1. Buying your New Home Seventy One Percent of people in Scotland own their own Home. Buying your new Home is one of the biggest steps you will make, your Home is important and it is essential that you buy a property in the correct location, of the correct size and within a budget you can afford.

The property market is continually changing. The most important thing, when looking for a new Home is to make a check list and visit as many as you can. Update your list should you notice something in a property, which you had not previously considered.

2. Decide if you should sell first
If you are already a homeowner, decide whether you want to sell your house or flat before you buy. It can be dangerous in a rising market, but there are upsides. In particular, you will be able to pounce quickly when you do find the home of your dreams, and you won’t be trapped in a housing chainIf you decide to buy and sell take a look at the steps you can take to make things run more smoothly

3. Decide on your budget
How much do you want to spend? This might be dependent on how much of a deposit you can get together.Don’t forget the variety of one-off and ongoing hidden costs of buying a home. These can put an extra 15% on the cost of your home – more if you are doing serious building or redecoration work.

4. Get your Finances in place
Work out how much of a deposit for the mortgage you can get together. Look at the Government Help to Buy Schemes, look at shared equity schemes to work out whether they can be of help to you. If you have any savings on long term deposit that you plan to use, cash them in.

Decide what sort of mortgage you want. There are plenty to choose from, Fixed Rate, Discounted, Variable, and Tracker. While you can’t get a mortgage before you buy, you can get a mortgage in principal which will put you in a stronger position.

5. Deciding where to live
If you want to move to a new home close to where you already live, there is little to decide. If you want to move to a different part of town, or across the country, then deciding the area is more difficult and time consuming.

This is a very important decision – get it wrong and you will either be unhappy with where you live, or face the costs of moving again. You must do your research thoroughly. You may be considering whether to buy a new build in a new development or a established older property .

6. Choosing the correct Property
Once you know the area you want to live, you should start researching the properties in that area thoroughly so you really get to know the local market well. You then need to get to know your local estate agents. You need to visit as many properties as possible, and make sure they are no hidden surprises If you are looking to buy a new build property, have a look at the section of this website relating to New Build Property.

7. Make an offer – and get it accepted
Make sure you are in the strongest possible position as a buyer. Decide how much you want to pay, including for fixtures and fittings. Make the offer to the estate agent, and seal the deal. Hopefully your offer will be accepted by the seller.

8. Arrange a Mortgage
You should ideally have got your finances in place as much as possible before making an offer – see step 4. If so, you now just need to go back to your mortgage company with the agreed offer and complete the process. If you haven’t got your finances in place, you must now scramble to do so as quickly as possible, before the seller loses patience. You will need to get the lender to make you a formal mortgage offer before you can exchange contracts.

9. Get Conveyancing Estimates

Once you have agreed an offer on your house, you need to get a Scottish Solicitor to handle the legal work to transfer ownership of the property to you. This is where we can help, Conveyancing Fees vary dependent on the location of the Solicitor and the type of Solicitor you are speaking to.

Many Conveyancing Solicitors only deal with residential property and are more able to answer your questions and update you. Some Solicitors also deal with Court work and may not be in the Office all day to assist. Check that your selected Solicitor is on the Conveyancing Panel for your selected lender Whether you are based in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Inverness or Aberdeen we can supply a conveyancing quote free of charge direct to your email.

Don’t necessarily go with the Solicitor suggested by the Estate Agent.Work selling the property you are interested in. Some times the legal fees charged are inflated to cover Commission for the Estate Agent. Work out how much the conveyancing will cost you and obtain a full and detailed estimate of conveyancing costs to buy and sell. The conveyancing solicitor will do the searches and report such as with the local authority and Environment Agency, to ensure there are not any major problems with the property.

10. Decide if you want a survey
Your mortgage lender will require a valuation by a surveyor, to ensure that the property is a good enough to lend against. This is not a proper survey, and will only look very superficially at the property, if at all. You can usually either get the valuation upgraded to a full survey, or you can commission a separate survey.

This should tell you everything you need to know about the property, and alert you to any potential problems you will face once you move in. Unless you are very experienced with property, it is usually worth getting a survey done.

11. Arrange a deposit
Before you complete missives you need to arrange a deposit of 10% of the sale price of the property, and give it to your solicitor. You should either have the 10% deposit from the deposit you have arranged for the whole property, or might be able to raise it from the sale of your existing home.

12. Conclusion of Missives.
When your Solicitor concludes missives you will have a legally binding contract for hte purchase of the property. It is essential that you have a mortgage and deposit in place to allow this to happen. 

13. Final arrangements and negotiations
You need to negotiate any final things that have not yet been agreed, such as buying the sellers fridge from them. You need to make arrangements for the supply of electricity, gas, water and telephone service, and that the seller has got readings made. Often, it is easiest simply to change the account name for the existing suppliers to the property, rather than change suppliers, which you can do at a later date.

The solicitor will inform the land registry that they are in the process of transferring ownership of your property. Your solicitor should be liaising with the mortgage company to ensure the money will be ready for completion. You need to ensure that your deposit is also ready, and normally you will pay that to your solicitors before completion.

14. Complete the Sale
Completion is when you pay for the property and take ownership of it, and takes place at a certain time of day – often midday. On the day of completion, the money is transferred and the deeds of the property are transferred, between each side’s solicitors

15. Locations

We supply conveyancing estimates for all Areas of Scotland, Glasgow Conveyancing, Edinburgh Conveyancing, Aberdeen Conveyancing and Inverness Conveyancing Solicitors. Conveyancing estimates are emailed to you FREE of charge.