What do I need to do as a seller?

[Kikibee]

Hi

we are putting our house on the market imminently and will be moving into my elderly parents place so won’t be looking for another house.

what do we need to do to be prepared for a potential buyer please? It’s been 30 years since we moved and I’m aware that things have changed since then.

thanks

Find all the random bits of paper relating to new windows, boiler services, extensions, permitted development, planning permission.....

Have a think about schools the nearby kids go to. We were asked about schools, neighbours, why we were moving, water pressure, council tax.

But right now, declutter and clean would be my advice.

Thanks, been declutterring this last week, it’s rather full on!

id better go through all the paperwork then.

i guess we need a solicitor for the sale when that happens

You will need a solicitor but not until you have a buyer. Apart from big decluttering I would be researching local estate agents, shortlisting 2 or 3 and asking them for a meeting and valuation.

Thank you both, I will get onto that straight away. It’s a mixture of excitement and nervousness that I’m going through right now. Glad I’m not house hunting too

In my experience-selling and buying at the moment- EAs are much more helpful and hands on than they used to be and most have a person called a 'sales progressor' who is there both to help guide you through the process and also keep track of everything.
So yes, interview a few EAs, we had 4 come visit and chat to us, and choose the ones you feel you have a good fit with.

They also are not going to hold back advising you on what you need to do practically to the house to get it up to the best you can for viewings. And they're right there looking at it and know the area so it's worth listening to them.
That said, we had a really wide variety of advice from 'it's fine as it' is to 'put a cheap new kitchen in'! So still decisions to be made as to how much faffing you want to do to sell it. Houses do sell in all kinds of conditions and if the basic house is nice and in a good area you can probably get away with doing less to it.

Oh and the EA we went with also has their own list of approved solicitors and surveyors which was a help. I imagine most do now.

I would get a solicitor engaged and ready to go with a deposit paid for disbursements but pick one that wont do any chargeable work until you give them the nod. It will save a few days faffing if you want a quicker sale. Ours sat dormant for a month but when we called they were ready to go.

Talk to some agents
We did last Summer and were told that properties needed to be pristine in our price range as buyers have no spare cash at the moment
hence 6 months of work and decluttering