Support for you
The Key Stages of a Transfer of Equity
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Stage One: Instructions
Once you have confirmed your instructions with us, we will write to you confirming our instructions, an estimate of fees and disbursements and our terms and conditions of business. We will also send our Client Information Form to you to complete. This will tell us details of any finance secured against the property, solicitors details of your co-owner who is to be removed from the property and any deadlines imposed on the transaction.
It is at this stage you will be informed of the name and status of the person who will carry out the work together details of their regulated supervisor.
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Stage Two: Identity Checks
In order to confirm your identity and comply with the law on money laundering, we will need 1 form of photographic ID (driving licence or passport) and 2 utility bills/bank statements no more than 3 months old for proof of address (these must be originals and not printed from the Internet).
We will discuss with you the best way to provide these at the time.
We ask for £50 on account at the outset to cover disbursements and then everything else is payable at completion. Solicitors are obliged by the Law Society to verify the source of all funds received into their Client Account. We will ask you to provide documentation evidencing the source of your deposit funds and purchase monies.
If any financial contribution is to be made by a third party they will also need to provide us with evidence as to how the funds have been accumulated and over what period of time. We will also require their identification documents in the same way we requested yours at the outset. The position regarding the gift will need to be reported to any lender you may have for their authority to proceed.
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Stage Three: Pre Completion
Once you have returned the signed Terms and Conditions and Client Information Form formalising your instructions we will obtain title documents from the Land Registry and review them to ensure a marketable title. We will also review the costs estimate and revise if necessary providing you with updated information regarding any fees or disbursements in line with any changes.
A transfer deed will be prepared and sent to the seller’s acting for the co-owner for approval together with a copy of the title documents. Once the transfer is approved we will send it to you for signature. Once you have returned the transfer we will discuss completion dates with you and the seller’s acting for your co-owner. Once a completion date has been set we will prepare a completion statement for you. If we require funds to complete we will require these to be in our account no later than 4pm on the working day prior to completion.
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Stage Four: Completion
On the day of completion, any funds will be transferred to the solicitors acting for your co-owner and once the funds transfer has been made, the transaction is deemed to have been completed.
We will make an application to the Land Registry for the registration of the transfer to have the title updated to remove your co-owner from the register and once completion formalities have been completed we will send a copy of the updated title to you for your information. Your file will then be closed which will be held for 15 years. If you want we can arrange for any deeds to be held in storage. This service if free of charge.
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