Exchange of contracts takes place once all of the legal work has taken place and both parties (buyer and seller) agree a date for completion. At this stage the buyer will have provided their deposit, usually 10%, or if there are also selling the deposit figure will come up the chain, the date for completion is also agreed.

Once you have exchanged contracts you should have buildings insurance in place from the this date.

Completion is the date monies are sent from the buyer and seller’s solicitors, and keys are passed to the new buyer. If you are selling the solicitor will pay off your mortgage, pay the estate agents, and send the surplus balance to you. 

If you are buying the solicitor will forward the purchase monies to the seller’s solicitor, once the monies are received by the seller’s solicitor, the keys are released for you to collect – usually from the estate agents office. 

The time for completion and keys being released can differ as the seller may need time to move out, and may need time to collect the keys for the onward sale. Completion is usually completed around 13:00, but this does need to be flexible where a chain is involved. 

We would advise both buyers and sellers of the property to take their own meter readings, and to notify the service providers and local council that they are the new tenants. 

This is the most common question, but also the most difficult to answer. The average time between sale agreed and completion is around 10 weeks. 

However, this can differ depending on a number of circumstances; 

•         Time for contracts to be issued
•         Time to obtain a mortgage offer
•         Time for local search to be returned
•         Time for enquiries to be dealt with

The important thing to remember is that whilst this all applies to any buyer or seller, this also applies to everybody in the property chain. If one person takes longer to do any of these steps, it will delay the rest of the chain. This is what makes estimating time very difficult at the start. 

If you are taking out a mortgage to buy a property the lender will usually require you to have the searches on the property. The standard searches involve a local council search, environmental search and a water and drainage search. 

Within the Cheshire area it is also common to need a Cheshire Salt search if the property is in an area affected by salt mining and potential subsidence, a similar Mining search may need to done in areas affected by mining of coal or other minerals. 

Although you may not be paying stamp duty, in any property purchase over a value of £40,000.00 we are still required to submit a SDLT return to HMRC to confirm the details of the transaction. The fee is an administration fee. 

The difference in these two boils down to the rights of survivorship should one owner pass away. 

With joint tenants the deceased share in the property passes straight to the remaining owner(s), whereas  with tenants in common the deceased’s share in the property passes in line with their will, or through intestacy where no will is in place. 

The contract rate applies if a party to the exchange of contracts breaches the contract – is unable to complete on the defined completion date. The contract rate relates to interest on late payments. 

It is very rare that this happens. 

Prior to completion, we will provide you with a completion statement detailing any monies we need from you in order to complete or exchange contracts. Our bank details are provided in our client care letter and in our final report to you on a purchase. 

When sending large sums we would recommend confirming the bank details with our office over the phone. 

WE WILL NEVER SEND AN EMAIL TO YOU WITH OUR BANK DETAILS.