What legal process­es are involved?

A Solic­i­tor should guide a prospec­tive buy­er through the nec­es­sary legal process­es and ensure that all paper­work is sub­mit­ted in a time­ly man­ner. After instruct­ing a Solic­i­tor, the first stage is to pro­vide both proof of iden­ti­ty and proof of fund­ing — the com­ple­tion of this ini­tial process will allow pro­gres­sion of the pur­chase. The Solic­i­tor will then car­ry out checks to ensure that the sell­er has the legal right to sell the com­mer­cial prop­er­ty in addi­tion to a num­ber of pre-con­tract search­es, before rais­ing enquiries relat­ing to the prop­er­ty and final­ly com­plet­ing the post-com­ple­tion formalities.

Why is it impor­tant to hire a prop­er­ty Solicitor?

A legal pro­fes­sion­al with expe­ri­ence in this field will be able to remove much of the stress and has­sle from the process, and they will also be able to recog­nise any poten­tial pit­falls that could hin­der the pur­chase. If any con­cerns are iden­ti­fied dur­ing checks, search­es and enquiries, they will be in the best pos­si­ble posi­tion to pro­vide advice about whether or not it would still be pru­dent to pro­ceed with the purchase.

What should a prop­er­ty Solic­i­tor be doing for their client?

Along with the afore­men­tioned checks, search­es and enquiries, they will also be tak­ing every pos­si­ble pre­cau­tion to pro­tect a prospec­tive buy­er through­out an entire trans­ac­tion. The poten­tial for dis­putes post-com­ple­tion can be sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduced when a prop­er­ty Solic­i­tor main­tains the high­est lev­els of dili­gence at all times, and their client ben­e­fits immense­ly from this extra peace of mind.

What pieces of infor­ma­tion and doc­u­ments are most impor­tant to the pur­chas­er and the process as a whole?

Whilst the exchange of con­tracts is the key mile­stone in the pur­chase pri­or to com­ple­tion, this can only be achieved if accu­rate infor­ma­tion and the cor­rect doc­u­men­ta­tion is forth­com­ing from the out­set. A legal­ly accept­able proof of iden­ti­ty will ensure that all mon­ey laun­der­ing reg­u­la­tions are adhered to, and con­fir­ma­tion of the fund­ing source will give the oth­er par­ty con­fi­dence that the trans­ac­tion will be car­ried out with­out any finan­cial problems.
Pre-con­tract search­es and enquiries will reveal a vari­ety of valu­able infor­ma­tion and records, such as exist­ing plan­ning restric­tions and oth­er poten­tial stum­bling blocks, which could be ​‘glossed over’ in an attempt to sell the prop­er­ty quick­ly. Once again, this is where a suit­ably-qual­i­fied prop­er­ty Solic­i­tor is invalu­able, as they can pro­vide the nec­es­sary insights to pre­vent poten­tial buy­ers from dis­cov­er­ing impor­tant details when it is too late.

In the con­text of res­i­den­tial prop­er­ty, the process of trans­fer­ring own­er­ship is about far more than just sim­ply pay­ing an agreed price and exchang­ing a set of keys. There are a num­ber of legal­ly-bind­ing pro­ce­dures that come togeth­er to allow a pri­vate prop­er­ty to be trans­ferred with­out the poten­tial for lengthy disputes.

What hap­pens when an offer is accepted?

Once the buy­er and sell­er have agreed on a price, the next stage is for the Con­tract & sup­port­ing doc­u­ments to be drawn up that spec­i­fy the exact nature of the prop­er­ty sale. This may include infor­ma­tion about the agreed con­di­tion of the prop­er­ty at the time of exchange, any exist­ing prop­er­ty bound­aries, plan­ning restric­tions, legal fac­tors that relate to the exact use of the build­ings and land, and the stan­dard sell­er pro­to­col forms. Once these con­tracts are exchanged, both par­ties have a legal oblig­a­tion to pro­ceed to completion.

What hap­pens dur­ing the con­tract exchange process?

Once both par­ties have signed the con­tracts, Con­tract are exchanged by each Solic­i­tor using a spe­cif­ic Law Soci­ety method. This is when the com­ple­tion of the sale becomes a legal­ly bind­ing process &with a deposit being pro­vid­ed by the buy­er, usu­al­ly 10% of the pur­chase price.

What hap­pens upon completion?

The buy­er will trans­fer any remain­ing funds to the sell­er that make up the total of the pur­chase price (any pre-paid deposit will also be tak­en into account at this point). Once these funds are in place, the out­go­ing occu­pant occu­pants will be able to vacate the prop­er­ty & the keys are released via the Estate Agent. The buy­er may wish to check the state of the prop­er­ty at this point to ensure that the spec­i­fied con­di­tions in the con­tract are still rel­e­vant, and then all that remains is for the reg­is­tra­tion to be finalised and stamp duty paid (if applicable)

What hap­pens when a pro­fes­sion­al con­veyancer or prop­er­ty Solic­i­tor is hired?

There are many ben­e­fits that come with the ser­vices of a pro­fes­sion­al con­veyancer or prop­er­ty Solic­i­tor, and all of these can be sum­marised by one key fac­tor — the peace of mind that comes with being ful­ly legal and com­pli­ant through­out the entire process. This type of pro­fes­sion­al will be able to draft all of the nec­es­sary paper­work and con­tracts, whilst facil­i­tat­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion between all par­ties. In the event that there are any fur­ther queries to be han­dled at a lat­er point, a Solic­i­tor can pro­vide the nec­es­sary infor­ma­tion in a time­ly manner.

Jack­son Bar­rett and Gass are a legal prac­tice with many years of expe­ri­ence in the field of Con­veyanc­ing and res­i­den­tial prop­er­ty, who are able to utilise this expe­ri­ence to the ben­e­fit of peo­ple wish­ing to buy and sell prop­er­ties. Our lev­els of pro­fes­sion­al­ism allow buy­ers and sell­ers to remain ful­ly com­pli­ant at all stages of the trans­ac­tion, and this great­ly reduces the poten­tial for any legal dis­putes post-completion.

To arrange a dis­cus­sion about any prop­er­ty mat­ter, please get in touch on 01625 523988 or mail@​JBGass.​com