Sellers Moving Guide
A simple guide to help achieve a smooth and straightforward process.
What does ‘Contract Ready’ actually mean?
Before you find a buyer for your property, you can fully instruct your solicitor. Then, as soon as you secure a buyer, your solicitor can issue the contract to their solicitor without any delays. This can reduce up to four weeks from your transaction time!
Benefits of Contract Ready:
1. Reduces transaction time by up to four weeks.
2. Allows you to advertise your property as Contract Ready, helping you attract the best buyers.
3. With your instructions, allows potential buyers foresight of important information about your property details.
4. Reduces stress levels!
When selling your property, you need to be prepared. Be Contract Ready.
The average conveyancing transaction in the UK takes 14-16 weeks from start to finish.
The contract ready package is an exclusive service to help you speed up the selling process and achieve a sale faster.
Instructing your conveyancer to get your property Contract Ready means they can:
1. Confirm ID for all sellers.
2. Issue the on-boarding pack, which includes the Fittings and Contents Form (TA10) and Property Information Forms (TA6 & TA7). These are needed to produce a complete Contract Pack.
3. Check the completed TA10, TA6, and TA7 documents and request further information if needed.
4. Obtain payment and order a management pack from the Management Company, if required.
5. Prepare a full Contract Pack for your property.
6. On receipt of a Sales Memo from your Estate Agent, immediately issue the Contract Pack to your buyers solicitor.
The Contract Ready Process
Contract Ready means you’ll get all the time consuming documentation completed nice and early, so as soon as you accept an offer on your property, the time to completion is reduced dramatically, saving you time and stress along the way.
Property listed For Sale
Property listed For Sale
Offer Accepted
Complete paperwork, provide documentation and instruct solicitor
Solicitor checks, opens a file and prepares a draft contract pack
Complete paperwork, provide documentation and instruct solicitor
Solicitor checks, opens a file and prepares a draft contract pack
Offer Accepted
Contracts Issued
Contracts Issued
The best part? No sale, no legal fee! Contact us if you want to become Contract Ready.
The Selling Process
The Standard Searches Are; Local Authority, Water / Drainage & Environmental.
Local - provides detailed information about the property and the surrounding areas; typically includes nearby planning applications which could impact the property.
Water and drainage – highlights the proximity of the property to public sewers and whether the property has a sewer running within the boundaries of the property.
Environmental - identifies whether the previous land use of the property creates a potential environmental risk or is risk free.
Step 2: Legal Work Begins
Once your solicitor has received your completed instruction paperwork, they will send the draft contract pack to your buyers solicitor. This is usually issued within 1-2 days of receiving your paperwork. Once your buyers solicitor receives this, they will then be able to order the searches. Searches are obtained by a third party company and usually take 2-3 weeks for the results.
Step 1: Instructing Your Solicitor
(Skip this step if you are Contract Ready)
Your solicitor will send a pack of paperwork to you to complete and return back. These may be sent via email or post, but if you don’t receive these within 2-3 days of receiving the memorandum of sale from us, please contact your solicitor. The solicitors cannot start any legal work until your completed paperwork has been returned.
Search Results
When your buyers solicitor receives the search results and the management pack, they may have some further enquiries to raise with your solicitor.
Step 4: Enquiry Stage
Your buyers solicitor will raise some enquiries with your solicitor, which usually consist of around 20 questions. Most of these enquiries, your solicitor will be able to deal with, others may require your responses. Your solicitor will email these to you. To keep things moving, we recommend responding to these as soon as possible. Some enquiries will likely require responses from your management company and your solicitor will contact them. We recommend you also chase your management company for responses as they can take a while to reply. The enquiry stage can last anywhere between 2 – 6 weeks, depending on the complexity of the enquiries and the speed in which your solicitor responds.
Step 3: Management Pack
(if applicable)
Your buyers solicitor will require the management pack in order to carry out their legal work. Usually, the sellers solicitor will contact the management company and advise you, the seller, the cost of obtaining the management pack. You can approach your management company directly to order the pack. The management pack usually costs around £500 - £600 but this varies depending on who your management company is. It usually takes 2-3 weeks for a management company to issue the pack, so it is best to get this ordered ASAP.
Step 5: Signing Documents
Your solicitor will send you a contract and a transfer (TR1) to sign and return. Your signature on the transfer (TR1) document will need witnessing by someone who is not a relative or family member. Let us know if we can assist with this, then you can pop into our office. We recommend signing and returning the documentation as soon as possible via next day recorded delivery to ensure safe receipt. Your solicitor will hold your documentation until the transaction is ready to exchange, only at which point, the sale will become legally binding.
Step 6: Reviewing & Reporting
Once your buyers solicitor has received all of the search results, replies to enquiries and a mortgage offer, if required, they will report to your buyer with all the information and the contract documentation.
Step 7: Agreeing A Completion Date
The completion date will usually be agreed with your buyer and the chain via the estate agents. This is quicker and easier than doing it via the solicitors.
If your buyer is obtaining a mortgage, your buyers solicitor will likely need at least a week between exchange and completion in order to order their mortgage monies. Once a completion date has been agreed with all parties in the chain, you should notify your solicitor of this date so they can confirm the same with the other solicitors in the chain.
Step 8: Exchange
Exchange will usually take place once all solicitors are ready, this date is not set in advance. For exchange, your buyers solicitor will require 10% deposit from your buyers. Your solicitor will require ‘authority to exchange’ from you before proceeding. This is usually a quick phone call with your solicitor or an email. Once the solicitors have authority from their clients, they will call each other to carry out the exchange, this is usually a 5-10 minute conversation. Your solicitor will then confirm to you once exchange has taken place!
Step 9: Completion
On completion day, your buyers solicitor will send the purchase funds over to your solicitor, usually first thing in the morning. If there is a chain below, this will start with the solicitor at the bottom of the chain and work its way up. Your solicitor will call you to confirm once the funds have been received from your buyers solicitor, this usually takes place at about 2pm. At this point, completion will have taken place and we can release keys to your buyers.
The Funds Are In The Bank!
You’ve handed over the keys and the sale is complete. We take great pride in providing a 5 star service, so at the end of the transaction we’ll ask you to share your experience of selling, to help future buyers and sellers decide on which estate agent to use for their moving journey.
Sellers Checklist
When it comes to selling your home, there’s a series of events you can expect to happen. We’ll be by your side every step of the way to make sure you reach these key milestones, but for your reference here are the key moments you can expect to tick off along the way.
Receive memorandum of sale from Seymours
Complete & return solicitors paperwork (you can tick this off if you are contract ready).
Solicitor sends draft contract pack to buyers solicitor
Management pack ordered (if required)
Solicitor receives enquiries from buyers solicitor
Management pack received (if required)
Replies to enquiries sent to buyers solicitor
Solicitor receives additional enquiries from buyers solicitor
Replies to additional enquiries sent to buyers solicitor
Contracts received
Contract signed and returned to solicitor
Completion date agreed
Exchange
Completion
