Selling your Home

Once you have decided to sell your home, there are various deliberations before you put it on the market:

• Review your current mortgage situation and discuss this with your lender. If you are moving to a new lender there may be early repayment charges due, or you may be able to transfer your mortgage to a new property.
• Consider your next living situation; will you be buying a new property or moving to rented accommodation in the short term.
• Consider the estate agent in terms of fees, their knowledge of the area you are in and their reviews.
• Get an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) if you don’t already have one. You will need this before you put your property on the market.
• Make your home as appealing as possible by tidying inside and outside, putting any finishing touches on the decorating and you may wish to remove any items that personalise it to you for viewings so potential buyers can easily see themselves living there.
• Start collating the documents you will need during the process, such as your ID, bank statements and paperwork from when you bought the property.
• Obtain a valuation on the property; we would usually suggest asking several different agents to value your property to ascertain an accurate opinion.
• Once your property is on the market and you have started viewings, consider the buyer and their position when you receive an offer; don’t rush into accepting but consider the amount they’re offering, the size of the chain and whether they are first time buyers.

Selling your home is a legal process and so a Property Solicitor or Conveyancer is required in order to prepare the relevant legal documents, review the documents received from the buyer’s Conveyancing Solicitor and ensure everything is above board in selling your home.

Once you have accepted an offer, there will be several stages along the way, including:

1. Appointing your chosen Property Solicitor or Conveyancer.
2. Gathering together the legal documents that will form part of the contract and other paperwork.
3. Complete the necessary forms, which will include the Property Information Form.
4. Your Conveyancer will then draft the contract for review by the buyer’s Conveyancer.
5. It will be at this stage that the buyers are likely to raise questions about the property. It is important that if your Conveyancer raises these with you that you respond promptly in order to not delay matters.
6. Once the contract is agreed between the parties, you will sign these and return them to your Conveyancer. Once this is done, you have officially exchanged, meaning that you or the buyer are no longer able to back out of the sale.
7. You will then agree a completion date which is the date you will move out, along with a time that you will have left the property by.
8. On completion date, your Solicitor will complete the sale and from the proceeds will pay the mortgage redemption figure and the estate agent before sending you the remainder.

When you are selling your home, you will need to keep in mind that there will be several necessary payments to budget for:

• Any mortgage redemption figure.
• Estate agent fees.
• Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) fees.
• Legal fees.
• Land Registry fees.
• Removal costs.

This can be a difficult question to answer as it will be dependent on multiple factors, for example the size of the chain, if there are any delays to answering queries or returning paperwork, or if a buyer pulls out.  It can also take several months to secure a buyer, but typically the legal process of selling your property takes 8 to 12 weeks.

Once you have sold your home and moved, you will need to update your address with the relevant organisations such as the DVLA, doctors, local authority, your bank and other utility providers.  Depending on your situation, you should also consider updating your Will.