homepage | buying or selling property | buying property
Buying or Selling Property...
Buying Property
Thinking of buying a brand new house this year? Alternatively, you may be thinking of selling your house. Well, whatever your intentions, don’t do anything until you have taken advice from one of our solicitors who can provide specialist advice in residential property transactions.
Whether you are buying or selling a house, re-mortgaging or arranging your personal affairs by having a Will prepared, we can assist you in each of these areas. Buying a house may be the biggest single investment which most people make in life. It is very important therefore to have someone you can trust to help you through the whole process to explain all the various steps involved and also to make sure that the transaction proceeds as smoothly and efficiently as possible.
Buying or selling a house can be a thought provoking experience particularly as this may involve eating into a large proportion of your personal savings or committing yourself to repayment of a large mortgage for many years.
If you are buying we will advise you about obtaining the most appropriate survey report (there are different types of survey) and give you the benefit of our extensive experience by advising you on the price which you offer for the property. As soon as you advise us that you are interested in a particular property we telephone the seller’s solicitor or estate agent and “note your interest”. It is accepted practice for the seller’s solicitor or estate agent to inform us of any closing date for offers for the property in which you are interested and it would normally be the case that no competing offer would be accepted without you first having had the opportunity to submit your offer. Please note, however, that the seller is not legally bound to recognise a noted interest or accept the highest offer where there is competition or indeed any offer!
Once you have decided that you wish to follow up your interest and make an offer for the property, we will then prepare and submit a detailed offer on your behalf in appropriate legal terms and thereafter take steps to complete the transaction.
Expert guidance is essential at this point and a number of factors have to be examined with you, including the following:-
- Valuation and asking price
- Cost of carrying out any repairs to the property
- The current state of the property market
- The demand for the type of property in that location
- Competition for that particular property
In the event that the seller’s solicitor has received a number of “notes of interest” in a property, a “closing date” for offers will normally be fixed. The date of the “closing date” will be given to us by the seller’s solicitor. We will submit your offer along with all other offers at the closing date where all parties offer at the same time. None of the parties offering for the property should have received any information about any other offers which may have been lodged with the seller’s solicitor. Should your offer not be the highest there will be no second opportunity to offer at the “closing date”. However, if there are no other notes of interest it is then possible to open negotiations or submit your offer immediately in the knowledge that, if the sellers turn down your first offer, that you will probably have the option of reviewing it.
The offer which we prepare for you deals with a number of matters other than the purchase price including the following:-
- The date of entry (i.e. the date on which the purchase price is payable in exchange for the keys). This date will normally be between four and twelve weeks after the offer. The date will often be agreed following upon negotiations between the purchaser and seller.
- Extras. Any “moveable” items to be included in the price, such as carpets, curtains, shed, etc. should be detailed in the offer.
- Should your survey report disclose that alterations have been carried out to the property there will normally be a requirement that all necessary planning and building control consents be delivered by the seller.
- Should the access to the property be by means of a private driveway or access road, rather than directly from the public road, the offer would normally contain a requirement that the seller’s title deed contains a right of access for pedestrian and vehicular purposes to and from the property.
- Any particular requirements you may have for the property’s use. It is of course essential that you make us aware of such matters in advance of the offer being submitted to the seller’s solicitor.
Normally, if the price is acceptable to the seller, the seller’s solicitor will send us a written acceptance of the offer. The written acceptance will normally contain a number of qualifications to the offer. A binding contract is entered into only when there is a written agreement between the solicitors acting for both purchaser and seller in relation to all the conditions of the contract. The conditions are normally contained in a number of letters (“missives”) which are exchanged between the solicitors. Once all of the conditions contained within these letters are agreed on both sides then the stage of “concluded missives” is reached which means that neither the purchaser or the seller can normally withdraw without becoming liable in damages to the other. The various letters passing between the solicitors which make up the contract are normally signed by the solicitors as agents on behalf of their clients.
