When should I feel confident my property has sold?

evoke

Due to a bad experience recently where a buyer was 'unable to proceed' with the purchase of my flat, i'm on my guard this time around.

I've had another offer on my property which i've accepted. Once again the potential buyers are 'cash buyers' with money in a high-interest account so don't need a mortgage. They're keen to buy my flat immediately and want to rent it out via a lettings agency.

I've seen a chain-free house that i'm very interested. It's up with five estate agents at the moment. I viewed it just over a week ago and liked it.

At what point should I feel comfortable making an offer on a property that I want to buy?

I realise that things can go wrong all the way up to completion day, but obviously I need to buy a property at some point before then.

Would it be best to wait until my buyers have carried out a survey on my flat? At least then i'll know that they've incurred a cost so are genuinely interested in buying it. Also, i'll be asking the EA not to take it off the market until a survey has been carried out.

terrierlady

make your offer any time now BUT most people would say at exchange your home and dry me i would say when you walk out the door on legal completion day and into your new home people now and again fail to legal after an exchange but its very very rare.

firstaspect

There's no need to wait around before putting in an offer on the place you like. As soon as we had an offer secured on our property we were viewing other properties and offered as soon as we found what we were looking for.
Until you've exchanged obviously things can go wrong and your buyer could pull out, but if that happens then your EA will have to work extra hard to find another buyer quickly so that the whole chain goes through.

Nuttyneddy

There are two questions here. You can feel confident that your property has sold once contracts have been exchanged (as then your buyer has made a legal contract to buy your house, which can be enforced or damages claimed if they don't proceed). However IF you are both buying and selling in England it is common to offer on your purchase once you have an offer on your sale. While your property is not officially sold until after exchange, your new property is not officially bought until after exchange either (which is why all parties in teh chain usually exchange simultaneously, so you are never left liable to complete on your purchase unless your buyers are liable to complete on your sale).

The big exception to this is if you are selling in England and buying in Scotland. In that case you are not able to offer on your purchase until after you have exchanged on your sale, as the contract to buy becomes binding when you make the offer in Scotland. Makes it very difficult to sell in England and buy in Scotland without moving into rented in between.

If your buyers want a quick sale I'd be wary of waiting to make your offer on the new place, as otherwise your purchase will be behind your sale and you will have to make your buyers wait while the purchase catches up.

lincroft1710

The only time you'll know your property has definitely sold is when the money is in your hand/solicitor's account/your bank account. Cases of properties actually not being sold after exchange of contracts are extremely rare, so you can be 99% certain of actual completion following exchange.

Nearly 15 years ago I started to sell my previous home. Over several months 3 "buyers" had to withdraw their offers for various reasons, meaning I had to disappoint 3 vendors, etc. Your experience is fairly common unfortunately.

mlz1413

A property is only sold when the money is received.

But I would mirror what your buyers are doing, i.e.
they put in offer - you put in offer
they get survery done (some buyers use this haggle so ensure they are proceeding at price you can continue with) - pay for survey
they get solictors to proceed with buyers question - you do the same
etc etc

never get ahead of the buyers, treat each stage as a complete step which you are comfortable with before going onto next step.