1. Contact your Estate Agent
2. Contact your Solicitor
3. Instruct your Solicitor to prepare the contents of the Housing Information Pack (HIP)
4.1 Complete Home Use Form (HUF)
4.2 Complete Home Contents Form (HCF)
5. Purchaser arranges survey & mortgage
6. Survey
7. Exchange of Contracts
8. The deposit
9. Completion date
10. Paying off the Mortgage

1. Contact your Estate Agent
Before the property can be marketed tell your Agent to inform your Solicitor that you want a HIP to be prepared.  You should advise the Estate Agent of the name and address and contact details of your Solicitor and the person a your Solicitors who will be dealing with matters on your behalf.

2. Contact your Solicitor
You should contact your Solicitor instruct him to prepare a HIP and give him the name, address and account number of your mortgage lender if applicable.

3. Property Questionnaires - HIPs
You will then need to provide information for your Solicitor to prepare an HIP which will provide the buyers with information about the property, details of any guarantees, and important information. These must be answered fully and truthfully. There have recently been cases where Sellers have glossed over important issues such as problems with rights of ways and disputes with neighbours which have proved very costly to the Seller when the property was sold and the Buyers discovered the truth of the history of the property.

4.1 Home Use Form (HUF)
This will provide information as to the history of your use of the property.

4.2 Home Contents Form (HCF)
Your Solicitor will also ask you to complete an HCF setting out in detail what you will be taking and what you will be leaving at the property.

5. Survey and Mortgage
Most people borrow money from a bank or building society to help them buy their house. This is usually quite a substantial sum and the mortgage will be registered against the title of the property. If the Buyer intends that there will be persons over the age of 18 years including children living at the property who are not owners, they will need to sign a form of consent to the mortgage. They may need independent solicitors advice before they sign this form. They will need to sign that form before the mortgage is taken up by the Buyer’s Solicitor. The Buyer/s will also need to sign the mortgage deed, preferably in their Solicitor’s presence so that the terms of the mortgage can be explained to them and the Buyers understand the obligations that they are accepting by taking the mortgage.

6. Survey
The original proposal by the Government was that a survey known as a Home Condition Report (HCR) has to be included in the HIP. This has been abandoned, not least because it was felt that neither Buyers nor Mortgage Lenders would accept the Seller’s Survey. Under the HIP Rules it remains an option for the Seller to supply an HCR but it is anticipated that most, if not all, Buyers will want their own survey. We at WGS recommend that Buyers do obtain a survey (see survey). In addition their bank or mortgage lender will carry out a valuation on their behalf to ensure that they are getting a property which equates to the value of the loan. However, this provides Buyers with no information or security. If you are buying a property WGS advise Buyers to obtain their own survey. Most lenders will organise either a valuation survey which really is for their benefit, or a full survey, at a higher cost, which is the Buyer’s survey. WGS recommend a full survey because:-
6.1 It will tell if there are any defects in the building which you should know about.
6.2 It provides you with ammunition to negotiate price if there were hidden defects that a Buyer could not have seen when he/she first made your offer of purchase.
6.3 If there are hidden defects which have been spotted by the surveyor but which a Buyer could not have known about then since Buyers are entitled to rely upon their surveyor’s expertise in preparing a survey a Buyer might have a negligence claim if such defects should appear and prove to be expensive. The provision of a survey (now known as a Home Condition Report) supplied by the Seller is an optional document in a HIPS pack.

7. Exchange of Contracts
In the last century when the parties agreed to be bound to buy or sell a property the solicitors would meet and literally pass over a desk an agreement that each client had signed so that they, at that time, exchanged contracts and handed over the deposit. Nowadays, sadly, the two Solicitors almost never meet. Exchange of contracts is effected by telephone and each solicitor promises to deliver to the other the contract which his client has signed and the Buyer's Solicitor also promises to deliver the deposit to the Seller's Solicitor.

8. The Deposit
Usually 10% of the purchase price, which will be held by the Seller’s solicitor in a stakeholder client account, and it can be used by the Seller in the purchase of another property as payment of, or part payment of, the Seller’s deposit. If a Seller agrees to accept a deposit of less than 10% Buyers must appreciate that if the Buyer fails to complete his purchase the contract will contain an obligation for the Buyer to pay the full 10% which will be recoverable from the Buyer by legal action if, having failed to complete, a full deposit was not paid. The Contract will also provide for the Seller to be able to make other claims against the Buyer in the event of the Buyer delaying completion or failing to complete. The Seller will be entitled to be compensated for expenses and losses that the Seller has suffered if the Buyer has not fulfilled your obligation under the Contract.

9. Completion Date
When the parties are ready to exchange contracts they will need to agree on a completion date. That date will be the date of the actual move when the money will be transferred and the keys will be handed over. On the day of completion the Buyer’s Solicitor will send the monies to the Seller’s who will redeem any mortgage if applicable, will deduct fees as agreed and, if selling a property, the money which remains will be forwarded to the Seller’s bank Obviously if the Seller is purchasing a property on the same day then the Solicitor will use the money received for the purchase.

10. Paying off the Mortgage
Paying off your mortgage. When your Solicitor completes the sale he will need to pay off your mortgage. Before completion your Solicitor would have written to your mortgage lender to ask for confirmation of the amount that you owe. This is known as a mortgage redemption statement. Your Solicitor will check that you agree the figures and immediately after completion your Solicitor will need to send this money to the mortgage lender so that your Buyer gets clear title to the property free of the mortgage.

WGS Solicitors can provide a HIP rapidly.
Provided you use WGS for the property sale we will not charge for ordering the HIP. Otherwise:
Freehold HIPs will cost from £299 + VAT.
Leasehold HIPs will cost from £329 + VAT

external links:

To find out more about Home Information Packs visit  Central Government HIP's page:

www.homeinformationpacks.gov.uk

or Local Government HIP's page: