First Time Buyer Guide
Being a first time buyer is not only a very exciting time in your life but can also be an overwhelming one! At Timms, we aim to make the process as simple and seamless as possible. Once your offer has been accepted, here’s what to do next…
Instructing A Conveyancer
Once your offer has been accepted you will need to instruct a conveyancer to act for you in the purchase. When doing this, ensure you have all the relevant details to hand so that your chosen conveyancer can provide you with a quote, as well as get a file opened for you. Important information includes: the property address, the purchase price and any other relevant details such as whether you will be using any gifted deposit or help to buy ISA/Lifetime ISA, for example.
Your conveyancer will carry out the necessary searches and raise enquiries with the seller’s solicitors to gather as much information as possible regarding the property. If you have any specific questions you wish to ask in regard to the property, please do let your conveyancer know and they can raise further enquiries for you.
What Work Does A Conveyancer Do?
Your conveyancer will investigate and enquire as to the legal aspects of the house you are buying. This includes things such as:
• Carrying out searches and reporting on these.
• Raising enquiries. This includes enquiries in respect of the legal title as well as enquiries regarding planning work, completion/building certificates and any further information required to you as the buyer.
• Checking whether there are any additional costs for the property, such as service charges and ground rent.
• Reporting to you on the legal title.
• Reviewing any mortgage offer and ensuring your lender’s requirements are met
• Reviewing the legal documentation and preparing it for signature
• Ensure your ownership and any mortgage is successfully registered at the Land Registry
Searches
The usual searches include a Water & Drainage Search, an Environmental Search, a Local Search and depending on location, a Coal Mining Search. These searches can reveal information that will be vital to you as the future owner of the property. There are many other searches available if the first three highlight any particular risks.
If you are utilising a mortgage then it will be a requirement of your mortgage lender that the usual searches are carried out. The results of any of the searches could affect your Lender’s valuation of the property. If you are a cash buyer it is your choice whether you have any searches, although it is strongly recommended. If you do not wish to have searches, your conveyancer will ask you to sign a disclaimer.
Surveys
Your conveyancer will not be responsible for your survey, nor a physical inspection of the property. This is something that you will need to arrange with a surveyor. Once you have a survey completed you are welcome to provide a copy of your survey to your conveyancer, in case the surveyor highlights any further points to raise with the sellers solicitor. A survey is different to searches as a survey will look at the physical aspect of a property whereas searches only look at data about the property.
The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) website contains lots of useful information if you are not sure which survey to choose.
Mortgage
Your Solicitor will receive their own copy of your mortgage offer, which will be reviewed and reported on. The report will include the term of the mortgage, the rate and any other special conditions you need to be aware of. If it is intended that someone else will be living at the property after completion, who is not also a borrower or a purchaser, then they will be asked to sign an occupier’s consent form for the benefit of your mortgage lender.
Exchange of Contracts
Once all enquiries have been raised and answered, as well as the searches and mortgage offer received and reported on, your conveyancer will then look at exchange and completion dates. You will also be asked to sign the contract in readiness for the exchange. Once an exchange of contracts has occurred, you are legally bound to complete on the agreed date and are ‘tied in’ for completion. If you do not complete on the agreed date you may forfeit your deposit which is 10% of the purchase price. (An exchange deposit is different to a mortgage deposit).
Once exchange has taken place it is essential that you get your buildings insurance in place from this date and provide a copy to your conveyancer.
Completion
On the day of completion, the remainder of the purchase monies are sent over to the other party. Once the money has been received by the seller’s solicitor, they will release the keys, which are usually held by the estate agent, and you will be informed that completion has taken place and you can collect your keys.
Money is always sent as soon as possible in the morning in the hope that completion can take place sooner than the contract time of 2pm. However, how quickly the bank processes the request is outside of your conveyancer’s control but usually completion takes place around lunch time.
How Can Timms Help?
If you are a first time buyer and would like a free quote for legal fees, we have an online calculator which can be used at anytime, or contact our team directly on freephone 0800 011 6666.
October 2023