Guide to Buying a House

Buying a house is an exciting prospect but without the help of a solicitor, it can be a legal minefield.  Colemans-ctts are qualified in all areas of law and are here to help you avoid any potential problems and to protect your interest at every step, from making an offer to getting the keys to the door. 

What we need from you

Once you have found your ideal property and you wish to proceed with the purchase, we will ask you for a variety of details and documents.  These normally include:

• Personal identification
• Price of the property
• Details of the agent selling the property
• Details of how you plan to pay for the property
• Details of your mortgage offer
• Details of any co-owners
• Details of properties you intend to sell
• Any factors that may influences the timing of the purchase of the new property, eg coincide with holidays.

Contacting the Seller's Solicitors

Once you provide us with the necessary information, we will then contact the seller's solicitor, who will in turn supply us with a draft of the contract and a copy of the Title Deeds to the property, which you wish to purchase.  Included with this will be a list of the fixtures and contents that will be included in the purchase of the property.  You will need to check this list very carefully.

Searches

We will also undertake various searches on your behalf, which will include enquiries of the local authorities.  These searches will help reveal any planning issues affecting the property you wish to purchase, such as road improvements and details of any planning permissions granted on the property.  Depending on the location of the property, we may also need to carry out flooding, mining and/or contaminated land searches too.  If matters of concern arise, we will let you know.

Leasehold Property

If the property is leasehold (particularly common if you are buying a flat), there will be detailed lease terms and conditions.  We will need to check these very carefully and make enquiries with the seller's solicitors and with the managing agents to ensure that we have all details of the service charges and management costs that you will have to pay during the duration of your ownership.

Survey

If you are applying for a mortgage, your mortgage lender will need an independent valuation of the property.  Usually they will appoint their own surveyor to do this and you will have to pay for it.  The mortgage survey is a valuation only and not a survey on the structure of the property.  You should consider appointing your own surveyor, possibly the same person as the valuer, to carry out the survey on the property as it is up to you to satisfy yourself the property is structurally sound before you buy it.  If the survey reveals that building work is needed you should tell us at this point as you may wish to renegotiate the price. 

The Mortgage

Your mortgage lender will also need a mortgage deed, which you should read carefully.  The offer letter and mortgage conditions will set out your obligations with regards to future payments on the mortgage.  We will help explain these to you if you have any queries with this regard. 

Signing the Contract

Once all the investigations on your property have been completed, we will then report back to you.  If you are still happy to go ahead, we will then finalise the terms of the contract and explain this to you.  You will need to sign the contract and provide the deposit money, usually between 5% and 10% of the purchase price. 

Exchanging Contracts

This is the crucial moment of the agreement between you and the seller.  We and the seller's solicitors will exchange the contracts so that you will have the contract that the seller has signed and the seller will have the contract that you have signed.  If you wish to withdraw from buying the property after this stage, you will have to face a financial penalty.  At this point a date will be set for the completing of the sale. 

On Final Balance

Between exchanging contracts and completion, we will take the mortgage money from your lender and the rest of the money from you.  This will include costs, VAT, registry fees and stamp duty land tax.  At this stage we will carry out any final searches and make arrangements with the seller's solicitors for paying off any existing mortgages on the properties.  We will also prepare the transfer deed and send it to the seller's solicitor for signing. 

Completion

At the final stage of the conveyancing process, we will send the money to the sellers and the keys will then be released to you.  We will pay the stamp duty, land tax and the land registry fees to have you registered as the owners of the property at H M Land Registry.  This registers your mortgage lender and records you as the legal owners of the property. 

The process of buying the property is now over, but there are other legal matters that you may wish to consider.  If you do not have a Will, you should now consider making one to ensure that your interest in the property passes to the people to whom you wish it to pass.  If you do have a Will you may need to update this.

If you are buying a home with someone you are not married to, you may need to enter into a formal Deed of Trust to set out which shares of the property each person owns together with your obligations with regards to payments of any mortgage on the property.

Conveyancing Costs

Colemans-ctts offer a competitive conveyancing quotation and at the outset will provide you with details of a variety of other expenses such as stamp duty, land tax, VAT, land registry fees and other search fees that will need to be paid for during the transaction.  We are happy to give quotations under no obligation to potential clients and assure you that our high standards of client care will leave you entirely satisfied with our service to you.

Should you wish to discuss the information contained in this article further, or have questions relating to this area of law, please contact Nigel Tarrant.