Summary
Once Stage 1 is complete your solicitor will carry out the following :
- Issue the relevant contract papers as below.
- If you have a mortgage secured on your property your solicitors are required to give a legal undertaking to the buyer’s lawyer to ensure the mortgage is repaid on completion.
- Where possible your solicitor will respond to enquiries, but they may refer to where they do not have the necessary knowledge on your property.
Detail :
Contract papers & enquiries
Your solicitor will :
- Obtain and check the Land Registry documents to the property, or if unregistered the original deeds.
- Prepare the Contract and Transfer and send this to the buyer’s lawyer along with your property information forms and any other relevant information.
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Send you a contract report with the Contract and Transfer to sign together with a property plan so that you can confirm the boundaries are correct.
Note : your buyer is likely to arrange for a survey to be carried out prior to exchange of contracts.
Mortgages
If you have a mortgage secured on your property your solicitors are required to give a legal undertaking to the buyer’s lawyer to ensure the mortgage is repaid on completion.
Your solicitor will :
- Request an initial redemption statement from your lender which shows the amount owing
- Prepare a draft completion statement for you to check together with a copy of the lender’s statement.
Additional Enquiries
Your solicitor will respond to enquiries where they are able, but may refer to you where they do not have the personal knowledge of your property.
Buyers’ Lawyers
Before the buyer’s lawyer can exchange they will need to cover various steps, such as :
- Raising additional enquiries.
- Reviewing your replies to their additional enquiries.
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Requesting searches, such as
- The Local Authority search
- A water and drainage search
- An environmental and land contamination search
- Reviewing search results.
- If the buyer requires a mortgage they will need to receive a copy of the mortgage offer and comply with the lender’s requirements.
- Report on the property to the buyer and request contract and mortgage papers are signed.
If you are selling within a chain it is important to note that everyone in the chain must exchange contracts at the same time and complete on the same date. This means that all lawyers in the chain must complete their parts of the legal process before they can exchange. Your solicitor will do their best to ensure we reach exchange as quickly as possible.