we will pay the Estate Agent fees, deduct our own fees (as per the quote you received) and send the remainder of the proceeds of sale to you. If you have an onward purchase that Core Legal are acting on, we may transfer some or all of the proceeds of sale to your purchase file as agreed.

You must ensure that the property is empty, free of litter and furniture, and ready for the buyers to move in by the contract time (usually 1pm or 2pm unless varied in the contract). Once we confirm to you that completion has taken place, you should hand your keys to the estate agent or directly to the buyers as has been agreed.