Conveyancing - Selling Process


Initial correspondence
There should be some confirmation to notify all parties that the sale has been agreed. This will come in the form of a letter; it will include the offer price, and contact details for the other party’s solicitor.

Serve authority to obtain title deeds to the property for the previous lender
The earlier the solicitor can do this the better; it can take quite some time to action this.

Property information form and contents list sent to you by the buyer.
This contains summary information about the property, and its boundaries, and any fixtures and fittings that are agreed to have been left.

Send back the property information form
Send back to buyer’s solicitor.

Receive the deeds
Your solicitor will receive the title deeds sometime around this point, they will be thoroughly checked.

Compile draft contract
Your solicitor may have got this underway almost as soon as you appointed them. This is a legal document that sets out the terms of the sale process. It will contain details of the property, the buyers, the sellers, the selling price and the date the transaction will take place.

Solicitor fields enquiries from buyer's solicitor
The buyer’s solicitor will send you a list of basic enquiries about the property, in order for them to start drawing up the contract.

Draft contract and other documentation sent to buyer's solicitor
This can only be drawn up after the title deeds are obtained from the lender. It is only a draft contract and will change constantly for a few weeks while the solicitors talk to each other.

Solicitors negotiate and agree completion date
This could be any thing between the day of the exchange, or several months later, depending on the situation.

Solicitors agree and acknowledge draft contract
Once the parties have agreed on the details, the solicitors will send each other a letter acknowledging the agreement.

Draft contract sent to you for approval
Read through the contract fully, you may not understand some bits, but try to read it and understand it any way, if there are any points you don’t understand and would like an explanation, give your solicitor a call.

Approve the draft contract
If you are happy with the contract, and your solicitor also, sign the contract and send it back to your solicitor.

Parties agree readiness to exchange
Once both parties agree that they are ready to exchange... you are one step closer to selling your home. But, until you exchange, the other party can still pull out.

Contracts exchanged
Once the solicitor is happy with the contract, they will ask you to sign it, it will then be sent to the other party’s solicitor. Meanwhile the same will happen from the other party. Once signed, the contract is a legally binding document, if the other party backed out now, they would face hefty financial penalties.

Buyer's deposit received
Normally, at the same time as the contracts are exchange, assuming there is a deposit, you will receive funds from the buyer’s solicitor.

Solicitor obtains a settlement figure for your mortgage
The majority of people will need to settle there existing mortgage from the sale of there home. Your solicitor should find out exactly how much its going to cost to settle your mortgage, this will include the outstanding debt, and any redemption penalties and/or other fees.

Approves the transfer deed and arranges for you to sign it
This is the deed that legally completes the transfer of the property to the buyer.

Balance of funds received from buyer's solicitor
The remainder of the purchase to your solicitor from the buyers mortgage company, usually via electronic transfer. Once they are received your solicitor will transfer the title deeds to the buyer, from this point you no longer own your old home.

Solicitor takes fee from balance of your mortgage
The solicitor clears the remanding balance of your mortgage

Remainder of mortgage balance sent to you
Any money that’s left over will be transferred back to you.

Finished!
Congratulations, you successfully sold your own home, and hopefully have a nice bank balance to help you buy your new one!

Homepage | When does it take place? | What is Conveyancing? | Selling Process | Buying Process | Costs