In the final stages of confirming the deal of a house sale, contracts are exchanged, and the completion date is also confirmed. This essentially involved the terms of the contract being confirmed and the buyer’s lawyer must confirm the amount of deposit being handed over on exchange. Usually, this is 10% of the purchase price. You may be wondering what happens after the process of exchanging contracts and how soon after you may move in. In this article, we will break down this process for you and make the procedure after exchange of contracts explicit.
What are the legal implications of exchange?
After exchange of contracts has taken place, buyer and seller are legally committed to the purchase. There are implications of this as if the buyer chose not to go ahead with the purchase, then at the very least they would lose their deposit. On the other side of the coin, if the seller refused to go ahead then the contract could potentially be enforced through the courts and the seller forced to vacate, or the buyer could be awarded damages.
What happens after exchange?
When contracts are exchanged, the completion date is also confirmed. You may be wondering what the completion date is. In property terms, the completion date is essentially moving day. in other words, this is the date on which the seller is legally obliged to vacate the property and the buyer will obtain the keys to move in. The basis point is that on completion the buyer must go through their lawyer to hand over all the remaining money required to purchase the property.
What is the most important point about exchange of contracts?
The most vital piece of advice we can give our clients when exchanging contracts is to ensure that the date set for completion is achievable. It is essential for the seller to know that they can remove themselves and their belongings on or before the agreed date. It is also necessary that the buyer knows they will have the money ready, either through a mortgage offer or their own resources.
The main point
The most important point to note with regard to what happens after exchange is that failing to complete can have incredulous financial consequences. Thus, it is really important that buyers and sellers communicate openly and honestly so that there is a mutual understanding of their own obligations on moving day.
We hope that this article has been useful to give you useful information about the process after the exchange of contracts. At FastCash4Houses, we specialise in providing rapid turnarounds on property sales in a variety of different categories. You can rest assure that we will work extremely hard to give you a fair offer for your property.
