process of buying a property privately

antoniomontana

what is the process to follow once you verbally agree with someone to sell their house privately at a given price?

I presume the next step is to go with the buyer to their solicitors to sign something and pay a deposit but can someone calrify the whole process.

Joe_Bloggs

Get a solicitor who concentrates with conveyancing to handle this for you. There are so many proceedures and checks that they can do to aquire the property without problems that may affect you in the future.

You could bypass them but you would need to learn conveyancing pretty fast.
You could have your sellers solicitor act for you aswell. Better to find out who the solicitors are and arrange a private meeting or give their solicitors name to your own solicitor.

J_B (Just my view)

stratford_2

Would suggest that you both get quotes from a number of solicitors, but don't get the same one (or, arguably even the same firm) to act for you as this could lead to a possible conflict of interest.

Apart from arranging a mortgage (and survey/valuation) that's really the next stage. btw - has the property been valued by a number of estate agents to get an idea of a fair price, and have you negotiated the final price to split the savings in Agent's fees? That's what I've done before and doing now...