Selling a House Solicitors

Our client service team, are specifically trained to help you through the enquiry process and provide all the information you will need. Our client service team are able to give cost estimates immediately to you, including any disbursements payable in relation to your matter. This means that you will have all the necessary information to hand, in order to make an informed choice as to whether to instruct us.

As the law stands, following the introduction of the Land Registration Act 2002, you must disclose any rights or interests of which you are aware that may affect the property including any access ways. We require you to provide us with any third party rights on the property i.e. where someone other than you, the registered owner, is in occupation or has an interest in the proceeds of sale.

a) If you pay by instalments or by direct debit, please notify the local authority of the date of your move and of the name of your Buyer and ask the authorities to make any necessary arrangements.

b) If you pay by cheque or cash, please arrange any final payment or refund.

a) If you pay by instalments or by direct debit, please notify the local authority of the date of your move and of the name of your Buyer and ask the authorities to make any necessary arrangements.

b) If you pay by cheque or cash, please arrange any final payment or refund and ensure with the authority that future demands after you have moved are sent to the new owner.

Please notify the authorities of the date of your move and inform them as to where the closing account should be sent. Please do not forget to arrange for the new supply/connection to any house or flat to which you are moving.

Once contracts have been exchanged, check with your lender and cancel any standing order in respect of your mortgage account(s). Upon exchange, we will obtain a statement of the amount due up to the completion date (we expect any overpayment will be refunded by the lender after completion if appropriate).

Building

You should not cancel your present policy before completion has taken place. If you have a mortgage then this will happen automatically.

Furniture

You should notify your insurance company of the date of your move and of your new address and make sure your furniture is covered whilst in transit.

Please inform us where you will be leaving the keys after you have moved out of the property. If Estate Agents have
arranged the sale then we suggest that, if possible, the keys are left with them. It is essential the keys are not handed to the Buyer until we have informed you that completion has taken place.

Please note that your Buyer is entitled to occupation of your property as soon as he/she/they or their representatives have paid the purchase monies and so (particularly if you are not employing removal contractors) can you inform us if you anticipate your property will not be cleared of your belongings by, say, 11.30 am on the moving day.

If you will own one or more other properties after completing your proposed sale, you should be aware that there may be CGT implications arising from your sale. We would recommend that you consult your accountant for specific tax advice before you authorise an exchange of contracts.

As soon as possible after contracts have been exchanged, we will provide you with a Completion Statement setting out all the financial details relevant to the transaction and confirm whether we will need a further payment from you to complete or alternatively, the amount available for payment to you.

Preparation of the Completion Statement can often take a few days at least, especially where we await information from third parties such as mortgage redemption figures. We do not prepare a draft Completion Statement before contracts are exchanged, unless specifically requested. We do expect our clients to consider the financial details of their own transaction(s) so that, for example, if additional monies are required to effect completion, sufficient monies are available for payment to us prior to the agreed completion date.

Before we complete your sale, we will usually undertake the above search against your full name in order to ascertain whether any bankruptcy or similar entries have been registered against you (or a person with the same name as you). If entries are revealed, we may need to seek your assistance in verifying that they do not relate to you personally. We cannot usually account to you for the net sale proceeds on completion as would normally be the case, if you are bankrupt or in the process of being made bankrupt. We do not undertake this search before exchange of contracts.

The onus is therefore on you to notify us before the contracts are exchanged if you know or anticipate that any bankruptcy or similar issues have been, or might be registered against you.

After completing the sale/purchase, we are entitled to keep all your papers and documents while money is owing to us for our charges and expenses. We will keep our file of papers (except any of your papers which you asked to be returned to you) for no less than fifteen years and on the understanding that we have your authority to destroy the file fifteen years after sending you our final bill. We will not destroy documents you ask us to deposit in safe custody. At the moment, unlike the banks, we make no charge for this service.

If we retrieve papers or documents from storage in relation to continuing or new instructions to act in connection with your affairs, we will not normally charge for such retrieval. However we may make a charge based on time spent producing stored papers or deeds or documents to you or another at your request. We may also charge for reading
correspondence or other work necessary to comply with the instructions given by you or on your behalf.

It is often prudent to review your Will when selling or buying property, or indeed to make a Will if you do not have one already. If you do, at the very least please check that your Will does not contain any specific gift or other provision in respect of the property you are proposing to sell. If it does, or if you have any further queries, your conveyancer will be pleased to recommend a colleague to help you.

You can read more about our Wills service here.