We are often told that moving house is one of the most stressful aspects of modern life after bereavement and divorce.

Long chains of people trying to move at the same time has always contributed to delays in the process and such chains can only be avoided with expensive bridging arrangements through a Bank.

Working together with your Solicitors from an early stage can help to avoid some of the delays and stress associated with moving house. The following information sets out some of the reasons for the delays and ways to avoid them.

Reasons for Delays

There are, of course, many reasons for transactions taking longer than anticipated or desired. The majority of these involve the movement of information. For example, there are still some Banks and Building Societies that take up to four weeks to release Title Deeds for the purposes of a sale. The deeds are required by the solicitors acting for the seller to enable them to draft the sale contract. It can be very frustrating and sometimes costly for all concerned, when three or four weeks after a sale has been agreed, the Conveyancing process has not begun due to the late arrival of Deeds.

How can you avoid this?

If you intend to sell your property, you can instruct Pellys to obtain your Title Deeds, when your property goes on the market. On receipt of your Deeds we can check to see if the interests of any third parties have been registered against your Title. This can save a lot of time later, if there are any such interests.

If you would rather not incur any charges at all at this stage you should at least let us know of your intentions and let us know where your Deeds are. We will need the name and address of your mortgage lender and your mortgage account number. At this time you can discuss any other information that will be needed. For example, if you are selling a flat, a great deal of information will be required of your Landlord or Management Company. The sooner we are aware of the situation the sooner the necessary information can be requested and you can search at home for any of these items that you hold.

How you can help speed up the Process

You can prepare yourself for the process by getting together all documents that may be relevant to the sale. These will generally be planning permissions, building regulation consents, guarantees and any notices that you may have sent or received in connection with your property.

When purchasing a property it really goes without saying that applying for your mortgage as soon as you can avoids delays later. It is also wise to discuss your survey requirements at an early stage. We can advise on the type of survey you may need and recommend a local Surveyor.

These suggestions, if followed up by you will only help your part of any transaction. If you find yourself in a chain of people you will only be able to move as quickly as the slowest person in it. However, the more we work together, armed with the information that we need the better the system will become.

The government has a proposal in mind, whereby anyone proposing to sell their property will be required by law to provide certain information about their Title deeds and property before it is advertised for sale. This may ultimately include a survey report. In the meantime there are steps that can be taken at this early stage to help minimise delays later on. I have only touched on these steps and if you are planning a move, I suggest that you contact Pellys Solicitors as soon as you can.