Submitting an offer & Instruct a solicitor

jbondo

Hi all,


I'm hoping this is a quick question that could be easily cleared up.


We had a discussion with a potentialy broker before Christmas who said it would be the best if you could find a solictor & instruct them before we have chosen a property so that they are all ready to go when we do find a prospective property.


Another question is what's best practice in submitting an offer. Should we as buyers submit an offer to the sellers estate agent or should we go through our solicitor to submit an offer?


Thanks

novelty-socks

You really don't need a solicitor before your offer is accepted. By all means have someone in mind, but there's really no need to get ahead of yourselves at this point. (Apart from anything else, it costs money to instruct a solicitor. And what, exactly, are you going to instruct them to do?!)

For example, for my current purchase, my offer was accepted before I even thought about solicitors. When the agent asked for my solicitor's details, I then asked a bunch of friends and colleagues for recommendations, phoned round a few, and made a decision within a day. There's plenty of choice and it's not difficult to find someone quickly.

Do you have much confidence in the broker? In all honesty, this seems like a weird thing to have said unless they have a vested interest in recommending a particular solicitor.

When submitting an offer, generally you go directly to the seller's agent. When I did this, I called to put the offer verbally, then followed up with an email to confirm.

Good luck!

G_M

Choosing a solicitor well in advance does no harm, and makes things easier once you find a property.

Instructing that solicitor is different - you do that once your've found a property and agreed with the seller to buy it.

Make your offer via the seller's estate agent.


Now - nip down to your library and borrow a book (free) on house buying, because there are 101 other things you need to learn, and we don't want you asking each of those 101 questions here as they arise - far better you get to understand them all in advance!