Selling and buying a house: when can either party back out of a sale until?
Can I back out of a property sale if I've put an offer in?
If the survey and convenyancing all go as planned and your property is still considered worthy of the price you agreed with the seller or ‘vendor’, it’s time to finalise both your offer and your mortgage.
This is the part of the process that makes moving home one of the most stressful things you can do in your life.
Several things can mean the purchase fails, including your mortgage in principle being rejected once the lender has done a deep dive of your finances, the seller either accepting a higher offer elsewhere (known as ‘gazumping’), the seller being unable to move themselves, and almost every conceivable obstacle in between.
Throughout the process, though you won’t need to do much yourself aside from answer questions or chivvy people along, it pays to keep in very close contact with your solicitor and surveyor.
Any problem or delay to the process should be communicated to the seller immediately and vice versa.
Don’t be surprised if this part of the process takes months, even if you don’t have a home to sell yourself.
When is the property definitely mine?
You won’t be on terra firma until you have exchanged contracts, until which point either side can pull out without legal and financial consequences.
The only notable losses you’d incur in this instance would be the cost of your solicitor and surveyor.
The contract will be sent between solicitors and you’ll need to go through it carefully with yours to be sure everything is correct before signing and returning.
Once you’ve signed you, and the seller, are committed to the sale.
Completion
The last piece of the jigsaw is to send the seller the money for their property.
This will come partly from you and partly from your lender.
It is transferred between your solicitors account and the seller’s solicitors account so, sadly, there won’t be a time when your current account temporarily resembles that of a lottery winner.
With fees paid, including stamp duty (you have 30 days to do this from the day of completion) and the Land Registry informed of the sale by your solicitor, the only thing left to do is pick up the keys and get moved in.