Today’s advice is to make sure all offers you receive on your property are ‘qualified’ correctly which will increase the chances of your sale actually completing.

Unfortunately, a large proportion of all property sales fall through once they have been agreed (the time between accepting the offer on your property and exchange of contracts), costing property owners a lot of wasted time, money and stress.

There are things you and your estate agent can do to reduce the chances of your sale falling through.

One of the reasons sales fall though is because the correct checks are not carried out by the estate agent when the sale is agreed.

There are 2 key areas to check:

1. The buyers financial position
2.  The chain beneath them (if applicable)

The buyers financial position

When a buyer makes an offer of purchase for your property, it’s important to make sure they can actually afford the property, before you even remove your listing from the market. There are various ways to do this, but I prefer  to have buyers speak to my trusted mortgage expert and to see proof of their deposit OR I ask to see a copy of their mortgage agreement in principle and proof of their deposit. I will also talk to their financial adviser before I agree to remove a listing from the market.

Not all buyers will require a mortgage and sometimes buyers get a little confused. I had a situation recently where I received an offer from a young family, who said they were ‘cash buyers’. Great you might think. But the cash was coming from the sale of their house which wasn’t even on the market yet.

If a buyer really is cash, you will want to make sure your estate agent has seen a copy of their bank statement showing the cash as available cleared funds.

The chain below (if applicable)

If the person who has offered on your property has a property to sell, which is under offer, it’s important that your agent ‘checks the chain’. This will involve speaking to every estate agent in the chain below and confirming the current situation and asking the right questions, such as:

• When was the sale agreed?
• Have solicitors confirmed they are instructed?
• Has the mortgage valuation been carried out and when?
• Has the mortgage offer been received yet by the buyer of their property?

I recently received an offer from a lady who told me she was under offer. I spoke to her estate agent and she was under offer, but to someone who wasn’t under offer themselves. Therefore it was an incomplete chain. This causes a problem and ideally you don’t want to be entering into a sale with someone who has an incomplete chain behind them.

The crucial part to all of this is that these checks are carried out before you accept and offer and remove your property advert from websites.

If you would like to discuss this in more detail call James on 02084321505 or email me at james@fishneedwater.com