Buying a house privately - anyone done this?

[sydneysuze]

We are thinking of buying a house direct from a couple we know, but I'm not sure how best to go about it. They've had it valued and what they want seems reasonable. But what do I do about mortgages, solicitor etc? Any advice gratefully received!

Even if you bought via an Estate Agent you would still need to find your own mortgage and solicitor.

The Estate Agent acts solely for the buyer because the buyer pays their fees. So sellers can save a good chunk of money by selling privately ... that is their motivation.

You need to get a personal recommendation for a good Independent Financial Advisor or Mortgage Broker, and similarly a good conveyancing solicitor. And you need to do a bit more research (using property websites like Zoopla or Nethouseprices.com) into whether or not the price being asked really is reasonable.

Hi thanks. Yes I realise that about the price, don't worry I've been looking in this area all year and have checked zoopla, land registry etc. also have a broker recommended by friends. Was really wondering if anyone who's done this can advise in pitfalls, timeframes, whether lenders care if sale is private or not and if solicitors are more expensive for private sales etc.

lenders don't care they are mainly interested in the survey once you are approved in principle.

solicitors no more expensive - if you are in the northwest I know a very good one who we used recently and was a dream to work with.

we sold one without using an EA (put a sheet of paper in the window saying "for sale" and a mobile number) - still used solicitors though
buyer was paying cash (student house)

We've done it three times - it's exactly the same as buying it via an estate agency in terms of process. We've always paid the price asked (which have been reasonable), I imagine it gets a bit hairy if you want to start negotiating because of a bad survey or whatever.

lala
when we were selling, the guy tried to haggle right at the last minute and I just told him to pay up or eff off and he paid up

Thanks for all this. I'll be contacting my broker tomorrow to see what she has to say. Thanks for the offer of a solicitor jennerosity that's v kind, the one I used to buy my current place seemed to have me way below his dry-cleaning on his priority list! Unfortunately we're South East so no good.

I know this couple fairly well and will bump into them at social events, school etc as we live in a fairly small village - don't want to mess this up and it may be the only way we can get the place we need.

We did, we had to chase them up quite a lot as the sale was progressing, and should have been better at negotiating as e.g. needed a new boiler.

One option, if you might feel uncomfortable negotiating with the couple as the sale progresses e.g. if things come up in a survey, is to have an estate agent do neogtiating for you - the agent selling our place offered us this service.