Selling a House
Selling a house appears to be a less risky transaction than buying one, but there are still risks. Firstly, the contract between you and your estate agent is written for the benefit of estate agents. It’s important to go through that contract and understand the risks. One important risk is accidentally instructing two agents and being liable for two sets of commissions.
Advice on how deposit monies are to be handled is also important: should your solicitor hold the deposit as your agent or as a stakeholder? If the deposit is held as agent, your solicitor can release the deposit to you at any time. This would usually be as soon as it has been paid. In contrast, where a deposit is held as stakeholder, the stakeholder can only pay the deposit to the person rightfully entitled to it.
In practice this means you will only receive the deposit on completion of the sale. If the sale falls through and you are entitled to retain the deposit, you will receive it then. If there is a chain, it is usual that a seller may be using the funds they receive from their buyer to pay for some, if not all of their onward purchase.
As such, the deposit lodged by the buyer at the bottom of the chain may be taken into account and passed up the chain.
Legli assists you by:
- Providing a free platform for you to collate important documents;
- Helping you to locate a solicitor with specialist expertise;
- Helping you to establish your identity, thereby speeding ‘onboarding’ and the commencement of your matter;
- Managing the process of finding the solicitor who offers the best value, quickly and without embarrassment;
- Facilitating confidential communications between you and your solicitor. Email is not secure and can facilitate fraudulent transactions.