One of the questions I get asked quite often is, “How long does a house sale take?”
How long it will take depends on the solicitors
How effective a solicitor is has a large impact on the length it take for your house to sale. We deal with many many solicitors on a day to day basis, and can testify to the benefit of using a professional and proactive solicitor. It’s for this reason we also advise homeowners and landlords to use our hand selected solicitors who are tried and test with ensuring the conveyance process is completely quickly.
It also depends how quick the buyer wants to move.
That’s important. How quick their solicitor is. We don’t always have control over the buyer’s solicitor, and neither will you. Now some buyers, if they’re cash investors can buy within a week, and you might ask, “Well how does that happen? They’ve got to complete their searches”. Well, not always, they can take out what’s called a search indemnity insurance and that covers them if any of the searches come back with issues. This then allows for for a quick house sale.
On a standard terraced property, for example, you wouldn’t expect the searches to bring up anything contentious at all. It’s typically bigger properties in rural areas that might have issues with searches, planning permission and alike. So for these type of property sales the length of time to sell can be quite drawn out.
We try to get them through in four to six weeks
Another obstacle is the compliance. Everybody has to go through compliance to sell a house. By that I mean you’ve got to provide ID and proof of address and that’s got to be certified either at the post office or by another solicitor or professional. And if you’re a seller, your solicitor will not even issue the contracts until they’ve got all that back and a signed client care letter. So some of it depends on you and how long it takes for you to do this. If you can get this submitted quickly, then the solicitor will get the contracts out and things will get moving.
However, If you delay, then don’t expect your property to complete quickly. It won’t happen! But if you’re quick, you’ve got a proactive buyer and good solicitors, then your house sale be completed in four weeks.
You’ve got to go through the compliance as a seller and the buyer also has to go through it too. Part of compliance is completing anti money laundering checks which is not straight forward. But if you get the right solicitor and the right buyer, the compliance stage can be completed quickly.
And my advice is always, be proactive, always be on the phone to your solicitor, ask what’s happening, what stage they’re at.
We do that, we have a specialist sales progression team and they follow this right from the start to the end and, at any time, know what stage the legal process is in and what is the next stage. And they make sure that the solicitors are keeping on top of of the conveyancing process in order to get the property sold quickly. So if you need any advice on this, please feel free to call 0191 486 2386 anytime. No obligation, I’m not trying to sell you anything.
