Buying house with cash from sale - how does it work?

[Scottie7]

This is probably a very stupid question but it's keeping me awake with worry. I'm trying to organise our house move with a very sick husband so everything is down to me. We've sold our large family home and will be downsizing to a small and more manageable place. We have cash buyers and are fortunate enough to be buying our new house with cash from the sale. Please can anyone tell me how this will work. Do we move out one day and our buyers deposit the cash into our account and then we wait for 24 hours until the money shows up in our account before we can pay for ours and move in? Has anyone else bought a house in this way? Sorry if this is a very obvious question but I'm getting very stressed about having to arrange everything whilst working full time and caring for my husband. Thanks for all responses.

The money will all go through your solicitors.

I'm sure someone can explain in finer detail, the solicitors will check funds are available etc and transfer monies across at the correct time.

It will all be done on the same day via your solicitors a totally normal way of doing things

You all move on the same agreeable day. Your buyers money for you will go to your solicitors, who will then pass it on to the solicitor of the house you are buying. If you Google property chain then you’ll find a link with full details.

sorry about your husband.

Yes all happens via solicitors on completion day. Once funds have cleared the new house is yours.

BTW, you’ve used the term you are a cash buyer but as you have to sell your house still have the cash buyer. You are only a cash buyer if you do not have a house that you still need to sell to fund the purchase

We needed cash from the sale together with a mortgage to buy our house. I think it’s quite normal. The solicitors confirm the money is available and it all moves along the chain (whether that chain is 2 or 20) on the same day. At least that’s my understanding!

The money goes ‘up the chain’. So if there’s a first time buyer with a mortgage then two cash buyers it will go like this:
first person will send their cash deposit to their solicitors, and Halifax will release funds to their solicitors. On completion all that money will go to person two’s solicitors. They will then send however much money up to person three’s solicitors. Any money left over will be returned to you within a day or two. So you’ll all complete on the same day. Hope that helps - it’s so horrendously stressful!

Money from your sale gets transferred to your solicitors, they in turn transfer it to the solicitors who are acting for the people you are buying from.

There is technically a few hours when you are homeless as usually sale and purchase happen on the same day (unless you are moving to rented).

And I’m sorry about your husband. That must make it all much more difficult and stressful and moving house is hard enough xx

We did this, but kept a small mortgage as we wanted extra cash for renovations. Our buyer was a cash buyer so she had to deposit her money into her solicitor’s account a couple of days before we completed. On completion day, her money was transferred to our solicitor, our solicitor paid off the mortgage balance, the remaining mortgage balance plus cash for the house purchase went to our vendor’s solicitor and the remaining cash came to our own bank account. It took til about 3pm on the day. The keys to our new house was released and we handed over our keys to our buyer too.

This link explains in detail the last steps. hoa.org.uk/advice/guides-for-homeowners/i-am-selling/step-by-step-guide-to-selling-your-home/

Thank you so much. x

Thank you.

Thank you. We will be cash from sale so unable to deposit any monies before completion day.

This means you’re not a cash buyer, it means you’re not needing a mortgage to buy. Cash buyers are those who have the cash ready to go without a property to sell.

The solicitors will all work it out. It means in the day there can be some stress in terms of money coming across etc

but solicitor will manage this for you

She hasn’t said she is a cash buyer. The person buying her property is a cash buyer, she’s using the proceeds from her sale.

We bought last year cash from sale, we didn’t need to pay a deposit, the person as the bottom of the chain does that, we completed our sale, cash went to solicitor, then solicitor sent the cash to our sellers solicitor and paid the balance to us. All done the same day. Good luck with your move.

Thank to all who've responded. I feel much better now. x

@Scottie7 email or call solicitor and ask. We still had to pay a deposit on exchange but in your case as you are downsizng, you should receive deposit money from your buyer that is more than enough for the deposit on your new property. Then on completion all the money gets received and wired across along the chain on the day. But do check - solicitor their assistant will happily run through and should have given you some info up front.

funnily enough I asked our solicitors this just yesterday. We have some money from a previous rental sold earlier in year. We're selling current house too. Apparently solicitors will send a completion statement before completion date, outlining how much we need to pay, on top of current house sale. We then transfer that amount into solicitors account before completion.