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Buying your Home - an outline

What follows is a brief outline of the main steps involved with buying your home. Click here to view an outline of a typical sale.

Subject to Contract	Having made an offer which has been accepted you instruct your solicitors giving them details of the transaction (if no estate agent is involved)
	Your solicitor makes contact with the Seller's solicitor and requests the relevant documentation for perusal.
	On receipt of the documentation your solicitor orders various searches (usually the Local Authority Search, the Water and Drainage Search, and the Environmental Search) and asks the selling parties questions about the property
	Your solicitor reviews the title deeds together with any associated documents like planning permissions, deeds of variation, NHBC guarantees etc and draws any potential issues to your attention. Your solicitor at this point may also review the results of the enquiries made earlier or indeed ask further questions.
	Your solicitor reviews the results of the various searches carried out above and draws any potential issues to your attention.
	The process of asking questions and receiving replies will be repeated until both you and your solicitor are satisfied. Eventually your solicitor will send you a detailed report on the title together with various documents for you to sign.
	The parties then agree a completion date. If the property is part of a chain, the completion date has to be agreed with all of the other parties in the chain - as does the level of any deposit. Also in a chain, all of the parties have to be satisfied about their respective purchases. The combination of requirements can often lead to delays and this can be a frustrating time for all concerned.
Exchange of Contracts	Once all is agreed and everyone is happy, contracts are exchanged. This is a process between two legal professionals - merely signing your contract does not form a binding contract. From this point on you are committed to buy and the seller is committed to sell. You may or may not receive the sum of money paid as a deposit. In a chain it is important that exchange of contracts is synchronized also - you for instance would not want to be contractually bound to sell you own home when no one is contractually bound to sell you another one!
Post-exchange of Contracts and Pre-completion.	Your solicitor: (if you are having a mortgage) submits a report on title to your bank or building society which in effect asks the bank or building society to send the money you need to complete; sends you a completion statement requesting you send any balance of funds needed to acquire your house
Completion	On the day of completion your solicitor: waits for all the monies to become available; and sends the money needed to the seller's solicitor who then completes the purchase. when the seller's solicitor signals completion has taken place, you can move in!!
Post-Completion	After completion your solicitor deals with various formalities which ultimately lead to you being registered as owner of the property