Guide to selling your home The key steps involved with selling a property are summarised below. If you need any further information or advice, please don't hesitate to contact us.          

Ask yourself why you are selling and what you are trying to achieve. Establish the value of your current property by inviting an estate agent to meet you at the property to discuss values and a marketing strategy. Establish your mortgage position if you require a mortgage for your next move to ensure that what you are trying to achieve is possible. Select an estate agent and discuss the preparation of your property for sale with them. Arrange an Energy Performance Certificate. Approve property brochure and go live to the market. Viewings. Negotiating the deal. Legal Process. Moving day.

Why are you selling? People have a vast range of reasons for putting a property on the market. It is wise to reflect on your reasons for selling and what you want to achieve. The clearer you can be when discussing your intentions with us, the better we can advise you about how to achieve your goal. Establish the value of your current property. A realistic assessment of the value of your property is an important next step toward getting your property onto the market. Whilst local property newspapers and websites can be used to provide an indication of what your property might be worth, you will need the experience of a professional estate agent to get a more accurate and realistic assessment of its real value. We will be happy to provide you a free, no-obligation, property appraisal. We can meet you at your property a time that best suit your needs. Our appointment with you would typically take between 30-60 mins and would include a detailed inspection of your property. At our meeting, we will discuss the specific needs relevant to your own situation, market forces and current demand, previous transactions in your street and activity levels with other property similar to your own. This information will help us advise you on:   

The potential value range applicable to your property. The selling process. How Bishop & Company can work with you to achieve your objective.

Any questions or concerns you have can also be addressed at this meeting. To book a free valuation, please submit a request here. (link to request a val page)

Establish your mortgage position This section is only relevant if you require a mortgage for an onward purchase. The mortgage market has become much more complex as time goes by. You may feel that you will easily get a mortgage but this is the stage to establish exactly what your position is. From our experience, there is little worse than marketing your property, finding a buyer, searching for your next home, agreeing to buy it and then find you can’t get the mortgage you thought you could. Our experienced, whole of market, mortgage advice team, will be pleased to discuss your requirements with you. They are able to do this face to face, over the phone or via e-mail. Our service is comprehensive so appointments can be held in our dedicated mortgage centre office, at your home or place of work to suit. We are available during normal office hours but also during weekday evenings and all day Saturday. Our team will discuss your options with you so that you know exactly where you stand going forward. There is no charge for these discussions and absolutely no obligation. Click here to book an appointment (link to book a mortgage apt) Select an estate agent Having established the value of your property and decided to go onto the market, you will need to choose an Agent to act for you. When considering which agent to use, be careful of those suggesting inflated values (which can leave you languishing on the market whilst those around you sell) or knock-down commission (you will get what you pay for!). Remember, we do not tie you into lengthy contracts as we believe that you should work with because you are happy to, not because you have to! A successful agency will have a comprehensive marketing strategy and methods, professional & courteous staff and a realistic expectation of what the market can achieve. With us, you only pay commission when we successfully sell your property and you'll always have access to a specialist team dedicated to sales. But, beyond that, we provide a significantly higher level of service that you would typically expect from a traditional estate agency. Just be aware of the agent that wants you to pay a fee in advance, ask yourself what their incentive is to sell your home and achieve best price? Should you decide that we are the trusted agent to work with your best interest at heart, this is the time that we would go into more detail about property presentation and preparing your home for sale. The majority of buyers now use internet property portals to search for a home. The visual imagery used with these listings are the first taste of your home a potential purchaser is likely to experience and this will hugely influence whether they contact us to arrange a viewing. Preparing your home for photography and other visuals we develop (such as property tours) is therefore one of the most important actions you can take to maximise your chances of attracting interest. This could involve some moving of furniture and basic de-cluttering. With us, you don't have to – as we can do all this for you as part of the instruction process. Our consultant will allow enough time to work through your property on a room-by-room basis to carefully consider the best layout of furnishings, removal of personal items and the best aspects to capture. Room dimensions and details will be recorded and a plan of the property will also be drawn.

Arranging an Energy Performance Certificate An Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) for a property is a legal requirement. We can arrange to have an EPC produced for you, quickly and without fuss – and at a very competitive rate! Contact us to learn more about our EPC service. Brochure approval and going live Here at Bishop & Company, we always believe that we are working in partnership with you. The property brochure is an extremely important part of the selling process so we always ask you to approve everything we have done before putting the property ‘on the market’. Going live means that it is now publicly for sale so will be displayed on property portals, newspapers and in our high street premises. Conducting viewings Estate Agents commit huge amounts of time and money towards marketing properties to prospective purchasers - with the prime aim of encouraging them to view the property. As part of our standard service, we accompany all viewings. We will discuss with you the best times of the day & week to present your property and do our best to steer appointments around these times. Many considerations need to be made, including your normal weekly patterns, parking availability and traffic levels, children and pets, light levels and garden aspects. We are available to conduct viewings until 7pm on weekdays and 4pm on Saturdays. Negotiating the deal Any offer received will be put forward to you verbally at the first available opportunity, and in writing within twenty-four hours. You will need to make a response to any offer. If the initial offer is rejected and the purchaser decides to increase their offer, the process will simply be repeated. We will make all best endeavours to qualify purchasers in advance of any viewings - but at the very latest, at offer time. By "qualify" we mean that we will formally check their status and ability to proceed with any offer they make. In order for us to do this, we will ask for contact details of their broker or mortgage lender, and any estate agent dealing with their current property sale. You will need instruct a solicitor/conveyancer to act for you in the sale. It is only when this information has been provided and we have contacted the necessary parties for verification of your purchasers' situation that we will consider whether it would be pertinent to stop showing your property to other prospective purchasers. It is at this stage that we will try to make you aware of any chain implications and the likely timescale of any agreed transaction. Due to the nature of the buying process, it is important to note and understand that any information provided by us concerning the transaction chain is not guaranteed and could change at any time. However, regular liaison will be made with legal parties acting on both your and your buyers behalf to ensure we can keep you abreast of progress on a timely basis.

Legal process Once you have accepted an offer the legal process starts to arrange for contracts to be drawn up and agreed, to confirm payment is made for your property, and that legal title is properly transferred to your buyer. To support the process, you (and your buyer) will need to instruct a solicitor or conveyancer to do this work on your behalf. The choice of who will act for you is entirely at your discretion but to help you with this, we promote a range of different and very competitive conveyancing options. Please contact us for further information. In summary, the overall legal process to exchange and complete contracts with your buyer generally takes the following steps:    

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Terms are agreed between Seller and Buyer and both parties instruct their conveyancer to work for them. The Seller’s conveyancer obtains the Seller’s title deed and prepares the draft Contract for the Buyer’s conveyancer to approve The Seller’s conveyancer issues the Buyers conveyancer the draft Contract together with rest of the documentation needed to form the overall contractual package. The Buyer’s conveyancer reviews the detailed terms of the Contract, does the Searches and reviews the results, confirms that there is a Mortgage Offer in place, and also checks the readiness of any dependent sale (in the same chain) to proceed. Contracts are then signed and exchanged at which time a Completion Date is agreed between both parties. The Transfer Deed is prepared by the Buyer’s conveyancer and approved by the Seller’s conveyancer, and then signed in readiness for the Completion Date. The Buyer’s conveyancer obtains the funds for the purchase from the Buyer – either directly, or through the sale of his/her previous property – and the lender (if there is a Mortgage) On the Completion Date the Buyer’s conveyancer sends the required funds to the Seller’s conveyancer (on behalf of the Seller). When receipt of these funds is confirmed by the Sellers conveyancer, the purchase is deemed compete and the Buyer can take legal occupation. The Buyer’s conveyancer pays any Stamp Duty due, and registers the Buyer as the new owner of the property at the Land Registry

Our advice: The time it takes to progress through this stage is dependent on various factors – We don’t predict how long the process will take because many factors involved in the process are out of our hands (and yours!). However, to speed up the process from your end, we recommend you instruct legal representation prior to finding a buyer as there are various things they can do well in advance, and hence save time later. This includes calling for your title deeds office copy entries and various other documents – all of which can take some time to get hold of. It’s worth completing various documents in advance – such as the “Sellers Property Information Form” and “Fixture Fittings and Contents” declaration – as these will also help speed up things later.

Surveys In parallel to the legal process, one of more surveys may be commissioned on your property. If the Buyer requires a Mortgage their lender will make arrangements for a very basic survey (known as a Valuation) to provide assurances that it’s worth the price being offered for it. In addition to this, the Buyer may also commission a more comprehensive survey – which will assess in more detail the condition of the property and make appropriate recommendations. Moving Day The moving date is agreed by all parties and confirmed at exchange of contracts. You need to be well prepared so make sure you have made arrangements with a removal company or booked your transport to complete the move. You will need to vacate the house during the morning as completion will often take place around midday but can be later. The solicitors will advise us that completion has taken place and we are then authorised to give the keys to the new owners.

Hopefully you will have found this guide useful. Should you wish to talk to us further about selling your home please do not hesitate to contact us. You can book a valuation by clicking this link. (link to book a val)