Information For Property Sellers

The selling process

Moving home usually takes between two and three months from accepting an offer on your existing home to moving into your new one. There are periods of frenzied activity followed by weeks where nothing seems to be happening. Each move is unique, but by way of explanation, here is a typical series of events:

1. You accept an offer on your existing home.
2. You and your buyer instruct your respective solicitors.
3. Your buyer arranges their mortgage if required.
4. Your buyer arranges for a survey of your existing house and obtains their mortgage offer.
5. Your solicitor obtains proof of your ownership of the home you are selling.
6. Your solicitor prepares a draft contract which describes the house you are selling together with the rights and obligations that go with it.
7. Your buyer’s solicitor carries out the local land charges search. In Oxford this normally takes about 10 – 14 days.
8. Your solicitor forwards the draft contract and proof of your ownership to your buyer’s solicitor.
9. Your buyer's solicitor approves the draft contract.
10. Your buyer's solicitor contacts your own solicitor to make formal enquiries about your property and contact the local authority with any queries about the surrounding area.
11. Your buyer’s solicitor inspects the Land Registry which lists previous owners of the property you are selling. If this raises any queries, these are dealt with at this point.
12. The buyer’s solicitor now makes searches to ascertain whether any third parties have rights over the property you are selling.
13. The contracts are exchanged. Both you and your buyer agree to them. At this stage you have reached a legally binding written agreement to sell your home.
14. The buyer provides a deposit. This is normally 5% or 10% of the agreed price.
15. Your buyer’s mortgage lender prepares the mortgage deed for him to sign.
16. You have now reached completion. Your buyer pays the balance of the agreed purchase price and your solicitor hands over the title deeds or land certificate. The mortgage lender takes these.
17. The transaction is registered at the land registry and legal ownership passes to your buyer.
18. Your buyer pays stamp duty on the purchase and you pay your estate agency fees.

For simplicity this does not take into consideration the parallel chain of events that occurs as soon as you make an offer on the new home you wish to buy.