You are here: Who Does What in the House Buying Process?
Who Does What in the House Buying Process?
For most of us, the House Buying Process is foreign to us, it’s not something that we do very often in our lifetime, so we will never become experts in the field. That being the case, it is most common for us to use specialist companies or individuals to help us through this potential minefield.
To simplify the process, we need professional help to;
- find a property we want to buy
- find the money to pay for it
- transfer it, legally, into our ownership
- move in to it.
The question is, who does what?
Some will say that it is best to sell your existing property before you begin the house buying process, indeed many estate agents will not engage with a potential buyer who has not sold their own property. That being the case we should assume that you have, in fact, already sold your house and assume that the first step in the house buying process for you will be setting your budget.
You, as the house buyer can decide what you would like your budget to be and should have in mind a maximum figure you would want to spend. At this stage it is a good thing, both for your own peace of mind and to let sellers and their estate agents see that you are a serious buyer, to get a mortgage amount agreed in principle with a mortgage lender, be that a bank or a dedicated mortgage lender such as a building society. Rather than try to do this on your own it may be wise to employ a mortgage broker to do this negotiation on your behalf. A good mortgage broker will know the market, in terms of who is lending, what percentage of the purchase price they would lend based on your income and will steer you to the best deal.
Some decisions in this process can only be made by you, such as deciding where you would like to live and eventually which property you would like to buy. However, these decisions need to be informed and there are a number of ways to get the information you will need, to allow you to make these decisions, all of them involving estate agents, or solicitors, if you are looking to buy in Scotland.
Very few people attempt to sell a house without using an estate agent and on that basis, it would make sense to base your search around estate agents in the area you want to buy. Estate agents use various ways to offer their properties to the market, most will have a high street office with a display window but will also have a website. More and more are now using the big property marketing sites such as Rightmove, OneTheMarket or Zoopla.
A good estate agent will sell property pro-actively as well as re-actively, which means that they will not rely on buyers reacting to their advertising platforms but will work with lists of potential buys who have registered their interest in buying a property in their area. These list will tell the agent who is looking to buy, what they are looking to buy, in terms of price, location, modern or traditional, number of bedrooms and must haves for the property. These can include, number of bathrooms, off road parking, garage, garden size and so on. By building up this database the agent can alert buyers to properties coming onto the market which meet their criteria. They will arrange for you to view the properties and get your feedback to pass on to their seller as well as keeping you up to date with any offers or notes of interest. Always bear in mind, however, that an estate agent is accountable to the seller, who will ultimately pay for their services and will therefore act in the best interests of the seller, not the buyer.
Once you have found your dream home, you will need to instruct a solicitor or conveyancer to undertake the complicated legalities of the process. These start with negotiating a successful offer to purchase a property and end with transferring the title into your name. Between these elements of the process, a great deal of work needs to be done to ensure that there are no hidden problems with the property. This involves;
- Local Authority searches for any issues which could affect your ownership of the property in the future. Issues such as plans for any future housing or infrastructure projects which could have a detrimental effect on either the property or its value. Any outstanding planning or building control issues
- Environmental searches looking at potential flooding issues, danger of landslide or subsidence or possibility of contaminated land.
- Water and drainage searches, which are enquiries made to the local water company, with regard to who owns and maintains the sewers, drains & pipework. Checks are made to ascertain if the property is connected to a public water supply and sewer, metered or rateable and the location of public sewer and drainage pipes. They will also check whether you’ll need permission from the water company to extend the home.
Checks will also be carried out to;
- Confirm your identity
- Ensure that the seller is the owner of the property and has the legal right to sell it
- Ascertain if there is any chancel liability attached to the property.
Having carried out all these checks, any issues which would affect the sale or your interests having bought the property, need to be addressed. It is also advisable to have a survey carried out on the property and your solicitor or conveyancer will organise a chartered surveyor to undertake this on your behalf. Once again, if the survey raises any issues which would adversely affect the sale, these must be raised with the seller and if the issues require any remedial building works then the conveyancer may ask for a price adjustment to allow for the cost of these repairs.
Carrying out these checks and getting the appropriate responses can take upwards of six to eight weeks. They address issues which are important to the purchase of the property and must all be carried out with due diligence. Once all of the issues raised have been addressed, final details such as fixtures and fitting and date of entry will be agreed and a date set for completion of the transaction. At this point, the seller’s solicitor and your conveyancer will prepare and exchange contracts, with your conveyancer lodging a deposit of 10% of the agreed purchase price to the seller’s solicitor. The transaction is then considered to be a legally binding agreement and if you then pull out of the deal, you will forfeit the deposit and face potential legal action from the seller.
When the completion date arrives, the conveyancer will organise the transfer of all required funds to the seller’s solicitor and will request the keys to be handed over, allowing you to direct a removals company to undertake your move from one house to the other. The conveyancer will finally register you as the new owner of the property with the Land Registry and ensure that all searches and services, his own included are paid for in full.
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