Buying a home

A residential purchase is really four workstreams running at once: investigating title, raising and resolving enquiries, obtaining and reviewing searches, and satisfying the conditions of your mortgage offer. A transaction stalls when one of those threads is left to run on its own. We open all four in the first week so that the slowest item — usually a local authority search or a management company pack — is already in motion while the rest progresses.

Title investigation means reading the register and the filed plan and checking that the seller can pass to you what they have agreed to sell. We look for restrictive covenants that limit how the property can be used, rights of way benefiting or burdening the land, restrictions on the register that require a consent or certificate on sale, and any charges that must be discharged at completion. Where a covenant has been breached historically we consider whether indemnity insurance is appropriate or whether the correct route is a retrospective consent.

Enquiries are raised on the contract pack, the seller's property information form and the fittings and contents form. Good enquiries are targeted. We do not send a generic list of two hundred questions that delays the file by three weeks; we ask what the title, the searches and your intended use of the property actually require.

Where you are borrowing, we normally act for your lender as well as for you. That dual role means the lender's handbook conditions must be satisfied before we can request funds: the valuation conditions met, any retention understood, buildings insurance in place from exchange, and confirmation that the purchase price and any incentives have been correctly disclosed.

If your deposit is being gifted, the lender and our own anti-money-laundering obligations require evidence of the source of those funds and a signed declaration from the person gifting. Starting that paperwork early avoids a scramble in the final week.

Exchange of contracts is the point at which the transaction becomes binding and the completion date is fixed. Before we exchange we will have reported to you in writing, taken your signed contract and mortgage deed, received your deposit in cleared funds and agreed the completion date with everyone in the chain.

On completion day we send the purchase money to the seller's solicitor and the keys are released once they confirm receipt. Afterwards we pay the SDLT, register your ownership at HM Land Registry, comply with any lender requirements and send you a copy of the updated register once registration is complete.