The Legal Process

The legal process to transfer a property is called 'conveyancing'. If you are buying a property with a mortgage you will have to have a solicitor to do this for you.

Your solicitor will guide you through the process step by step:

Instruct your solicitor to act on your behalf and give him the details of the property location, and the vendor's estate agent. He will start contractual proceedings with the sellers’ solicitor.
Find a surveyor and ask for a home-buyers report or a survey to be carried out.
The mortgage lender will carry out an independent valuation of the property, and you will be required to pay for a mortgage survey.
Your mortgage lender will make you an offer of a mortgage depending on their survey.
You should then send a copy of your survey report to the solicitor.
The solicitor will check the property, carry out his local authority searches.
Your solicitor will finalise the details in the contract of sale/purchase with the vendor's solicitor and confirm mortgage details with your mortgage lender.
You then pay a deposit into your solicitor's account. He holds it there until exchange of contracts.
On the day of exchange of contracts, your solicitor exchanges contracts with the seller's solicitor and sends your deposit over. A date for completion (when you can accept the key and move in), which will have been proposed before-hand is agreed upon. If you buy a new house, there is no chain and this step of agreeing a date is much easier than when a chain is involved.
Your solicitor will liaise with your lender to ensure the dates are agreeable
Your solicitor will prepare the property transfer deed, which is signed by you and the seller and lodged with the seller's solicitor when the sale is complete.
The mortgage lender transfers the money into your solicitor's account.
On completion day, the day you can move in, your solicitor will transfer the money to the sellers' solicitor in return for the transfer deed, Land Registry certificate and the keys. The sale is complete.
Your solicitor will arrange for the transfer deed to be stamped, pay the stamp duty and send the transfer deed to the Land Registry to record you as the owner.
Your solicitor will pass the deed to your mortgage lender to act as security for the loan and then he will send you the bill for his services and costs.

Contributed by Helen Adams, Managing Director of www.FirstRungNow.com