Idiot's Guide to selling and buying a house

[Pluto]

We have lived in our house for over 10 years. When we bought it we were wet behind the ears first time buyers. I can't remember anything at all about the process of buying and have never sold a property before. We have about another 15 years of our working lives ahead of us and then need to be mortgage free. There's a decent amount of equity in our current home as we've been here a long time. Apart from a bit of tidying up and cleaning / easy sprucing up what do we need to do before we even visit an estate agent and is there a good idiot's guide to selling and buying anywhere? Do we need to have savings or can we rely on some of the equity in our current home to cover our moving costs? We anticipate it will take a while to sell our house in the current climate and don't think there's a lot for sale in our area that we can afford or really want but we have decided that even though 2011 is probably not the best year to move our circumstances mean we should probably try. All tips gratefully received.

If you are planning to buy a larger/more expensive property then you need to save. Remember there will be stamp duty, removal costs, EA fees and solicitors fees to pay on completion which could eat in the deposit funds and affect the mortgage deal you will be offered.

As you have a lot of equity, you're probably not going to have to save very much but you will need to speak to a mortgage adviser about your needs (will you be cutting your mortgage with the sale or increasing it? Will you have to pay redemption fees etc?).

You need to get an energy performance certificate to sell your home and it's good to track down any of the paperwork associated with any improvements you've made (new windows = FENSA certificate; planning consent/building regs completion certificate for any extensions). Other than that, get someone with a very critical eye to look around your home and point out any bits that need doing that you have grown blind to through familiarity.

Thanks Liz and lala - it's interesting that you have different views on savings - I can see both points of view. Can the energy performance cert be done any time or does it have a use by date on it do you know? Don't estate agents sometimes offer this or is cheaper to look elsewhere? We can take our mortgage with us if we move - but we'll definitely need to increase it by quite a bit, so I can see how having some savings will help. We've got a bit put away (the equivalent of 3 months joint salary) so I think we need to add to this as much as we can in the next few months.

Right - I'm to find a critical friend to tell me what needs sorting round the house.