16 Things You Need To Know When Buying A House

16 Things You Need To Know When Buying A House 

Here is a brief outline of  the procedure you need to know to buy a property:

1. You would need to contact your lending institution and get loan approval for your mortgage before you sign the Contracts to purchase the property.

2. I understand that you have been requested to pay a booking deposit to the Auctioneer of €5,000.  This is a deposit payable to show your interest in purchasing the property and is fully refundable to you in the event that the sale does not proceed for whatever reason. The Auctioneer will send us a Sales Advice Slip on receipt of booking deposit to let us know who the solicitor acting for the Vendor is and to confirm payment of your booking deposit.  We then write to the Solicitor for the Vendor requesting Contracts.

3. You will need to employ the services of a good engineer to carry out a survey on the property and check out planning permissions etc.  The importance of having a survey carried out cannot be overstated as “The day you buy is the day you sell” and you are investing a lot of money when purchasing a property.  We will arrange to furnish you with our standard engineer’s letter together with copy planning permissions, maps etc. to give to your engineer indicating what will need to be checked out in respect of the property.  These will be furnished with the Contract documentation from the Solicitor for the Vendors.

4. Once you have your loan approval from the lending institution and you are happy that your engineer has checked everything out for you and we are happy that the title is in order you can arrange to come and sign the contracts.  On receipt of the Contracts we would normally raise our pre-contract queries with the Solicitor for the Vendor in respect of any queries we have prior to you signing the Contracts. When you come to sign the contracts you will need the balance of 10% in order to sign the contracts – in other words 10% of the purchase price which is €31,200 less €5,000 the amount you will have already paid to the Auctioneer.

5. We will then arrange to have you sign the contracts and hopefully we should have received a loan pack from your bank at that stage and can arrange for you to sign the mortgage documents on the same day.

6. We would be obliged if you could let us know who your lending institution / bank is for the mortgage and you might forward them our details so that they can send the necessary documents to us.

7. Once the contracts are signed they are returned to the Solicitors for the Vendors for them to sign them.  They do not become binding until they are signed by the Vendor also.

8. We will then raise our further Requisitions/Queries on Title and the Solicitor for the Vendor will reply to them.

9. Once we are happy with the replies we will then send a list of our closing requirements to the Solicitor for the Vendors and draft the deeds transferring the property to you.
10. We will need to draw down your loan cheque prior to closing the sale so that we will be in funds to close.
11. We will then carry out searches on you and the Vendors and the property prior to closing the sale.
12. When we are in receipt of all the closing documents and we are happy with them and the explanation which the Solicitor for the Vendors give to our searches we will authorise for the purchase monies to be released to the Vendors and you will get the keys to the property.
13. We will then arrange for you to sign the Title Deeds.
14. The Deed will be stamped online with the Revenue Commissioners. All fees, outlays and stamp duty must be discharged to our office prior to closing the sale so that we may honour our undertaking given to your lending institution in order to draw down your loan cheque.
15. The deeds are then sent for registration in the Land Registry/Property Registration Authority – The Registrar of Title Deeds for registered properties in Ireland (or the Registry of Deeds if the title to the property is an unregistered title).
16. Once the Deeds are finally registered they will be forwarded to the Bank on foot of your mortgage.  We have to give the bank an undertaking at the beginning of the transaction which undertakes to furnish the bank with a good title and to hand over the title deeds to the property to be held by the bank for as long as there is money outstanding on your mortgage.

It is a long process but do not be put off by all the details.  This just gives you the big picture as to what happens in a normal transaction.  This is of course provided that it is a smooth transaction.  This we cannot tell at this stage but would hope that this will be the case.

The important things for you to attend to at the moment are:

1. Contact the auctioneer / selling agent and ask them to furnish us with a Sales Advice Slip and let them know that we act for you.
2. Organise your loan approval for your mortgage and instruct your bank/broker to send the mortgage documents to our office.
3. Organise an engineer carry out a structural survey of the property and check out the planning permissions and boundaries etc.  If you forward details of your engineer to us we can arrange to forward our standard letter to him outlining what he needs to check out
4. Furnish us with your P.P.S. (Personal Public Service) No. which is required to stamp your title deeds.
5. Organise to furnish us with a copy of your STATE marriage certificate (if applicable).  This is not your church marriage certificate but the one that comes from the Registrar of Marriages.
6. Copy of your passport or driving licence and copy utility bill showing your current address (if you are a new client in our office).  This is required from all new clients in our office in line with money laundering legislation.

If you have any queries regarding the above please do not hesitate to contact us at 071 9129070 today.