We understand that buying a house is one of the biggest investments you are likely to make so; naturally you will want things to run smoothly.

Please make contact with us once you have found the house you want and you have made an offer that has been accepted.

This guide aims to supply practical information to assist in your transaction and to make clear some of the important points during the procedure.

There are several stages that you will go through when buying a home. It is important that you are aware of a few preliminary issues.

1) Although you may agree a purchase price verbally with the sellers of the property and the basic terms of the deal, this will not become binding upon either you or them until contracts have been exchanged (see main section 2 below).
2) It is open to the seller to withdraw at any point up to the exchange of contracts and therefore it is essential you make no arrangements which cannot be undone prior to exchange of contracts as on occasions transactions can fail for a variety of reasons.
3) If the sellers are buying another property, then you are effectively in what is known as a “chain”.

Bearing in mind that everybody within a chain will generally have to commit to selling their property simultaneously with committing to buying their new property, you can see that the more transactions there are within a chain, the more complicated it is for all parties concerned (and the solicitors in particular) to arrange for all parties to commit simultaneously.

Clearly if you have a dependant sale, we cannot commit you to buying your new property until we have arranged an exchange of contracts on the sale of your existing property. The exchange of contracts within a chain acts like a wave from the bottom of the transaction to the top. One of the most common reasons for delay in transactions going through is that the chain can only move at the speed of the slowest party.

It is important to note that prior to exchange of contracts the only pressure that we can bring to bear upon your sellers is via their solicitor (we are not entitled to approach your sellers directly) and then ultimately the only sanction and pressure that you can bring to bear upon your sellers is to withdraw your agreement to buy the property.

Offer Made

Now that your offer has been accepted what should you do next?

At this stage do not write to the sellers or their agents and do not pay any money over or you may be committing yourself to buying before you are ready.

The estate agent will confirm full details of the offer including the name of your sellers and their solicitors to us.

If you are buying your home direct, without the aid of an estate agent, it is important that you obtain the details of your buyer’s solicitors as soon as you can and pass them to us.

As soon as you have signed our terms of business to confirm that you wish us to act on your behalf the Homeplus team will set to work on your behalf.

Contract- We will contact the seller’s solicitors to obtain the contract papers and write to you introducing the Homeplus team who will assist you with your transaction.

Enquiries- We may have to raise a number of enquiries regarding the property you wish to purchase:

The sellers will provide a list of items which are to be included within the sale (e.g. carpets, curtains, garden shed etc). These will need to be checked by you to confirm that they are to be included within the purchase price. This list will be attached to the contract and will bind your sellers to include them in the sale.

We will also ask if anyone else is living in the property other than the sellers. If there are we will ask the sellers solicitors to confirm that they will move out upon completion of the purchase.

Searches- There are a number of enquiries (known as searches) that need to be made with different organisations such as local authorities, mining companies and water companies, so we can make absolutely certain on your behalf that matters such as whether the roads outside are adopted, planning consents and drainage are all in order.

Survey- As part of your mortgage application a valuation survey will be carried out. Because the information obtained from this is limited and as the sellers are not obliged to point out any defects to you, we recommend that a more detailed survey of the property is undertaken before you become legally committed to the purchase.

Repairs – You may wish to negotiate a reduction in the price with the agents to reflect the cost of the work. Please bear in mind you may also need to negotiate access to the property if your mortgage lender is withholding part or the entire mortgage advance until the work is completed.

Mortgage Offer – If you are borrowing money from a bank and/or building society to purchase your property we must receive a mortgage offer from your chosen lender before you can proceed towards and exchange of contracts. Sometimes your chosen lender will also require us to undertake additional tasks which form conditions within your mortgage offer.

Once the preliminary stages are complete – searches and surveys successfully carried out and reviewed, your mortgage offer confirmed and all negotiations completed and the contracts have been approved, then contracts can be exchanged.

Exchanging Contracts

Once the contract has been approved and we have sent it to you for signature, it is essential to note that even though you may have signed the contract this does not mean that there is a legally binding agreement between you and the sellers. Only when both you and the sellers have signed the contracts and those contracts have been formally exchanged, does the purchase become legally binding upon you both.

Deposit- If you are selling one house and buying another we can usually use the deposit from your sale for the deposit on your new property. Obviously, if you are purchasing a property in excess of the value of your sale, you may need to provide more money or get the sellers to agree to a smaller deposit. If you are a first time buyer you will be required to provide a deposit.

Completion Date- This is the date upon which the transaction will complete and you will be able to move in to your new property.

You may have already discussed possible completion dates with your sellers. However, it is essential to recognise a couple of points regarding completion. Firstly, until contracts are exchanged no formal completion date is in existence and so any arrangements that you tentatively make towards a date prior to exchange may need to be rearranged. Secondly if all parties are working towards a quick completion date, you may well receive advice from us that the period of time that you would like to see between exchange and completion cannot be achieved due to external factors beyond our control.

Completion takes place after contracts have been exchanged but there generally needs to be a reasonable gap between the two to allow you to make the necessary arrangements to move and for us to organise signature of the formal documents and the finance to be put in place for payment upon the completion day.

We will discuss a completion date with you before any commitments are made on your behalf.

Insurance – It is clearly sensible to insure your new property and inevitably your building society or lender will insist that your property is insured from the point it becomes your responsibility. Unless insurance has been arranged by your building society or lender you must make certain that a policy is in place at the time that contracts are exchanged, not from the date that you will move into the property.

Between exchange of contracts and the completion day, your Homeplus team will finalise all the paperwork. If any documents are sent to you, be sure to sign and return them promptly to help the process proceed smoothly. You should also make arrangements for the transfer of utilities (gas, electricity, water and telephone).

Completion

On the completion day the Homeplus team will send your purchase money to the seller’s solicitors through the banking system - we are in the hands of the Banks over the speed of transfer once we have placed the funds into the system.

Only when the seller’s solicitors have received the purchase money, will the keys be released to you – this means that were there are chains of transactions, it is possible that your seller’s solicitors may only receive the money sometime later in the day. It is usual for the seller’s solicitors not to agree to release the keys to your new property until they are satisfied that the purchase money has arrived.

We will despatch the funds to the seller’s solicitors as soon as possible on the day of completion but if you are involved in a chain and are relying upon funds from a sale for your purchase then it is possible that it will be sometime later in the day before we can despatch your purchase money.

Once you have obtained the keys you are entitled to move into the property and to occupy it. If you are completing your sale on the same date please remember your buyers are entitled to vacant possession that day.

While you are busy settling into your new home, the Homeplus team will sort out payment of any Stamp Duty, register the fact that the property is now legally yours and return all the title deeds and documents to your building society or other lender.

Any Questions?

Why do I need Homeplus? The law that covers the transfer of the property can be complicated and there are some tasks that solicitors are better qualified to undertake. Clearly, bearing in mind the size of the transaction involved, it is in your own interest to have professional advice at every stage and the Homeplus team are here to provide that service to you.

How much will it cost? It is difficult to generalise as every property may have its own complications that can affect the price. However the Homeplus team will provide you with a written estimate of the costs involved (and a fixed quotation wherever possible) and will keep you informed of anything that occurs that might affect the price.

How long will it take? Again it is impossible to generalise as your own transaction may well be dependant upon other transactions, (“the chain” mentioned above). However in our experience most transactions will take a minimum of 8 weeks from receipt of contract papers before they proceed to completion and will often take longer.

How do I know what’s happening? You will be assigned a particular Homeplus team to work upon your transaction and we will let you have full contact details of all the individuals involved in assisting you from within the team.

We will keep you up to date at every important stage of your purchase, but if you have any queries at any time can you telephone, write or e mail to the Homeplus team member looking after your case.

GLOSSARY OF TERMS

Completion
This is the date that the seller must move out of the property and the buyer must pay the purchase money

Contract
This is the document drawn up by the seller’s solicitor. The contract will contain details of the sale, including the price and completion date. It is drawn up in duplicate and the seller signs one copy and the buyer the other

Exchanging contracts
When contracts are exchanged there is a binding obligation, which will include the price and completion date. By exchanging contracts the seller is agreeing that, if the buyer pays the purchase price on the completion date, the seller will transfer ownership of the property to the buyer and the seller will move out of the property. By exchanging contracts the buyer is agreeing that he will pay the purchase price to the seller on the completion date.

Fixtures & Fittings
This is a form completed by the seller. It is a list of items that will be included and excluded from the sale.

Freehold
Freehold is a type of land ownership. There are essentially two types of land ownership, freehold and leasehold. A freehold title is land ownership that essentially means that the property is yours forever (unlike leasehold title, which will be for a set amount of time). There will be no Landlord, and usually no ground rent or service charge.

Ground Rent
All leasehold titles require that the owner of the leasehold title (the tenant) pay ground rent to the landlord. The amount of ground rent that is payable is set out in the lease. The ground rent may be fixed or variable. The ground rent may be a nominal sum and will not be collected.

Local Search
Before exchanging contracts the buyer will need to obtain a local search. This is an enquiry of the local authority’s records and only relates to the property (not adjoining properties). The search will reveal a variety of things about the property, such as whether the roads are adopted, whether planning permission has been obtained and complied with, and whether the local authority has made a home improvement loan that must be repaid.

Leasehold
Leasehold is a type of land ownership. There are essentially two types of title, freehold and leasehold. Unlike a freehold title, a leasehold title will be for a set amount of time (for example 99 years). Unless it is a new lease some time will have expired.

In theory, at the end of the lease period the property will go back to the landlord. In practice the owner of the property can usually arrange for the term of the lease to be extended although he will have to apply to the landlord in order to do this.

The owner of a leasehold title is known as a tenant. The owner of a leasehold title will be required to pay ground rent, and sometimes service charge. Ground rent and service charge will be collected either by the landlord or an agent appointed by the landlord. The landlord may have obligations to repair and maintain the property. The landlord may also be responsible for buildings insurance property. The landlord may appoint an agent to manage the running of the development. The landlord is the owner of the freehold title of the property.

Lease
A lease is a document that creates leasehold title in a property. A landlord will grant the lease to a tenant. The lease will contain various provisions such as length of the lease, the amount of ground rent and service charge that are payable and the rights and restrictions that affect the property.

Landlord
Where there is a leasehold title in the property, the landlord is the owner of the freehold title of the property.

Maintenance Charge
This is the same as a service charge

Mortgage
An interest given on a piece of land, in writing, to guarantee payment of a debt. The person lending the money and receiving the mortgage repayments is called the mortgagee, the person who creates a mortgage as security upon their property is called a mortgagor.

Mortgage Advance
This is another term for the loan that the mortgage lender is making

Management Company
Freehold title of the property may be owned by a management company, which makes the management company the landlord. The management company may manage the development themselves, or they may appoint an agent to manage the development.

Mortgage Offer
This is an offer made by the mortgage lender to the buyer. The mortgage offer will contain details of the amount of the loan, the period over which the loan must be repaid and other conditions. Before the buyer can exchange contracts he must obtain a mortgage offer.
The buyer’s solicitor will have to act for the mortgage lender (as well as you) to ensure that the conditions of the mortgage offer are complied with.
The buyer’s solicitor will not be able to exchange contracts until the mortgage lenders conditions have been complied with.

Property Information Form
This is a form completed by the seller. It covers various matters relating to the property, such as boundaries and guarantees.

Rent Charge
Sometimes a freehold title property may be subject to a payment of rent charge; this is similar to ground rent.

Retention
This is a sum of money held back by the mortgage lender pending completion of specified work to the property.

Service Charge
The owner of a leasehold title may be required to pay service charge to the landlord. This service charge is to pay for the landlord’s expenses in carrying out any obligations he may have to repair and maintain the property, and also to insure the property

Title Deeds
Title deeds are the documents which prove who owns a property. Before contracts can be exchanged the seller’s solicitor must provide evidence of title to the buyer’s solicitor, and the buyer’s solicitor must investigate title. Title is essentially the rights and restrictions that affect a property.