Karen's Knowledge Share - Buying a New Home

Buying a New Home

You’ve found your dream home and don’t know what to do next! Our dedicated conveyancing team here at McSherry Halliday are here to help…

Our team can note interest on your behalf with the Estate Agent, ascertain if the vendor is open to considering verbal offers or if there is potential for a Closing Date to be set. A Closing Date is when a fixed date and time is set for all interested purchasers to submit Formal (written) Offers. This must be done by a Solicitor on your behalf. Whilst we cannot advise how much you should offer for a property, we will provide you with advice on how we have experienced the market to be in recent times, such as whether or not the market is particularly buoyant with properties being sold in excess of Home Report value/asking price or not. Ultimately, the decision on how much to offer will be yours to make based on your affordability and personal circumstances…

When submitting an Offer for a property, whether verbally or formally in writing we will require to obtain information from you about the property and your particular circumstances. We will ask…

• Which Estate Agent is marketing the property and the property address;
• Have you read the Home Report and already viewed the property;
• Are you buying a property in your sole name or with another person;
• Are you obtaining lending to assist with the purchase, do you have a decision in principal from a lender and how are you funding the remainder of the purchase price;
• Are you selling another property to assist with the purchase and, if so, is your property already on the market/ready to be marketed if your offer is accepted;
• Do you have a required date of entry that you wish or need us to work towards. If not, it is most often the case, that a date of entry will be negotiated on and agreed throughout the missives (contract) process;
• Do you have any specific items, usually referred to as extras or moveables, you would wish to be included in the purchaser i.e. white goods etc. Like with a date of entry, such items are generally negotiated on and agreed throughout the missive process; and
• Most importantly, we will ask for the value and marketing price of the property and how much you wish to offer for the property.

The more information you are able to provide, the more we can advise the Estate Agent of your position which can assist a vendor when considering your offer. It also ensures that the relevant Clauses are included in a Formal Offer to protect your position i.e. by making the Formal Offer subject to your mortgage offer being issued and/or sale missives concluding, we can be certain that you will not be tied into a legally binding contract without having your funding in place.

We appreciate that buying, and selling, a property can be a stressful process. Our expert conveyancing team will assist you in making an offer for your dream home and, if successful, will be there for you throughout to guide you through the purchase process step-by-step.