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Guide to Buying and Selling Your Property
The process of buying and selling your property is known as Conveyancing. We recognise that the process of moving home is often a stressful one, and we will deal with the legal matters involved on your behalf as quickly and efficiently as possible.
Whether you are selling or buying a property, or both, we will keep you updated with progress by whatever means of communication is most suitable to you – e-mail, telephone or post. We are always available to answer any enquiries you may have along the way.
We are a member of the Law Society Home Charter scheme, which assures standards of quality for all clients from their Solicitor. Our files are subject to random inspection by the Law Society of Northern Ireland to ensure that this quality service is maintained. Once we have received initial instructions from you to act in the sale or purchase of your home we will, as members of the Home Charter Scheme, provide you with full written details of the service we offer, together with detailed information as to how you can expect your case to progress, tailored to your own transaction. A full statement of estimated fees and expenses associated with your sale or purchase will also be provided at this stage.
When we are acting in the sale of your property we will liaise with your mortgage provider, obtain the property title deeds from them and arrange for onward transmission of all relevant paperwork to your Purchaser’s solicitor. We will arrange to apply for any public searches against you or the property required by your purchaser, and will deal with any enquiries raised by the Purchaser’s solicitor. As part of this process we may ask you to provide us with a copy of your most recent Rates bill, an Energy Performance Certificate, which will usually be provided by your Estate Agent, and copies of Planning Permission or Building Control approvals which may have been required for any works you carried out to your property.
Once the sale of your property has been completed, we will arrange for your mortgage against that property to be paid off, for payment of your Estate Agent (if you wish us to do so) and for any balance owed to you from the purchase money to be paid by you as soon as possible. We are happy for any balancing payment to be made to you by cheque, or directly into a bank account nominated by you.
When we are acting for you in the purchase of a new property we will review all documentation provided by the Seller’s solicitor and provide you with a comprehensive, straightforward summary of all relevant details about the property. If you have any particular enquiries about the house you are buying, for example if there is a shared access with another property or if you would like more information about building work carried out to the property, we will also deal with this on your behalf.
In order to protect your position, we would always recommend that you arrange for a Survey of the property to be carried out on your behalf. If you are getting a mortgage to finance your purchase your Lender will arrange for a basic survey to be carried out, however it may not be comprehensive enough to protect your own interests.
Once a date for your move has been agreed with your Seller, we will arrange for the mortgage money to be released by your Lender to our office. We will also advise you of the balance amount we require from you. On the agreed date we will send the money to your Seller’s solicitor and arrange for the keys of your new home to be released to you. Following completion we will also arrange for payment of any Stamp Duty, if required, and will arrange to register you as owner of the property at Land Registry, leaving you free to concentrate on settling into your new home.