Buying and selling a house can be a very stressful experience. It’s a lengthy process and once an offer on your house has been made and agreed it can be a complex process to make sure that the sale progresses well. There are some things you can do to help reduce the risk of your house sale falling through.
Use the services of a good solicitor and estate agent
The lengthy process of completing the sale can cause frustration for the buyer and some buyers may pull out because the process is taking too long. A good estate agent will also do a little background work on the buyer to establish if they are in a good position to go ahead with the sale. Where a buyer has a property to sell before completing the sale, this can slow the sale down and mean that the buyer has to pull out. It gets complicated if you’re also relying on the sale to complete the purchase of another home.
Identifying problems in the survey
Your buyer will arrange a home buyers survey for the house. If there are expensive problems identified in the survey, the buyer may decide to pull out or may haggle on the asking price that can jeopardise the sale. Try to address all maintenance issues before the survey goes ahead as it can be quite far down the line before the problems are identified and lead to the collapse of the sale. You might want to consider arranging a survey to identify problems before putting the house on the market. Arranging a survey can be quick and easy. Lots of websites let you get quick and easy quotes for arranging a survey. Try Sam Conveyancing to find out how much a survey would cost.
Do your homework
Selling a house is a complex procedure, do some background reading to find out how you can minimise the risk. Some things to look out for are listed in this article here: https://hoa.org.uk/advice/guides-for-homeowners/i-am-selling/step-by-step-guide-to-selling-your-home/
Consider your buyers
A good estate agent will find out what sort of position potential buyers are in to proceed with the sale. Sometimes the higher offer for your property may not be the most reliable. Buyers who are in a better position to buy (first time buyers or those not waiting for a mortgage application) may be a more suitable option even if their offer is lower.
Be proactive
Stay in touch with your estate agent and solicitor to make sure that things are progressing well, keep diary notes and try to minimise any delays in the process to avoid your buyer pulling out because of slow progress.
