How to speed up your property sale

by Robin King on 26 January 2012  |  3 comments
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Robin King, director of Move with Us, explains how being legally prepared can shave nine days off the time taken to complete a property sale.

For many people, the prospect of moving house fills them with panic.

Even after you have found your ideal property, if you’re not ready to proceed quickly, someone else may pip you to the post and snatch the property from under your feet. With such fierce competition out there, it’s important to make sure that you do everything in your power to ensure that you have an advantage against anyone else who is keen to buy your dream property.

Get the legal side sorted

Moving house ranks third on the list of most stressful life events, so it is important that you do as much as possible to make the process easier. Our recent research found that buyers and sellers who start the legal formalities early on in the process will be able to move in an average of 39 days, nine days earlier than those who are not prepared.

On the scale of the overall move this may seem like a relatively small saving, but all days count when it comes to housebuying and it could mean the difference between moving in and the sale falling through.

If you are selling your property, preparing as much as you can early on in the process will give you time to identify any potential issues and deal with them before the selling process begins. By starting the legal process as soon as the property goes to market, you can put yourself ahead of the competition and ultimately achieve a quicker sale.

The main priority during any house sale is to reach the milestone of exchanging contracts. Once this has taken place, the buyer and seller are entered into a contract; therefore, reducing the risk of a house sale falling through.

What can you do?

There are several steps that you can take to make sure that you are legally ahead of the game.  For sellers, making sure that you are legally ready means formally instructing a solicitor to act on your behalf, and having the property information forms completed in advance as well as ensuring that your identification is verified.

If you are buying, it is slightly less strenuous. Ensuring that you have a mortgage agreed in principle, appointing a solicitor and completing the necessary identification checks will ensure that you are ahead of the game.

In our experience, the problems which tend to arise and create unforeseen delays in the selling process can occur when owners are unable to locate their deeds and leasehold documents or have lost their marriage or birth certificates.

To ensure that you get your dream home, spending the extra time to get legally prepared early on will often give you a huge advantage when there are others bidding on the same property. By doing this early on, it allows you to focus on finding your dream home, safe in the knowledge that you are already ahead of the competition.

Robin King is director of Move with Us.