Guide To Selling
CONTENTS
Obtain A Valuation & Mortgage Advice
Going On Market
Our Sales Service - No Sale No Fee
Energy Performance Certificates (EPC)
Conducting Viewings
Negotiating The Sale
Completion Of Sale
Obtain A Valuation & Mortgage Advice
A realistic assessment of the value of your property is an important first step to ensure you understand how you will finance your home move. Whilst local property newspapers and websites can be used to provide an indication of what your property might be worth, you will need the experience of a local professional estate agent to get a more accurate and realistic assessment of its real value.
We will be happy to provide you a FREE, NO-OBLIGATION PROPERTY APPRAISAL.
Our appointment with you would typically take between 30-60 mins and would include a detailed inspection of your property. We will discuss the specific needs relevant to your own situation, market forces, current demand, previous transactions in your street and activity levels with other properties similar to your own. Any questions or concerns you have can also be addressed at this meeting.
This information will help us advise you on:
- The potential value range applicable to your property and asking price
- Anything you could do to achieve the best price
- Recommend a marketing strategy that suits your particular objectives such as best time to market your property
You should also seek mortgage advice from an independent Mortgage Adviser who will discuss your situation and establish the best mortgage for you.
Going On Market
Having established the value of your property and decided to go onto the market you will then need to choose an estate agent to act for you. When considering an agent watch out for those suggesting inflated values (which can leave you languishing on the market whilst those around you sell) or knock-down commission (you get what you pay for!). A successful agency will have a comprehensive marketing strategy, professionally qualified and courteous staff, and a realistic expectation of what sales price you can an achieve.
With us, you only pay commission when we successfully sell your property and you’ll always have direct access to your sales adviser dedicated to sales. But beyond that, we provide a significantly higher personal level of service that you would typically expect from a traditional estate agency.
We will then proceed with the below.
- Prepare professional looking property details for print and online – this could involve some moving of furniture and decluttering to show it at its best.
- Commence marketing on our own website as well as the UK’s largest sites Rightmove and Zoopla (subject to having an EPC)
- Contact our registered hot buyers
- Arrange accompanied viewings
You will also need to instruct a solicitor who will begin by performing ID checks and collate documents including information on the property and title deeds. We can recommend a local trusted solicitor.
Our Sales Service - No Sale No Fee
Our sales service includes the following:
- Our branch based team will support and manage your sale, doing all the hard work for you, you can speak to them directly by phone or email
- Your property is displayed on our website and on other leading websites such as the UKs largest sites Rightmove and Zoopla
- Regular emails and calls made to our list of potential buyers
- We conduct accompanied viewings
- We contact your viewers for feedback on your behalf and report on all viewing activity
- We accept, reject and negotiate offers on your behalf
- A fully trained sales team will support you through the sale process with personal guidance every step of the way
- We qualify your buyers to help you decide who may be the best purchaser for your property
- We contact potential buyers by phone to introduce your property and encourage viewings
- Personalised, regular marketing reviews of your property
- We manage the progress of your sale to completion and keep you fully updated at all times
- Regular emails will continually be sent to our ever changing list of potential buyers to introduce your property
- We conduct viewings on your behalf and at your convenience
- We contact your viewers for feedback on your behalf and report on all viewing activity
- Unlimited access to a team of sales professionals in branch, online or by phone
Request A Free Valuation
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Energy Performance Certificates (EPC)
Obtaining an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) for your property is a legal requirement before being allowed to market your property. We have an EPC provider and can easily obtain one if you do not have this already and normally this can be completed within 72 hours. An EPC gives a property an energy efficiency rating from A (most efficient) to G (least efficient) and is valid for 10 years.
We can arrange this for you through our EPC provider for £102.
Conducting Viewings
Estate Agents commit huge amounts of time and money towards marketing properties to prospective purchasers with the prime aim of encouraging them to view the property.
We will discuss with you the best times of the day to present your property and do our best to steer appointments around these times. Many considerations need to be made, including your normal weekly patterns, parking availability and traffic levels, children and pets, light levels and garden aspects.
Negotiating The Sale
Any offer received will be initially be put forward to you verbally in order to discuss this with you and then confirmed via email. If the initial offer is rejected and the purchaser decides to increase their offer the process will simply be repeated. We will make all best endeavours to qualify purchasers in advance of any viewings, but at the very latest at the offer stage. By “qualify” we mean that we will verify their status and ability to proceed with any offer they make. In order for us to do this we will ask for contact details of their broker or mortgage lender and any estate agent dealing with their current property sale.
You will need instruct a solicitor or conveyancer to act for you in the sale. It is only when this information has been provided and we have contacted the necessary parties for verification of your purchasers situation that we will consider whether it would be pertinent to stop showing your property to other prospective purchasers. It is at this stage that we will try to make you aware of any chain implications and the likely timescale of any agreed transaction. Due to the nature of the buying process, it is important to note and understand that any information provided by us concerning the transaction chain is not guaranteed and could change at any time. However, regular liaison will be made with legal parties acting on both your and your buyers behalf to ensure we can keep you abreast of progress on a timely basis.
Completion Of Sale
In summary the process to exchange and complete contracts with your buyer generally takes the following steps:
- Terms are agreed between seller and buyer and both parties instruct their solicitor or conveyancer to work for them
- Vendors conveyancer obtains the seller’s title deeds and prepares the draft contract for the buyers conveyancer to approve
- Vendors conveyancer sends to the buyers conveyancer the draft contract, together with rest of the documentation needed to form the overall contractual package
- Buyers conveyancer reviews the detailed terms of the contract, does the searches and reviews the results, confirms that there is a mortgage offer in place, and also checks the readiness of any dependent sale (in the same chain) to proceed
- Contracts are then signed and exchanged at which time a completion date is agreed between both parties
- Transfer deed is prepared by the buyers conveyancer and approved by the vendors conveyancer, and then signed in readiness for the completion date
- Buyers conveyancer obtains the funds for the purchase from the buyer – either directly, or though the sale of his/her previous property – and the lender (if there is a mortgage)
- On the completion date the buyers conveyancer sends the required funds to the vendors conveyancer (on behalf of the vendor). When receipt of these funds is confirmed by the vendors conveyancer, the purchase is deemed compete and the buyer can take legal occupation.
- Buyer’s conveyancer pays any stamp duty due, and registers the buyer as the new owner of the property at Land Registry
The time it takes to progress through to this stage is dependent on various factors but the entire process could take at least 6-8 weeks. However, to speed up the process from your end we recommend you instruct legal representation prior to finding a buyer as there are various things they can do well in advance, and hence save time later. This includes obtaining a copy of your title deeds and various other documents all of which can take some time to get hold of. It’s worth completing various documents in advance such as the “vendors Property Information Form” and “Fixture Fittings and Contents” declaration as these will also help speed up things later.
In parallel to the legal process, one of more surveys may be commissioned on your property. If the buyer requires a mortgage their lender will make arrangements for a very basic survey (known as a mortgage valuation) to provide assurances that it’s worth the price being offered for it. In addition to this, the buyer may also commission a more comprehensive survey – which will assess in more detail the condition of the property and make appropriate recommendations.