Tell me how to buy a house in England.. (clueless)

[Bensonbluebird]

We've had an offer accepted on a house in York and our flat (in Edinburgh)is going to sealed bids tomorrow (trying not to bite nails).

As we've never bought in England before we're a bit clueless and have lots of unanswered questions.

The property we are buying has been taken off the market i.e. it has a sold sign outside it, but the seller's agents are saying that they can't take it off the websites until there has been an exchange of solicitors' letters. Is this true? Our seller hasn't appointed a solicitor yet.

The house was on the market for over a year so doesn't have a HIP. It is a Victorian terrace that has had major work done on a loft conversion. Would we be idiots to go for a Home Report (or whatever they are called in England) instead of a full structural survey?

Please help.... I'm going to be the plague of the property topic for the next couple of months.

It is down to the vendor whether the EA ceases marketing it and when. The offer isn't legally binding until contracts are exchanged between them and you. A homebuyer's report won't necessarily look into the detail such as buildings regs and structure, just look at the basics of valuation and risk for the lender, but the solicitor should be able to provide the relevant certificates if it is fairly recent.

LIZS we made it a condition of our offer that they take it off the market and they accepted it on that coundition. Should I take the fact that they haven't ceased marketing it as a sign that they are not committed?

You could certainly put that to the EA, how long ago did they accept the offer ?

Last saturday, thanks btw.

dragging their feet a bit then.

I think it could be that we haven't actually sold yet (will have tomorrow though!). I'm going to start kicking up on monday.

Bit worried about the lack of renewal of HiP, it is a legal requirement. I saw properties on rightmove with flag saying under offer. We found out from a surveyor that if the property is 'recent' (like built in 60s-70s onwards), homebuyer is enough, full structural is for period properties. That said in the past we wanted to buy a Victorian with loft conversion and did a homebuyer that revealed major structural problems and roof in danger of collapse due to bad loft conversion. So we didn't need the full structural to find out it was a nightmare house.

Thanks, Goldenpeach. DP is leaning towards a homebuyer saying that if it does reveal any problems then we could get them checked out specifically. I'm more cautious and think we should just go for a full survey.

I think it is only the energy report that is a legal requirement for properties that were on the market before HIPs came in (were they voluntary for a while?). It does have an energy report.