Introduction

Selling your property can be a lengthy and tiring process for many homeowners who are looking to downsize, begin renting or move up the property ladder. Lestons believes that it is important for everyone to understand the process behind selling properties, and the legal considerations that they will need to make.

 

Selling properties with existing mortgages.

If you are still within your mortgage term, it is important to check whether any early settlement fees are attached to the mortgage agreement. If your new mortgage is with the same lender, they may waive these fees (known as “porting”). If your agreement doesn’t cover either clause, you may face early repayment charges (between 1-5%) of your remaining mortgage debt.

 

Preparing to sell your home.

Owners should prepare the home for market by giving it a good tidy and clean, this is a great time for a good de-clutter and to remedy any obvious faults. The next stage would be to get their home valued by estate agents - it is recommended to get more than two agents to value the home, they will arrange the advertising and potential sale details. To maximise profit from the sale of your home, owners should ask the agents for advice on what areas to target. You will need to get an EPC assessment (the agent will arrange this for you).

 

Conveyancing.

Once a potential buyer is found who is willing to purchase the property and you have accepted their offer, solicitors are brought in to deal with the legal matters and paperwork. This includes having the solicitors begin the conveyancing process. The agent may recommend a solicitor, or you can choose your own. In this respect, Lestons has a third-party specialist conveyancing solicitor and we prepare all the background paperwork, leaving it to them to finalise. We find that this saves our clients significant costs.

 

The conveyancing process includes:

• Completing detailed questionnaires;
• The production of draft contracts and a negotiation phase;
• Paying off the existing property mortgage (a redemption figure);
• Exchanging the contracts; and
• Completion.

 

Questionnaires

Your solicitor will request that you complete a questionnaire regarding the property. These may include Forms TA6, TA7, TA10 and TA13. Owners must fill these forms out truthfully and to the best of their knowledge. If any information filled in is untrue, then you could be sued for compensation and the buyers may pull out on the fear that you are misleading them.

 

Draft contracts and negotiations.

Both sides solicitors will then negotiate the terms, after which a full contract will be presented to both parties.

 

Paying off the existing mortgage.

You may need to pay off the existing mortgage. To do this, you will request a redemption figure from your bank or lender, which you will pay once the sale of the property is at the completion stage.

 

Exchanging contracts.

You and the buyer will need to agree on a date and time to exchange contracts. Alternatively, this may be done through a telephone conversation. This exchange usually defines the price, date and process of completion. Until the contracts are exchanged, either party is free to withdraw from the transaction without penalty. Your solicitors will exchange the contracts and you will receive the buyer's deposit (about 10% of the property price). You will only need to move out after the completion stage.

 

Completion.

You will hand over the keys (although if you have an estate agent, they will do this step for you), It is always suggested that you change the locks, just as a security feature. The solicitor will then receive the outstanding balance of the sale, hand over the deeds to the property and pay off the mortgage with the proceeds of the sale. You must leave behind anything that was agreed to be sold but can otherwise empty the property of anything else.

 

After completion.

Owners will then pay the solicitor and/or the estate agent for their services.

 

How we can help

At the moment we use a specialist third party to manage all property matters for our clients, this is because it is not a matter we would routinely deal with. We would act to create a brief for our third-party specialists and they would take it from there, by using Lestons to create this brief saves them significant time (rest assured their hourly rate is far higher than ours so it saves you money too).

 

To gain our assistance you need to open a case, this is done by taking advantage of our free consultation service, activated by the link at the top of the page, should you wish to start a case the caseworker will send you the suitable payment link. Please note your caseworker can only give generic advice, their role is to prepare your details for handling by our legal team and to act as your point of contact, they will also issue you with your Password and PIN, these will be needed to log onto your client dashboard. From your dashboard you will be able to manage and view every aspect of your case, upload documents, images, files etc.