Offer accepted... what next?

cns06

We have had an offer accepted on a house. We have instructed solicitors with basic details and our mortgage advisor has the basic info. Both are now requesting full info as to be expected.


The vendor is a solicitor acting on behalf of an estate. They want us to complete ASAP.
That's all fine, but I just want to check with the gurus on here is there anything we should be doing to protect ourselves?


Mortgage advisor wants his fees and the search fees. Solicitor want their search fees.


If everything goes wrong for some reason I guess we will lose these (about £1200 all told).


Is this normal?

We last bought many many years ago and it was a new build and we were living at home at the time so it all just fell into place where as this will need quite a bit more admin!


Any comments / general advice welcome!

pichon

My mortgage advisor did not charge us fees so I don't know about the mortgage advisor fees, but I doubt you can retrieve the fees for the advisor as the work is already done, and even if the house sale falls through, the mortgage offer still stands (until the expiry date) and you just have to find another house.

I don't think you can reclaim search fees from the solicitors either.
We are in the process of buying our first house, and we were told that until the exchange, you can't do anything about the fees you spent when the sale falls through.
Good luck.

Surrey_EA

From the sound of things you've found a property that is being sold as a result of the former owner dying. One thing you must check is whether probate has been granted. If it hasn't, and the estate is complicated, this could delay things by several weeks or even months, and you may not wish to spend your money until it's through.

Assuming probate has been granted:

In order to move ahead your solicitor will require some money from you on account to cover search fees, so that's perfectly normal.

When you say the mortgage broker wants their fees and search fees, do you mean a fee to cover the mortgage valuation and any mortgage arrangement fee? It's a while since I applied for my last mortgage, so hopefully there'll be a mortgage broker along shortly who can advise you better than I.

There is always the chance that something could go wrong, and I'm afraid if it does you are likely to lose at least some of the money you've spent out. Unfortunately this is just a risk you have to take when buying a property.

However, if you are not selling anywhere and this is just a purchase hopefully it shouldn't be any more difficult than last time.

Best of luck!

cns06

Thanks. Yes the valuation for the bank is c.£400.
I guess you are right we just have to hope it all comes off.
Is it best to chase them (the vendor) on a regular basis to ensure no delays?
My only concern at this stage is there was a lot of interest and we had our offer accepted very easily.. so I worry they may find a better offer.

Surrey_EA

In that situation the quicker you are able to move ahead, and the further you get through the process, it will hopefully limit the possibility of the vendor being tempted by another offer, should one arise.

cns06

OK thanks. I think the only delays that I can see are from their side... in theory we should be in a position to exchange towards the middle of August. From reading on here that's about right in terms of a simple transaction like this. Time will tell!!!

Surrey_EA

It's certainly feasible, but remember every transaction is different and at such an early stage it is not necessarily possible to know whether there will be something that causes a delay further down the line.

Hopefully there won't be anything and things will go smoothly, but mid August is barely over four weeks away and that would be a pretty speedy turnaround.