Completion of the Purchase of a Property

No Meetings - Electronic Transfer and Documents posted!

Years ago there used to be an agreed time on the day of completion when the solicitors would meet and a banker's draft was handed over in exchange for the deeds.   This is no longer practical or cost effective, and funds are sent by electronic CHAPs transfer and the documents are sent to us by post or document exchange. 

You will not normally need to come to our office on the day of completion.  You will be too busy actually moving!

Collecting the keys...

If we do not have to wait for the money to come through from any related sale then we will arrange to send the funds as soon as we can on the morning of completion. When the seller's solicitors have established that they have the money they will release the keys, which normally means telephoning the estate agent to do this.

Of course the estate agents cannot release keys if they do not yet have them.  The seller may well not have moved out until lunchtime.  People have lunch breaks, typically between 1-2.30pm, and communication can be temporarily difficult over this period so it is worth checking with the estate agents about 12.30pm. to see if they yet have the keys.

If are simply buying, you might not bother to take a day off work and will want to collect the keys just before the estate agents close or on a Saturday.  Sometimes the seller's solicitor forgets to tell them the matter has been completed, and they don't know if they can release them!  It is worth making contact by phone earlier in the day to check the point.

Delays

If there is a chain of transactions and your buyer is in turn selling, and so on, then there could be delay while the money comes up the chain from one solicitor to the next.  Most solicitors have their own CHAPs terminals to connect to their banks directly to send the money.  Some still don't, and have to rely on their bank's own internal workings which can still take an hour or two actually to send the money once requested.

This is all very frustrating, particularly when a number of removal vans are sat outside various properties waiting for the go-ahead to move in.  At the moment there is not much that can be done about it, given that we have chains.  The Land Registry are working on an E-Conveyancing system that will involve all the money going into/coming out of a central "pot" in one go, but this will take some time to sort out and is only in the early stages.

The state of the place when you get there...

Some sellers don't care.  Others run out of time to do the clearing they intended.  So we sometimes find that the seller has left a lot of junk in the property, or has made a mess when removing fittings etc.  You may have to spend some money dealing with this.

You might well have a valid claim against the seller, but the cost and hassle of pursuing it could mean it isn't worth it.  The sooner you tell us the better, because we might be able to sort something out with the seller's solicitors before they have parted with the money to the clients or on up a chain.  If at all possible, it is worth doing what you can to check the property as the seller is moving out, so that you can raise concerns with him before he goes.

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