Residential Purchase

Our advice varies on a property purchase as there are numerous factors to consider, including:

Whether you are a first time buyer or property investor,
Whether you are buying freehold, leasehold and Tyneside flats,
If you are arranging mortgage finance or are cash buyers.
Our property law team in both Newcastle offices can advise and guide you throughout the process of buying residential property. We can do so under the accreditation by the Law Society’s Conveyancing Quality Scheme (CQS) to ensure a high standard of conveyancing throughout our work and department. We are also proud to be on the panels for most mortgage lenders.

Buying property can be a very stressful and uncertain time and our team aims to make the transaction smooth and simple by offering a service tailored to you. Please read below for further information on what to expect from a property purchase.

Before the transaction

We will take instructions from you by phone, email or in person to obtain:

Names and addresses
Details of the property being purchased
Estate agent contact details (if applicable)
The seller’s details
Details of your mortgage advisor and lender
During the transaction

Once we have the above information, we will send you a client care letter with our terms of business and client questionnaire, which requests further information as well as a payment on account and how we can carry out ID checks to comply with Anti-Money Laundering Regulations. This is in addition to the evidencing your source of funds towards the purchase.

Once we are in receipt of your initial instructions, we will open the file and await draft contracts and supporting documentation to then submit searches. We will raise any additional enquiries that we feel must be raised relating to the draft contract documentation we receive and searches too.

We would expect your mortgage offer to be posted to us or submitted on the various lender portals we have access to.

Once we are satisfied with the information we queried, we will arrange to send the contract, transfer, mortgage deed and supporting documentation to you for signature. We will then discuss potential dates for exchange (legal commitment) and completion (moving date) and liaise with the seller’s solicitors.

We will send out a completion statement to confirm the amount due from you which incorporates our fees and the relevant disbursements and will arrange for purchase monies to be sent to our account ahead of exchange.

Once we are in funds and in receipt of signed documentation, we will exchange contracts and apply for mortgage funds.

On completion, we will send the purchase monies to the seller’s solicitors and the keys will be released.

After the transaction

We will complete and submit the stamp duty land tax return with the HMRC (if instructed) and pay any stamp duty (if applicable).

We will then send the contract documents to the land registry to register your title to the property. Once registration is confirmed, we will forward copies of your new title and close your file and keep it in storage for 6 years.

Leasehold property

If you are buying leasehold property there will be some additional steps involved, namely:

Reviewing the lease and advising you on the contents of it.
Review and deal with the management pack and any further enquiries (received from the seller’s solicitors)
Dealing with service charges and ground rent.
Forwarding the necessary notices to the landlord or management company as indicated in the lease. Please note there may be additional charges in relation to this.
If you would like make an enquiry on the above services, please complete our online enquiry service by using our contact form below to receive a bespoke estimate of services.