Offers accepted for our house & the one we are buying - what now?

[Theswitch]

Can you offer some advice on the process for a very nervous first time seller/buyer (who also has a 2 day old baby!)

We bought our house 5 years ago with an independent mortgage advisor who dealt with it all but we need to port our mortgage so could only get a mortgage in principle with our bank.

So yesterday we accepted an offer on our house & had our offer accepted on the house we want to buy (same estate agent).
They are off today which is unlucky timing!

So what happens now? Our buyers don’t have a chain & the vendor hasn’t yet found a house. Do we get a solicitor now?

Can anyone talk me through a really simple process of what happens now up to completion, in an ideal world. Myself & DH are overwhelmed (a lot going on ha!) & feel a bit out of our depth. We are adults I promise!

I don't know much about as i'm a first time seller, you do need a solicitor now though to get things started, you'll have forms to fill in, you'll also need to find someone to certify your ID.
Good luck with it, we're still looking for our next house :-(

You need to get the house surveyed . Also appoint a solicitor . I'm sure if you googled ones in your area / asked for recommendations from friends you'd soon get names of decent ones . It's now a waiting game for everyone to get on with the process !
Some go through quickly , others not .
Whilst you probably don't need to start packing yet , don't put off starting to think of how you will go about it . Good luck and congratulations on your new baby .

Get a solicitor and let the estate agent know - they have to produce a memorandum of sale which goes out to all parties and starts the ball rolling. If your vendors still have to find a property you may want to hold out on the survey until they have found a property - take advice from your solicitor.

Talk to your estate agent often and ask them .. what do I need to do ? and are they happy with how things are progressing ?

Thanks all.

My estate agent is off today hence me procrastinating & panicking!! I’m sure he will explain tomorrow.

Good to know re memorandum of sale, we have a friend of a friend to use as a solicitor so will speak to them tomorrow. I just didn’t know if we needed to do it now or later down the line (as the sellers haven’t found a house yet) but guess we need to do it for our house! Eek!

Point noted re the survey.

My friend always waits for the vendor of the house she is buying to complete the chain before she spends any money on surveys etc.

Let the solicitor know, but don't tell them to start doing any work yet (they wouldn't normally anyway if the chain isn't complete). Your Mortgage Adviser will be able to arrange the survey via the lender, the bank will want a basic valuation report but you can pay extra and ask the surveyor to do a more detailed survey if you want one. This is cheaper than getting your own survey done separately and is completely normal. You can still use your Mortgage Adviser, even though you're staying with the same lender.

Tell the Estate Agent you've been in touch with your solicitor & Mortgage Adviser and then sit tight. Don't spend any money yet, until you have a complete chain there's no point spending money on something that might not come together... although hopefully it will! Congratulations!

Our estate agent gave us some solicitors names that they work well with.
It's taking about 3 months to complete around here atm

Get any paperwork together on your house, have you done any building work? If so make sure you have all relevant paperwork, building control, planning sign off.
Do you have anything like paperwork for boiler servicing, electrical work/gas safety? These are not always necessary but if you’ve had them done already you can include them, anything else you encountered when you bought, we had an insurance policy thing to do with the church opposite our house, and food search paperwork, anything like that that you might need to prove.
Our solicitors were really impressed that we had already collated everything, it made for a much smoother sale.
Good luck, hope it goes well and congratulations on your baby.

*flood search not food 😂

Your vendor needs to find a house quickly! You need a solicitor and let the EAs know. Sort out the mortgage proper and the bank will appoint a surveyor.