Have an offer accepted
Simple enough, if your offer is the highest, it should be accepted. One frustration that you may encounter here, is the seller, who insists on continuing to market the property after accepting your offer. This is quite common, and requires little effort on the sellers part, other than telling the estate agent, that they want to do so. All is not fair in Love, War, and Property transactions – you have been warned.
Complete a Mortgage Application
Time is now, not on your side. The Estate Agent, if they are on the ball, will almost immediately want to know who your lender is, and who your solicitor is. They want the sale to progress swiftly and smoothly to completion, so will gently pressure you to get things moving. From your point of view, you would be wise, generally to move quickly too. If you have had the foresight to discuss your situation with a mortgage broker, and have obtained an agreement in principle, it’s now simply a matter of meeting your broker to complete the paperwork. From there on in, the broker should take care of things. If not, you’re going to have to start the process of obtaining a suitable mortgage now.
Obtain a Mortgage Offer
Completing a mortgage application, even after obtaining a decision in principle, does not guarantee that you’ll get a mortgage offer from the lender. Many difficulties can interupt the process. Most commonly, these would include: problems with the valuation, inability to provide the supporting documentation required by the lender, discrepencies between the information supplied on the application form, and the documentation that you provide, inability to PROVE ID, or address.
Common examples are: the property is valued by the valuer at less than the price offered, no wage slips or P60 available, accounts not finished, thinking that your “salary” includes overtime and/or bonuses/car allowance, driving licence still shows old address, no passport.
Appoint a solicitor
In reality, you should have done this before completing your mortgage application, in fact, you will not be able to complete your mortgage application, without knowing your solicitors details. In practice, you will have little contact with your solicitor, until the lender sends her a copy of your mortgage offer. Even then, unless you instructed the solicitor to apply for the “local searches” straight away (a speculative move which involves cost, before a mortgage offer has been obtained), a few more weeks will pass before your solicitor requires your prescence.
Exchange contracts
When both your solicitor, and the vendors solicitor have completed all of the legal work, you are ready to “exchange contracts”. This involves you agreeing to purchase the property, as defined in the legal paperwork, for a set sum of money. The vendor, in turn agrees to sell you the property, similarly defined. A date is agreed for completion
