Selling Your Property - Legal

Once you have accepted an offer for your property, you will need to give your estate agent the details of your solicitor or conveyancer. The estate agent should then prepare a Memorandum detailing the property address, the agreed price and the details of both your and the buyer’s solicitors. You can then pass all the details on to your solicitor.

Your solicitor will then pass you the property information form and the fixtures and fittings form to fill in. The property information form is a questionnaire you will need to fill in detailing information such as which boundaries you are responsible for maintaining and whether anyone else has a right of access to any part of your property. You will also need to detail whether you have had any disputes with neighbours. The fixtures and fittings form is where you itemise everything which will be left in the property when you leave, including anything which has already been agreed with the buyers. It is an idea to keep a copy of this form as you may forget what you detailed in the excitement of packing up, which could cause a problem.

Once the solicitor has received these back, they will send the draft contract, the forms, the Land Registry information and the title deeds to the buyer’s solicitor. Your solicitor will then be able to answer any legal queries that come up. If you have to re-negotiate the price at any time you will need to keep your solicitor fully informed, as they will be handling the money as it comes through.

Once the buyer’s solicitor is happy that everything is satisfactory then a mutually agreeable completion date can be arranged and contracts can be exchanged. You are both then legally bound by the sale, so should be completely sure of the transaction before going ahead.

More Selling Your Property topics below:

• Estate Agents - what can you expect from an estate agent?
• Private Sales - avoiding expensive estate agents fees
• Viewings - what you should say, what you should answer and what you should ask.
• Offers - how can you tell when an offer is the highest you will get?
• Surveys - as a seller, what can you expect from the survey?
• Legal - what is involved with conveyancing for sellers?
• Financial - what can you expect to be paying for when you sell your property?
• Selling Pack's - how the government proposes to speed up the property buying process
• Moving - what you should organise in order to have as easy a move as possible.

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