Booking Deposits

themossinator

Hi - does anyone know how long you can hold off signing contracts after you have paid a booking deposit on a house? Is it purely down to the estate agent's timelines?
thanks

the_syco

Buying or renting?

guccigal

It depends really, once you decide you are interested in that property the ball will start rolling, contracts will be sent to your solicitor, you will have to get a valuation and survey done on the property you are purchasing and by the time is all done it could be a couple of weeks. Once all of that is out of the way you would be expected to pay the remainder of the 10% of purchase price and then the contracts should be signed and sent back to the vendors with an agreed date. I've done all this except we are having issues with moving in. we were supposed to get keys last Friday and we still haven't got them contracts were signed but there is complications on the vendors side. we will be homeless in a couple of days time if we don't get them in the next 2 days!

BeatNikDub

Nothing to do with the EA at that stage, it's between the two solicitors, they will dictate how quickly/slowly contracts are done up and signed.

themossinator

thanks all

Trish56

If you are getting a mortgage to purchase the property your Solicitor will advise you not to sign the contract until the Loan Offer is received.

ionadnapokot

Trish56 wrote: »

If you are getting a mortgage to purchase the property your Solicitor will advise you not to sign the contract until the Loan Offer is received.

Does a letter of approval from your bank constitute a "loan offer is received"?

ionadnapokot

guccigal wrote: »

It depends really, once you decide you are interested in that property the ball will start rolling, contracts will be sent to your solicitor, you will have to get a valuation and survey done on the property you are purchasing and by the time is all done it could be a couple of weeks. Once all of that is out of the way you would be expected to pay the remainder of the 10% of purchase price and then the contracts should be signed and sent back to the vendors with an agreed date. I've done all this except we are having issues with moving in. we were supposed to get keys last Friday and we still haven't got them contracts were signed but there is complications on the vendors side. we will be homeless in a couple of days time if we don't get them in the next 2 days!

Hope it went well for you.
You mentioned "agreed date" in the contract when it went back to the Vendor. What was the agreed date in reference to?

Trish56

ionadnapokot wrote: »

Does a letter of approval from your bank constitute a "loan offer is received"?

It depends if it is an 'Approval in Principle' or a' full loan offer'. If it's a letter of offer your Solicitor will have received a copy.

ionadnapokot

Trish56 wrote: »

It depends if it is an 'Approval in Principle' or a' full loan offer'. If it's a letter of offer your Solicitor will have received a copy.

I have "letter of approval" from the bank. But it is not specific to the house we are bidding on.

Trish56

ionadnapokot wrote: »

I have "letter of approval" from the bank. But it is not specific to the house we are bidding on.

It appears that you have an 'approval in principle' as if it's not specific to the property you are purchasing the lender will require a valuation on the property and depending on the lender you will have to submit a full application if you have not already done so. You need to check with your Solicitor who would usually insist that you only sign the contract when you have full loan offer.

The contract could have a condition that it is subject to you obtaining loan approval for the property in question.

ionadnapokot

Thanks for that. I will check all specifics with the broker again.