Random - But buying a house

[shenzi]

Does anyone know how it works to buy a house, while all your equity is tied up in your current home and you wouldnt have the money until your current house was sold? There is no mortgage on current property??

Ive seen a perfect house tonight and hubby agrees its perfect but I just dont know where we stand??

Any help would be much appreciated.

 

[Minimunchkins]

Hiya. The legal teams of all parties involved sort all that out.

The completion dates for all 'sales' are generally dove-tailed so that all 'moves' happen on the same day.



Lets say you accept an offer on your house for £100k & the house you're buying is £150k - you will firstly have to get a mortgage offer (or lottery win) for the additional £50k. Then, when everything goes through, your solicitor gets the £100k from your buyer & then passes it, + the additional £50k from the mortgage offer, to the solicitors for the people you are buying off.

If you are buying something cheaper than the sale price of yours, your solicitor will give you the difference (minus their fees and other costs such as searches etc) back shortly after completion.

It's all done electronically and the only time we had to pay anything 'up front' was for the ECP report that has to be done before your house can be marketed - your estate agent will be able to explain it all.

Hope this helps.

 

[shenzi]

Thanks for your help

So basically we need to find first an estate agent to put our house on the market and then find a solicitors??

 

[Minimunchkins]

Deffo. There's no need for a solicitor until offers are on the table.

You can tell an estate agent that you're seriously interested in the house you've found but it's extremely unlikely that they'd accept any offer off you, until you accept an offer from someone to buy your house.

Until you accept an offer on your current house you're not actually seen to be 'proceedable' by owners of the one you want. They will therefore not want to accept an offer off you and perhaps be left in limbo until you get one yourself.

**Edit** That said, you can shop around for a solicitor - they're generally going to be much of a muchness on price, but any saving you can make is better in your pocket.

 

[shenzi]

Thank you so much for your help ill start looking into estate agents then xx