Buying a house in Stafford

Buying a house in Stafford is the same as everywhere else in England and Wales. The essential steps in the legal process of buying a house are detailed below.

1. Initial Steps

Once you have had an offer agreed via the selling agents, you will need to let them know that ORJ Law are your appointed solicitors for buying a house in Stafford.

You will be appointed an expert property solicitor/conveyancer within our conveyancing department and you will be given their email and direct dial.  Each solicitor/conveyancer will have an assistant, and again you will be given their email and direct dial for easy contact.  Once you have accepted our quote, we will provide an initial pack with some forms for you to complete and return. 

The Estate Agents will then issue a Memorandum of Sale to all parties.

If you require a mortgage for buying the property, you will need to contact your mortgage broker or mortgage company and provide with our details.

2. Contract & Enquiry Stage

Once we receive your completed forms, identity documents and initial payment we will request the contract papers from the seller’s solicitor.  When buying a house, we will need to apply for the searches (usually local, drainage and environmental) and these are applied for once the contract papers are received.  Using our expert property solicitors who are based in both Stafford and Telford, they will have knowledge of the areas and as to whether any additional searches are required.

Upon receipt of the contract papers, we will check the legal title to the property and raise any enquiries we have with the seller’s solicitor. 

When your mortgage offer arrives, we will send the mortgage deed out to you for signing and advise of any special requirements that your mortgage lender may have before the loan can proceed.  You may wish to instruct your own survey/valuation at this stage.

We will, during the course of the transaction check your source of funds i.e. where the deposit funds are coming from and will request bank statements.  If you are having a gift, there are additional checks that will need to be made.

Once our enquiries are satisfied and the search results are received, we will report to you with all the information we have about the property and provide the paperwork for you to sign.

3. Exchange of Contracts

When buying a house, all parties in the chain need to be in a position to proceed and once everyone is ready, a completion date can be agreed.  When a completion date is agreed the file will be set up ready to exchange, we will request mortgage funds from your lender (if you are having a mortgage) and send to you a completion statement showing the balance due from you.  You will then need to arrange to transfer the funds to us. 

Once exchange takes place, this makes the purchase of the property legally binding and the date is fixed for completion.  Our expert residential property team will take your verbal authority prior to exchange of contracts.

4. Completion

On the day of completion, we will receive your mortgage funds and transfer the purchase price to the seller’s solicitor.  Once the funds are received the seller’s solicitor will release keys, usually from the estate agents.  We will telephone you to confirm that completion has taken place and that you can collect the keys

Following completion, we will pay any Stamp Duty Land Tax due and will make an application to the Land Registry to update the legal title into your name.  Once we receive this confirmation, we will forward a copy to you and your mortgage lender (if you had a mortgage).

Whilst the process of a buying a home will the same wherever you buy, having a local expert solicitor can be crucial. This is due to certain areas or estates that have issues that we as expert local solicitors will already have knowledge of and have a solution to.  Having offices based in both Stafford and Telford, we have dealt with a large number of property purchases across Shropshire and Staffordshire and have the required knowledge of these areas to progress the purchase of your new home.

If you are buying a house in Stafford, please do not hesitate to contact us to discuss your matter further.