Legal Steps involved in Purchase of Property
The following is a short guide of how the purchase of a property would proceed with us as your solicitor:
When a purchase price is agreed between the Vendor and the Purchaser, the Auctioneer will issue a Sales Note to the solicitors for the Vendor and the Purchaser.
The Sales Note will contain the details of sale and the respective solicitors’ details. The auctioneer will seek a Booking Deposit which is refundable if no Contract for Sale is ultimately signed. The Booking Deposit will be used in partial payment of the purchase price if the purchase completes.
The Vendor’s solicitor will then prepare a Contract for Sale and send it to us.
A Contract for Sale is an agreement between the Purchaser and the Vendor under which the Purchaser agrees to purchase, and the Vendor agrees to sell the property, provided the conditions in the Contract for Sale are fulfilled.
You as the Purchaser will need to instruct us as to any special conditions you may want to include in the Contract for Sale. The following are a few examples of common Special Conditions:
- If you are obtaining a loan (mortgage), the Contract will need to be subject to the mortgage being granted, which in turn will be subject to the bank receiving a satisfactory valuation report.
- If you are purchasing a site, the purchase may be subject to you obtaining planning permission for the construction of a dwelling house on the site.
- The purchase may be subject to you first selling your own dwelling house.
If you are obtaining a loan from a lending institution, they will send a Mortgage Pack to us. This will contain the Letter of Loan Offer, the Mortgage Deed and the Solicitor’s Undertaking.
We will explain the terms of the loan offer to you and if you are satisfied with the same, you will sign the Letter of Offer and the Mortgage documents. We will need to undertake with the lending institution to investigate the title to the property and ensure that the title to the property is a good marketable title. We also need to undertake to stamp and register the Deed after the purchase completes. The bank will need you to authorise us to give this Undertaking to the bank.
We will then check the title to the property and raise Pre-Contract Enquiries which the Vendor’s Solicitor will reply to.
If the property is a secondhand property, then the principle of Caveat Emptor applies, and you will not have any redress against the Vendor if any defects become apparent after you purchase the property. For this reason, we would advise every purchaser of second-hand property to engage an Engineer to carry out the following:
- Structural Survey
- Mapping Check (to ensure the physical boundaries of the property correspond with the title boundaries)
- Planning Search
When we have investigated the title to the property and receive satisfactory replies to the Pre-Contract Enquiries, we will advise you to sign the Contract. Upon signing the Contract, you will have to pay a Deposit which is equal to 10% of the agreed purchase price (less any Booking Deposit already paid).
We will draft the Deed of Conveyance/Transfer and prepare a List of Closing Requirements which we send to the Vendor’s solicitor.
If you are obtaining a mortgage to finance the purchase, we will request the mortgage proceeds from the lending institution and we will arrange a suitable time to close the sale with the Vendor’s solicitor.
This is usually done by post as follows:
- We carry out Searches against the property and against the Vendor. These searches will reveal whether the property has been encumbered with a mortgage or other burden since the Contract was signed. The Searches will also reveal whether any Judgments have been registered against the Vendor or whether the Vendor has been adjudged bankrupt as this could affect the Vendor’s ability to sell the property.
- We send the purchase monies to the Vendor’s solicitor by electronic funds transfer.
- The Vendor’s solicitor sends the Deed and the closing documents to us.
- Once the Vendor’s solicitor replies to the searches satisfactorily then the sale will complete.
After completion, we will file a Stamp Duty Return and pay the Stamp Duty to the Revenue Commissioners.
We will then then register the Deed of Transfer/Conveyance and any Deed of Mortgage in the Land Registry.
Once the application to register the Deeds in the Land Registry is complete, we will notify you and we will prepare a Certificate of Title to send the Title Deeds to your lending institution where they will remain for the duration of the mortgage.
If you have not obtained a mortgage to finance the purchase, then we can retain the Title Deeds safely in the office.