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ELP SOLICITORS’ GUIDE TO SELLING PROPERTY
There are several stages involved in selling property:
Here is a brief explanation of these various stages in turn:
MARKETING THE PROPERTY (ESTATE AGENCY)
All of our properties are marketed through the ESPC (Edinburgh Solicitors Property Centre), through which approximately 90% of property in Edinburgh is sold. A member of our staff will visit your property to take details and measurements to be used in the sales particulars for your property. We will also take photographs or arrange for these to be taken by a professional photographer, and we will then prepare the draft sales particulars for your approval. Using price comparisons for similar properties in the area and our knowledge of the market, we will advise you on the asking price for your property and then help you decide what this should be and whether your property should be marketed as “offers over” or “fixed price”.
Once you have approved the sales particulars and we have agreed the asking price for your property, we will register your property with the ESPC. This allows you 26 weeks (i.e. 6 months) of advertising on the ESPC website and in the weekly newspaper which is issued every Thursday. We will arrange for For Sale Boards to be put up at your property, and we can also discuss additional advertising with you if appropriate.
Once your property is on the market we will keep in touch with you to discuss how the viewings are going, to advise you of notes of interest and/or offers we receive, and to discuss fixing a closing date if appropriate. It is likely that any offer we receive will be “subject to survey” as this is fairly standard practice in Edinburgh and the surrounding area. If you decide to accept an offer we have received, we will then invite the purchasers to instruct a survey.
If the purchasers are happy to proceed on the basis of their survey report, their solicitors will confirm that their “subject to survey” clause is withdrawn, and the property is then treated as “under offer” to the purchasers. We will advise the ESPC that the property is under offer, and the ESPC will arrange for your property to be withdrawn from the website and the newspaper. In the unusual even of the sale your property falling through, it is usually possible to reinstate your property with the ESPC at no additional cost and to use up what is left of the 26-week advertising period.
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CONTRACT (ALSO KNOWN AS “MISSIVES”)
The offer is only the first part of the contract and it contains many conditions. We will discuss all of these conditions with you and help you to decide which ones you are happy to accept, which ones you would like to reject, which ones you would like to change, and also whether you wish to add any further conditions into the contract. If you are happy to accept all of the conditions in the offer, we can then send a letter to the purchasers’ solicitors accepting their offer unconditionally. This would mean that all of the conditions of the contract had been agreed, and the contract would then be “concluded” (i.e. legally binding).
However, it is likely that you will wish to reject or change at least some of the conditions in the offer, in which case we will send a letter to the purchasers’ solicitors setting out the changes you wish to make.
This letter is known as a Qualified Acceptance. The purchasers’ solicitors will then send a copy of the Qualified Acceptance to the purchasers and discuss the terms of it with the purchasers. They will then decide which conditions they are happy to accept, which ones they would like to reject and which ones they would like to change. If the purchasers are happy to accept all of the conditions, the purchasers’ solicitors will then send us a letter accepting all of the conditions and concluding the contract. If the purchasers wish to make further changes to the contract, the purchasers’ solicitors will send us a letter setting out the changes they wish to make. We would then send a copy of this to you and discuss it with you.
This procedure continues until one party is happy to accept all of the conditions in the last letter from the other party’s solicitors. As soon as a letter is sent from one party’s solicitors to the other party’s solicitors accepting all of the conditions in the other party’s solicitors’ last letter, the contract is concluded and legally binding. The process of concluding the contract usually takes around 1 – 2 weeks from the date on which the property is “under offer”. Until the contract is concluded, either party can pull out of the transaction without penalty.
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CONVEYANCING
Conveyancing is the process of transferring title from you to the purchasers. We will obtain your title deeds as quickly as possible after putting your property on the market so that we can make sure that all of the necessary deeds are there and that everything appears to be in order. We will send the title deeds to the purchasers’ solicitors for them to examine on behalf of the purchasers. If the purchasers’ solicitors raise any queries in relation to the title deeds we will deal with these at the time they are raised.
The purchasers’ solicitors will draft the title deed (known as the “Disposition”) to be signed by you in favour of the purchasers, and we will check this on your behalf to make sure that it is satisfactory. We will arrange for you to sign the Disposition before the date of entry, as it is not possible to settle the sale of your property without a signed Disposition.
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SEARCHES AND OTHER DOCUMENTATION
As part of the conveyancing process we will instruct various searches over your property to be shown to the purchasers’ solicitors. One of these is called a Property Enquiry Certificate, which covers all Local Authority matters relating to your property, e.g. roads, Building Warrants, Planning Applications, Listed Buildings, Conservation Areas, Statutory Notices etc.
Secondly, we will obtain a search of the Sasine Register, the Land Register, the Register of Inhibitions and Adjudications, and the Register of Insolvencies.
This search discloses the current owners of the property, whether there are any outstanding Standard Securities (i.e. mortgages) over the property, whether any other relevant deeds relating to the property have been registered, and whether you have been inhibited or sequestrated (as this may affect your ability to give the purchasers clear title to the property).
Finally, if your property lies in a Coal Mining Area it may be necessary for us to obtain a Coal Mining Report to check whether there are any mining issues affecting the property.
If the purchasers’ solicitors advise after the survey is carried out that the purchasers’ surveyor has advised that they will require sight of documentation for alterations, damp-proofing work etc. then we will check that this documentation is available and if not we will discuss this with you and decide what action, if any, should be taken.
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SETTLEMENT OF THE SALE
On the agreed date of entry the purchasers will pay the purchase price (usually by way of solicitors’ cheque) in exchange for the keys, the Disposition by you in favour of the purchasers, the title deeds, and any other relevant documentation. The purchases’ solicitors usually send their cheque to us the day before settlement to arrive on the morning of settlement, and likewise we usually send the keys, Disposition, title deeds etc. to the purchasers’ solicitors the day before settlement to arrive on the morning of settlement.
The sale will be settled as soon as both parties are in a position to settle, which will be when both parties’ solicitors have received the appropriate settlement items from the other party’s solicitors, the purchasers’ solicitors have confirmed that they are in funds and that we may cash their cheque, and we have confirmed that the purchasers’ solicitors may hand out the keys to the purchasers.
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POST-SETTLEMENT
After the sale has settled we will repay your mortgage (if you have one) and any other secured loans or other debts which you have agreed to pay from the sale proceeds, deduct our fees and outlays, and then pay the balance of the sale price to you once the purchasers’ solicitors cheque has cleared, or if you are buying another property we will put the money towards this and pay you any balance which is left over.
If you have any questions on selling property or would like any more information, please get in touch with us.
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