Sale of Property

Legal Steps involved in Sale of Property

If you are selling property, we would do the following on your behalf as the vendor solicitor:

• We take instructions from you, identify whether the property is held in your sole name or co-owned (either as joint tenants or tenants in common) and whether there is a loan or mortgage registered against the property;
• We liaise with any Auctioneer involved and obtain details of the Purchaser, their name and address, details of their Solicitor, the Purchase Price and whether a Deposit has been paid;
• We obtain relevant details from you to include your PPS number and we are obliged to obtain photographic ID and proof of address;
• We obtain details of your lending institution and the amount required to redeem any mortgage registered against the property;
• We obtain a written Form of Authority from you and send the same to the lending institution to obtain your Title Deeds.
• On receipt of the Title Deeds, we investigate the Title and identify any issues with the Title including any additional documents which will be required to be obtained for the purposes of the sale and we can then prepare Contracts for Sale.
• We will ascertain whether the sale is conditional upon you purchasing an alternative property to ensure that the Contract for Sale reflects this.
• We will ascertain from you what date suits you for the completion of the sale.
• We will establish from you whether you have built any extensions or undertaken any alterations to the property since you purchased it which might have required planning permission and, if so, we will obtain the relevant planning details from you.
• Some of the additional documents which are often required include the following:

1. 1. BER Certificate and Advisory Report
   2. Details of Local property Tax to include ID Number and PIN
   3. Receipt for payment of NPPR Charge, if applicable
   4. Evidence of Registration of Septic Tank, if applicable
   5. Land Registry Compliant Maps
   6. Copies of Planning Permissions
   7. Letters from the Council confirming the status of the road and services serving the property
   8. Copies of Marriage Certificate

• Capital Gains Tax – we will establish whether the property is your Principal Private Residence and, if not, we identify the potential liability to Capital Gains Tax and advise you of your liability and the liability date.
• The Contracts for Sale are submitted to the Purchasers Solicitors together with copy of the title documents and we will reply to any pre-contract queries raised by the Purchaser’s Solicitors.
• When we receive Contracts for Sale signed by the Purchaser, we contact you to inform you and advise you of the Deposit paid by the Purchaser and note that this will not be released until the sale is completed and we lodge the Deposit to the credit of our client account.
• If you are satisfied to proceed, we will meet with you to sign the Contract for Sale and the Deed of Transfer and the closing documents required by the Purchaser (if these are available at this stage).
• We return one-part Contract for Sale to the Purchaser’s Solicitor and we request the Purchaser’s Solicitor to furnish us with a draft Deed of Transfer and a list of their closing requirements if they have not already done so (these are often furnished by the Purchaser’s Solicitor when returning the Contracts for Sale).
• On receipt of the draft Deed of Transfer and a list of the Purchaser’s closing requirements, we prepare the closing documentation and request you to attend at the office and go through these documents with you. These documents must be signed by you before the closing occurs.
• At this stage, we also request redemption figures from your lending institution up to the anticipated date of closing. We also request you (before closing) to confirm that the property is vacant and that you have notified all the utility companies of your proposed move.
• The Purchaser’s Solicitor will either attend at our offices to complete in person or the purchase monies will be electronically transferred to our client account.
• Once we are satisfied that all funds have been paid, we will then hand over the closing documents and authorise your Auctioneer to release the keys to the Purchaser.
• After completion, we request the Auctioneers to furnish us with the balance of any booking deposit together with their Account. We redeem your mortgage by paying your lending institution the amount due as per the redemption figures and request your lending institution to furnish us with e-discharge/vacated mortgage (we will have given an undertaking to the Purchaser’s Solicitors to do this).
• We then prepare our final account, furnish it to you for your approval and on receipt of your written approval, we hand over the balance of the monies due to you.
• Post completion – we will liaise with your lending institution to obtain from them evidence of e-discharge or the vacate to be released from our undertaking to the Purchasers Solicitors.
• If you have engaged us to prepare Capital Gains Tax Returns, we will then compute the Capital Gains Tax payable and pay the Capital Gains Tax to the Revenue.