THE SUTCLIFFE REED GUIDE TO SELLING A HOME
Telephone 01772 828382

At Sutcliffe Reed we will use our best endeavours to ensure that your sale transaction completes as quickly and smoothly as possible.

The following guide outlines the steps which we need to undertake on your behalf.

CONTACT US

As soon as you have reached an agreement with a buyer, let us know and we can start to get the ball rolling. Contact us by e-mail, telephone or call into our offices at Cross Street, Preston. If you can provide us with the following information it will help to speed things up:

  1. Your full name.
  2. Address of property to be sold.
  3. Price of property to be sold.
  4. Identity of Estate Agents.
  5. Identity of Buyer and their Solicitors, if known.
  6. Details of current mortgage, to include location of Deeds and mortgage account number.
  7. If you have no mortgage, we need to know where your Title Deeds are currently located.

PREPARE DRAFT CONTRACT

We will send you a Property Information form and a fixtures and fittings form for you to complete and return to us. Obviously, your buyer needs to know whether or not you are leaving light fittings, curtain rails, satellite dish etc. We will prepare the contract for sale on your behalf. We will also send a copy of it to you in order that you are satisfied that the contents are correct. Whilst the buyer will be making his or her own enquiries, we will provide the buyer's Solicitor with certain information showing that, in essence, you are able to sell the property. That information will partly come from Office Copy Entries and a plan which we will obtain from the Land Registry at a cost of £8.

EXCHANGE OF CONTRACTS

A legally binding agreement only takes place once contracts have been exchanged. Until contracts have been exchanged, no contract exists between you and the buyer who would be free to withdraw from the transaction. The buyer cannot withdraw after exchange has taken place save for the most exceptional of circumstances and the buyer would almost certainly have to compensate you for the breach of contract should you that arise. The buyer will pay you a deposit at this stage, typically in the sum of 5% of the sale price.

POST CONTRACT STAGE

We will approve the purchase deed which will be forwarded by the buyer's Solicitor. We will also check with your lender exactly how much money is required to pay off your mortgage. Certain practical arrangements need to be resolved, for example, where the sale proceeds are being paid to. Obviously we make sure we have all the documents required to complete the transaction. Typically, we will request the Estate Agents' invoice and obtain your permission to settle this directly out of sale proceeds.

COMPLETION

Completion takes place once we have received the purchase monies from your buyer's Solicitor. Generally speaking this is now carried out by electronic transfer of funds. At that point, you will have sold your house and the keys will be given to its new owner.

POST COMPLETION

We tie up some loose ends. We send the Title Deeds to the buyer's Solicitor. We pay off your mortgage, obtain a receipt and send the receipt to the buyer's Solicitor. We also need to account to you for the sale proceeds and typically settle your Estate Agents bill.

LINKED TRANSACTIONS

In many residential transactions, if you are selling a home it is because you want to buy another one. Your sale and purchase transactions are therefore closely linked together.

Obviously we do not want you to sell your existing house without buying the new one and we also want to make sure that you do not buy a new house without having sold your old one. We have years of experience and will do our best to see matters proceed as smoothly as they can.

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