This is the question that we had for our solicitors and here is a summary of our experience when we bought our new build apartment.
Week 1: Offer accepted!
Week 2: Reservation form received and filled in. We also provided proof of ID and proof of address to the estate agent.
Week 3: We instructed the solicitor and we also started the mortgage application process. We paid the reservation fee and provided proof of ID and address to the solicitor.
Week 4: We received the memorandum of sale. There were a lot of delays in the first few weeks due to the estate agent so other property transactions may be quicker.
Week 5: Mortgage offer received!
Week 7: Our solicitor received legal papers from the developer’s solicitors.
Week 8: The solicitor shared the exchange authority letter, authority to sign contract letter and contract papers (e.g. contract and lease) with us. At the same time, they reviewed the legal papers, sent across enquiries to the developer’s solicitor and ordered searches.
We reviewed the contract papers and informed the solicitor of our queries. Further queries were sent across to the developer’s solicitors. At the same time, the solicitor reviewed the replies to enquiries from the developer’s solicitors.
Week 10: Our solicitor provided us with the following:
· Report on Title
· list of enquiries raised
· advice on legal charge
· mortgage deed
· replies our enquiries
Week 11: We reviewed the above documents and went back to the solicitor with queries. By this point, it had already been three months since our offer had been accepted.
Months 4 - 5: We reviewed amended versions of the lease and contract but there were still outstanding queries. Responses to our solicitor’s enquiries took a long time. Then the developer was approaching their financial year end and we were chased to exchange as soon as possible. We were also told that if we missed the deadline, then the developer would end the transaction. We were not comfortable to exchange contracts as there were outstanding queries which first needed to be addressed by the developer’s solicitor.
In the end, to show our intention to proceed, we signed the contract and sent it across to our solicitor and instructed them that they were not to exchange contracts without explicit instruction from us.
We were still being chased by the estate agents to exchange but there were still outstanding queries. An exchange date had not yet been agreed as we were not given a specific timeline for when the outstanding queries would be addressed. In preparation for exchange, we transferred the funds for the 10% deposit, legal fee and registration fee to our solicitor.
We also signed the following documents needed for exchange:
· mortgage deed
· lease plans
· exchange authority letter
· authority for solicitor to sign letter
· declaration of ownership form
Finally, at the end of the month, we received the counterpart lease and completion statement from the developer’s solicitor. Our solicitor also sent us the financial statement which details all the costs and the outstanding balance we needed to pay.
We reviewed the final documents and informed the solicitor of any last issues and queries.
Month 6: Just as we were nearing completion, the COVID-19 lockdown happened! This caused further delays to our already slow transaction. We transferred the remaining funds to our solicitor and obtained an extension to our mortgage offer. We decided to exchange and complete on the same day and once the date was agreed, the solicitor requested the drawdown of the mortgage funds from the lender.
Month 7: We exchanged and completed on the same day at the start of the month! We also reviewed the Authorisation and Declaration of SDLT Return from our solicitor.
On completion day, the paper work is dated and the funds are sent to the developer. We received an email from our solicitor to confirm that completion had taken place and the keys were being released.
We met with the estate agent and collected our keys.
We’re officially homeowners!
There’s also post completion matters that the solicitor does but I’ll cover that later. I hope this was useful and will go into more detail on the key steps in future posts.
Jess
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