Selling and buying at the same time

[Highlandspring1991]

We accepted an offer on our house the begging of Oct, survey has been completed and searches applied for. We have had our offer accepted on an onward purchase the end of Oct and had a survey done. We are dependant on all funds from the sale to go towards purchase, my question is once our buyers have paid the deposit to our solicitors for our house, can this then be used to fund the deposit on our onward purchase? There is no mortgage and the house we are buying is less so no shortfall

No, they can’t release the deposit to you until the sale is completed. The deposit would have to be returned to the buyer if you fail to complete the sale. It will be held by your solicitors until the sale completes.

Thanks for your reply. From deposit exchange to completion is usually only a week or so is that correct therefore best waiting for the sale to complete

Exchange to completion usually seems to be 7 days but can vary. On our last move it was 24 hours

@PurplePikachu

No, they can’t release the deposit to you until the sale is completed. The deposit would have to be returned to the buyer if you fail to complete the sale. It will be held by your solicitors until the sale completes.

Incorrect. It is normal for the buyers deposit to be passed up the chain. The deposit can't be passed to the seller personally until completion, but it can be passed between solicitors and held at the end of the chain.

I can confirm the deposit is passed up the chain.

We just did almost exactly this yesterday when exchanging. A chunk of our buyer's deposit became our deposit for onward purchase (and the extra will be held by solicitor until completion and used to pay EA and legal fees) and all this happened while we were on the school run. That's how it's supposed to work.