Instructing solicitor before buyer's survey

Flugelhorn

yes had just re-read - I posted above mentioning that presumably you are going to sell to someone and if this one falls through early then there may be someone else who buys and you will use your same solicitor still.

Are you buying elsewhere?

Ponsienella2

user1977 said:

Minimal costs, if any - what work do you think they'll have done by that stage?

Thanks for your reply.
I'm new to the whole house selling process - never sold one before. I suppose they'll just send me T6a and T10 forms to complete (even that is just based on me quickly reading up). 

I need to quickly read up on the selling process. 

Ponsienella2

Flugelhorn said:
With selling - presumably you are going to sell it at some point even if it is not to these buyers? if they change the offer and you don't like it then you start again - the solicitor will just carry on with the new buyers, certainly what happened to me when buyers backed out - no extra costs, costs really only come in if you stop the process completely 

Thanks for your reply. I guess I'll start the ball rolling then.

Thank you to all who replied. It is much appreciated.

donutandbeer

If you are committed to sell then even if this buyer pulls out, at this early stage your solicitor will just carry on with your next buyer without extra cost (which was what happened to us a few months ago when we were selling).

You might be delaying the process by a few weeks since most buyers’ solicitor won’t start searches .etc until they receive a draft contract from your solicitor. At the same time a lot of buyers will wait until their mortgage application is approved before incurring other cost like a survey, and booking a survey slot sometimes can take a week or two. You said there’s a scheduled homebuyer survey on Thursday then I guess that’s not the case. Since they will likely know their lender’s valuation result and survey result soon, I suppose the harm in you waiting to instruct your solicitor is small - it doesn’t seem like your buyer is worried about the lack of your solicitor (and therefore the memorandum of sale).

I would say though, just because they don’t reduce their offer after the initial lender’s valuation & survey, doesn’t mean that they won’t later on. Sometimes it only comes up after back and forth on their enquiries, and you can’t make them promise to not reduce their offer at all now that they’ve seen the survey result.

Ponsienella2

Flugelhorn said:

Are you buying elsewhere?

No. It is a home inherited from parents-in-law some years ago which, rather than sell in a very sad state, we left unoccupied and fixed up as and when we could afford to. Totally re-furbed.

Flugelhorn

Ponsienella2 said:

Flugelhorn said:

Are you buying elsewhere?

No. It is a home inherited from parents-in-law some years ago which, rather than sell in a very sad state, we left unoccupied and fixed up as and when we could afford to. Totally re-furbed.

ah OK so chain free, that definitely helps  - best to check on CGT though if it wasn't your main residence 

Flugelhorn

Ponsienella2 said:

Thanks for your reply.
I'm new to the whole house selling process - never sold one before. I suppose they'll just send me T6a and T10 forms to complete (even that is just based on me quickly reading up). 

I need to quickly read up on the selling process. 

TBH as a seller you don't have to do very much - just complete the forms at some point and send them back - might have to find a few electrical certs and the like 

Tiglet2

So many solicitors/conveyancers have a no sale no fee structure now, I wonder why you haven't yet instructed a firm to act for you.

If I were your buyer, I would find this worrying.  Their solicitor cannot start much work until they receive a draft contract pack from your solicitor, which they won't get until you've instructed someone, passed their ID and AML checks, completed initial paperwork, the solicitors have sent and received initial introductory letters (they can't do this until the sales memorandum has been sent to all parties from the EA), you have filled in and sent back the protocol forms and paid some monies so that title documents can be purchased from Land Registry.  All this early pre-legal work can take around 4 weeks to complete and you're not even off the starter block.

youth_leader

I had never sold a house before, and found this website very useful.  

Selling a House | Expert Advice & Guidance | Move iQ

housebuyer143

Some Solicitors though especially those with no sale no fee won't charge you if the buyer pulls out, but you might find a "new buyer" fee of £100 or something for doing all the work again...

You can simply instruct the solicitor, and ask them to do no work on the file apart from setting it up until you tell them to. Shouldn't cost you anything then if you then go with a new buyer.