Many people wonder why buying a house is such a time-consuming process. The answer is that all sorts of interested parties (buyer, seller, lender, solicitors, local and national government agencies etc) are involved and several different areas of the law (contract, land law, insurance, tax, planning) are covered.

All of these stages and interests take up time - and paperwork! Probably the best advice that can be given to first-buyers who wish the process to be as smooth as possible is to place their affairs in the hands of genuine professional property lawyers with extensive local knowledge.

A decent local solicitor will have both the legal knowledge and the range of contacts to bring the process to a swift and satisfactory conclusion. Once you have secured the mortgage the solicitor will contact your lender, preparing and legal-checking all contracts, supervising the mortgage transfer and dealing with necessary local authority checks. Your role will be to secure adequate insurance for the property, arrange a survey and find a removals company if required. Again, a practised local solicitor will usually be able to advise on these services, or arrange directly on your behalf.

Once all applicable documentation is checked and signed, contracts are exchanged. At this point your lender will release a mortgage advance, a deposit will be lodged with the seller’s solicitors and final checks will be conducted. Your insurance cover should be activated at this point and you should confirm removals arrangements.

Your solicitor will prepare a financial statement and you can arrange with the estate agent to collect the keys, subject to date of completion. Your lender will transfer the balance of the mortgage to your solicitor, which is advanced to the seller’s solicitor, who returns title deeds once monies have cleared.
Any surplus funds agreed with your lender are released to yourselves. All being well, you now collect the keys and move in, with your solicitor tying up loose ends such as paying stamp duties and registering ownership with the Land Registry.

And that’s it: you’re now a homeowner.

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