My Experience Of Putting My Shared Ownership Flat Up For Sale- Part 2

This post is a follow up from January’s part 1 of my experience selling a shared ownership property, as there was too much to say in one post. By the point that we had a buyer agreed it was 4 weeks from my initial conversation with the housing association asking about selling. Moving house was a daunting process for me as it’s not something I’ve really had to do on a large scale but it’s good preperation for when we buy.

Choosing a solicitor for your shared ownership property

From this point I had to appoint a solicitor to deal with things from my side so I called around the three that my housing association recommended to get quotes. I wasn’t sure what to expect but the one I went for was about £700 with costs which could go up to £1,500 if certain extra things were needed which I won’t really know about until they happen. Once I instructed the housing association they got the memorandum of sale over to me within less than one week which is when I appointed my solicitor officially and paid their deposit *eek*

Once my solicitor was appointed I was sent a lot of paperwork through to sign and go through including stuff about my lease, fixings and fittings I would be leaving and it took quite a while to go through. This was then submitted including submissions of my ID to my solicitors.

In the meantime I had a call from a surveyor who was appointed by the buyers lender to do a valuation and check that they were happy to accept their mortgage. Thankfully as I had a day off work I was able to get this booked in just a few days later.

The lenders valuation and paperwork

The lenders valuation was very much like my own, he went around, took some measurements and asked me some questions. After he left I heard nothing about it but I assume if it was negative and they didn’t think it was worth it for the buyers I’d have known.

There was a lot of stuff that my solicitor needed from the housing association and thankfully as mine was a new build I didn’t have a management pack to provide so this was done by the housing association for free *hooray*. I do think if you’re not the first buyer this is something you need to keep handy for if you ever sell. By 7 weeks after the whole process started I was in a position to just wait now as I’d filled in and sent all the paperwork I needed to and I’d even signed my end of the contract ready for when it was needed.

The next step was for my solicitors to send over all the paperwork to my buyers solicitors and allow them to ask any questions but due to Christmas this was due to be done when the offices re-opened in January.

Post- Christmas selling my shared ownership flat

Due to everywhere being shut for about 2 week’s my solicitor was back in the office on Wednesday 2nd January which was now at the 9 week and 2 day mark. Straight after Christmas the housing association had sent over some paperwork and it was left with the buyers solicitors to then review all the paperwork and send across any questions they had from this which seemed to take ages. I know solicitors have a lot of clients but this took a few weeks for them to send over questions.

The questions which I had over were mostly pretty basic and I could answer such as which car parking space I had, had this ever changed and had I encountered any issues in the car park. They also confirmed around whether I’d broken any parts of the lease, and then some talk around the service charge. Annoyingly one question had to be answered by the housing associations solicitors which meant at the start of February I was still waiting for all the questions to be answered.

Once the questions had all been answered it was just a waiting game with solicitors.

The lead up to exchanging my property

On Friday 15th February which was 14 weeks and 5 days after the flat went up for sale I was told that the solicitors were all happy with the questions and we’d be looking to exchange the following week with completion due to happen on Thursday 28th February. Exchange is when the contracts are exchanged and tends to happen a week before completion which is when the keys are physically handed over.

In the lead up to the exchange I was told I needed to print off some paperwork to sign and send back to them next day which was a bit stressful as I think they forget that people work full-time but I managed to pop out at lunchtime and do this although I did have to scan and send some more paperwork after this. Exchange officially happened for me on Friday 22nd February which was 15 weeks and 5 days after putting it on the market.

Moving out of my shared ownership property

As we were moving into my parents we decided to start moving the weekend before completion as we needed to move some things into storage, some things to my nan’s and the rest to my parents where we were going to be living. We spoke to some removal companies but decided in the end to just rent a large van and do it ourselves as we weren’t doing a simple move from one space to another.

As we had a whole weekend we split everything up which gave me 3-4 days to do a thorough clean of the space before the new owners moved in. The day before completion was due I had a statement from my solicitors outlining how much my part of the property was and any outgoings which was to come out of it including my mortgage pay off, solicitors fees, network housing fee’s etc so I then had a statement of how much I’d be looking to get which was good. The solicitors get the money on the completion day when I hand over the keys and from there it takes me 3-4 days to get it to me.

The date I officially handed the keys over and passed everything on to the new owners was Thursday 28th February which was 16 weeks and 4 days from my initial call. Even though the journey was a bit up and down near the end the whole process was still much quicker than I had anticipated.

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