Buying With A Mortgage

At Grainger Appleyard we deal with property sales, purchases, transfers and remortgages and we act for buyers and sellers. We are repeatedly asked questions about what the process which in a nutshell is as follows.

So you’ve put an offer in on a property and it has been accepted, what next?

You instruct a solicitor and get the ball rolling and you will need to provide the following:
• Identification – one photographic (a current passport or driving license) and one with your current address on (a bill not more than 3 months old). We need identification before we can commence work on your file.

• Proof of funds – you may be having a mortgage and it may seem intrusive, but in order to comply with Money Laundering Regulations we will need to know where the balance funds are coming from, i.e. Gift (from a relative)  and your mortgage lender will also need to know who the gift is from and that it is not repayable. We will need to see the person(s) providing the gift so that we can comply with Money Laundering Regulations, we will need to see their ID and bank statement/passbook showing the gift source.

If balance is your own savings we will need to see and take copies of your bank statement/passbooks. If you have a Help to Buy ISA then towards completion of your purchase we will advise the process for closing the ISA and obtaining the final bonus. Another way of funding any balance is through the Forces Help to Buy Scheme (we will need to contact the Forces as soon as possible as we have found that these payments can take a while to be approved).

• You will need to decide if you are happy with a valuation survey provided by your lender or whether you would like to consider a full homebuyers survey. We can provide details of local surveyors who can carry out a full structural survey.

• Next what searches should you have? If you having a mortgage you will need a basic search package of Local Authority Search, Drainage and mines and minerals and we can offer a competitive all in price for these basic searches. Next you must consider the location of the property and may wish to instruct us to order a flood search, environmental search, HS2 search, or planning. When we order your searches, our search provider sends an alert as to what additional searches may be considered in relation to the location of the property.

• If you are purchasing jointly, you will need to consider how you will hold the property. There are two forms of ownership namely joint tenants and tenants in common. We will send you an information sheet which sets out the differences between the two forms of ownership. If the ownership is other than as joint tenants or tenants in common in equal shares (i.e. you are to own in unequal shares) this needs to be set out in a Declaration of Trust and there will be an additional legal fee for this. We can discuss joint ownership and also advise on making wills to reflect how the property is owned.

• Good luck with your purchase and we do try our best to progress a transaction to completion as soon as ever possible. The average transaction takes around 6 to 8 weeks.