As anyone who has moved house will agree – it’s not easy and it can be a very stressful process.
Being Contract Ready will help the sale of your home to run smoothly. With increased transparency early in the process, it will help to reduce the risk of sales falling through and speed up the time between an offer being accepted and the exchange of contracts.
One of the most stressful times for the seller in the process is when an agreed sale does not proceed. In this event costs will have been incurred and time wasted. Usually what leads to this happening is information becoming available to the buyer that was unknown prior to the sale being agreed.
What is Contract Ready?
Being Contract Ready is having the legal property documents required for a house sale ready in advance of marketing the property and agreeing the sale.
Legal documents are usually collated after a sale has been agreed, however in being Contract Ready the legal documents are prepared and collated prior to marketing your home in order to help speed up the sale. This helps to make it more transparent to both sides and allows the seller to share all the information prospective buyers will need.
Benefits of being Contract Ready
The benefits of being Contract Ready for marketing your home are:
- It helps the buyer make an informed decision about an offer so that you only get offers from serious buyers;
- It improves the quality of the offers, with fewer sales falling through; and
- It reduces the time between an offer being accepted and an exchange of contracts.
How does the process work?
Once instructed your conveyancer will collate the relevant legal documents and provide this to you as a PDF and a bound hard copy. You can then share the PDF with agents and potential buyers when you market your property. The process is transparent for everyone.
When you agree a sale, you are at liberty to either instruct us to carry out the conveyancing or another firm of your choosing. Our fees will reflect the work already done on your behalf for the sale to proceed. Once you accept an offer, you should see the time from acceptance of offer to exchange of contracts vastly reduced.
Included in the Contract Ready document
The Contract Ready document contains (where applicable):
- Title documents;
- Certificates;
- Planning permission documents;
- Building regulation consents and certificates;
- Protocol forms;
- Existing indemnity policies;
- New build warranty;
- Management company information (leasehold);
- EPC for the property you are selling.
Not included in the document
Searches:
These are not carried out prior to a sale being agreed because buyers, their solicitors and mortgage lenders each have different requirements
for searches and as a general rule the search results may be relied upon for a maximum of six months with lenders often requiring search results to be dated within six months of the completion date.
Surveys:
It is the responsibility of the buyer to discover any physical defects a property may have prior to the exchange of contracts not the seller. Once the exchange has taken place, the buyer does not have the right to withdraw from the purchase on the grounds of a physical defect.
Conveyancing defects:
The standard Contract Ready service does not include the investigation of any conveyancing defects such as irregularity of legal title or lack of documentation for building works and there may be higher costs payable if your property has numerous, more complex or unregistered titles.
How we can help you?
For further information on our Contract Ready service and how we can help you, please complete the ‘Contact Us’ form on this page or contact our Residential Conveyancing team today on 01733 882800 or email us [email protected].
