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Buying a property is always exciting, but can be nerve-wracking too. When you find the house or flat that you want and agree the price with the seller, it is then up to you and your solicitor to check the structure and the legal title respectively before you commit yourself to a legally binding contract to purchase it. It is advisable to ask a surveyor to look at the property for you (unless it's brand new and has the benefit of a building guarantee). It is important to appreciate that you cannot rely upon the mortgage valuation that all lenders will arrange. This is only for the benefit of the lender and cannot be relied upon by you, even though you will usually be given a copy to read.
The survey that you arrange will either be a 'Homebuyer's Report' or a 'full structural survey', depending on the property that you are buying - seek advice from the surveyor as to which type of survey they would recommend. They are the experts when it comes to surveys, after all! If there is anything in the survey that you don't understand, go back to the surveyor and ask them to explain. Remember, you are making a huge investment (and paying for the survey!) and it is crucial that you are aware of the potential liabilities before you commit yourself.
Once your solicitor has received the 'contract package' from the seller's solicitor, they can begin to find out more about the property that you are buying for you. Searches will be put in hand and the solicitor will raise enquiries about the legal title with the seller's solicitor. If there is anything that you want to know about the property it is important to ask your solicitor at an early stage in the transaction so that they can make the enquiry on your behalf. Remember that very often, your solicitor will not have seen the property that you are buying and in this respect you have an advantage over them.
Once the results of the searches are known, your solicitor has received satisfactory replies to all of their enquiries and your mortgage offer is to hand and correct, your solicitor will prepare a contract report for you to read through. This will point out various important matters and draw all of the threads together, enabling you to understand more about the property that you are buying. Having read through this report, it will then be time to sign the contract and let your solicitor have the deposit. Usually the deposit will be between 5 and 10% of the purchase price. Anything less than 10% will probably have been agreed with your seller by the solicitors beforehand.
Having signed the contract, provided your solicitor with the deposit and agreed the date for completion, the solicitor can now exchange contracts for you, making everything legally binding. Once exchange has taken place, failure to complete a purchase can have serious consequences, so you should not authorise your solicitor to exchange contracts unless you are certain that you want to go ahead.
After contracts have been exchanged, your solicitor carries out pre-completion searches and arranges for your mortgage advance to be sent to them, usually the day before completion. Any money that you are putting into the property needs to be with your solicitor in cleared funds the day before completion too, along with the stamp duty land tax and Land Registry fees. Your solicitor will let you have a financial statement with the contract report so that you know the amount that you owe and can arrange for this money to be sent to their bank in good time.
On the day of completion, the money will be sent to the seller's solicitor's bank by your solicitor as early as possible. However, sometimes the money does not show up at the bank until later on during the day. Even if it does arrive early on, it may be that your seller is also buying a property, in which case your seller's solicitor will be sending money on to another solicitor's bank, and so on. Only when the money has arrived can the solicitor ring the estate agent to 'release' the keys to the property. This means that you are free to pick them up and the property is yours. However, it is often the case that you will have to wait for your seller to vacate the property - and they have until the time stated in the contract to do this, so you must be patient!
On completion, your seller's solicitor sends the necessary documents to your solicitor, who will register you as the new owner of the property. The Land Registry take a short while to do this, and your solicitor will send you a copy of your title once this has been completed. All of the information about you, the property and your mortgage (if any) is stored at the Land Registry on computerised records, which makes it cheap and easy to access. There are therefore no 'deeds' as such, only rather less impressive pieces of paper!