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The legal process of selling a property only begins once the Solicitor sends the ‘draft contract pack’ to your Buyer’s Solicitor. This usually takes between 10-14 weeks, and varies depending on the complexity of the matter, type of property (leasehold or freehold) and length of chain. If you are in a chain unfortunately the matter will only move as quickly as the slowest person in the chain.

Whilst your mortgage lender will do a valuation, they may also carry out a survey. This will not be as detailed as you may want, so you may instruct your own surveyor to give an open assessment of the propety, which may also include their valuation.

A more detailed survey may be required if the property is very old, listed, or has been subject to extensive structural alterations. Your solicitor can recommend a local surveyor.

If you are using a mortgage to purchase a property you will need searches as part of the legal process. We carry out a local search, which reveals information relating to work at the property that require building regulations or planning consent, or nearby projects which have need planning permission and large infrastructure projects.

We also carry out a drainage search, which reveals the extent of the sewerage and fresh water pipework at the property, and an environmental search which reveals information such as risk of flooding, land contamination, or landfill etc.

If you are selling you need to budget for estate agent’s fees and legal fees and office copy documents. If the property is leasehold the management company may charge their own fees for information and services. You may wish to contact them at the outset to confirm these.

If you are buying you need to budget for legal fees and disbursements. Disbursements are payments made by your solicitor to other parties, such as stamp duty to HMRC, land registry fees to register the property and search fees. You also need to budget for lender’s valuation fees, and your own survey.

Contracts are exchanged once yourself and the Solicitor are ready to proceed. This also sets the date for completion. Ideally exchange happens at least 1 week before completion to give everyone time to make suitable arrangements.

Completion date is the date on which you move into your new property and vacate the old one.

The contract requires for you to insure on exchange of contracts. At this point it is said that you have a beneficial interest in the property. It pays to shop round for buildings and contents insurance and your solicitor can recommend a local insurance broker.

Property registration information is now held electronically by the Land Registry. This means that electronic versions of the deeds are stored, rather than the paper versions which if lost can cause problems with selling the property. Following completion of your sale, it is unlikely there will be any paper deeds for the property.