Process of buying a house

[Marrick]

We had an offer accepted on our first house about 6 weeks ago. We got the survey sorted quickly (pretty much happy with this), got a mortgage offer and appointed a solicitor, who we paid for searches with. I'm just not sure on the order things will happen now! We got a transfer deed and land registry form from the solicitors to sign from our solicitors last week - aren't we supposed to get the results of the searches we've paid for first? Or a list of fixtures and fittings? I'm a bit confused by the whole process - can anyone tell me the rough order things will happen in?!

Thanks!

Watching with interest. I have no idea either, would be useful to know!

The solicitor will get the searches back, and go through any necessary findings with you - if they don't show anything of concern then you likely won't hear anything.

Once the searches are back you will get the proposed contract from the solicitor, this is usually when you get the f&f copy so you can check everything is included correctly. The solicitor will then advise a date for exchange of contract, at which point you will need to pay the deposit - make sure you have paid this to the solicitor a couple of days beforehand so everything is in place and at this point you are legally bound to buy the house.

Once exchange has happened, a date will be set for completion, at which point the balance of the purchase price is paid, and the house is yours.

You will need to arrange buildings insurance from the exchange date, and that's also usually the point at which you can book removals etc as you will have some definite dates to work with.

Sometimes all the above happen nice and smoothly, sometimes you need to be on the phone to the solicitor everyday to find out what you are still waiting for. Usually it's somewhere in between the two!