Congratulations,
you're sold.
Contents.
The hard part is done.
The call you were waiting for has happened. Your buyer is found, the price is agreed, and the board says sold. Congratulations — take tonight to enjoy it.
Now for some honesty, because you will always get that from me. Sale agreed is the point where much of my industry quietly disappears. The board flips, the file moves to a call centre, and the next call the seller gets is the one asking why it has all gone quiet.
Around one in three agreed sales in England and Wales falls through before exchange. Very few collapse because the buyer changed their mind. They collapse because paperwork sat still, questions went unanswered, and nobody chased anybody until it was too late.
So this is the stage where my job properly starts. I progress every sale myself. I speak to both solicitors every week, I chase the whole chain — not just our link of it — and my sales progressor AI Myk works between my calls so nothing ever waits for me.
This guide walks you through everything ahead: the legal work, the survey, the chain, exchange and completion — and exactly when you will hear from me at every step of it.
What I ask of you is what I have asked from the start: speed on the paperwork, and honesty. If anything changes, or anything worries you, ring me first.
And when it is all done — when the keys are handed over and the van pulls away — I want you to say the whole thing felt looked after, from the first photograph to the final phone call. That is the standard this guide is written to.
"Agreeing your sale was my first job.
Getting you over the line is the real one."
What happens next
Within a day of your offer being agreed, the machinery is already moving. Most of it you will never see — so here is what has actually happened.
I confirmed the sale in writing to both sides and sent the memorandum of sale — the document that introduces the buyers, the sellers and both solicitors to each other. Your listing switches to Sold Subject to Contract, and your buyer's position — funds, mortgage, chain — was verified before I ever put their offer to you.
Your two jobs this week are simple, and both are worth days later on: instruct your solicitor formally, and complete their ID checks and property forms the moment they arrive. Everything in chapter four waits for those forms.
From here, your sale runs on a route map of twenty-two milestones — the same ones you will watch tick green in MBSP. The next page shows every one of them.
"The sold board is a promise, not a result. The next few weeks are where it is kept."
Your journey, milestone by milestone
Twenty-two milestones sit between today and the keys. These are the exact stages you will see in MBSP — and the moment any one of them completes, AI Myk emails you. A tick on the portal and a note in your inbox, always together.
The conveyancing process
Between now and exchange, your sale lives with the solicitors. This is the stage people find most opaque — so here is what they are actually doing, in the same order MBSP will show it to you.
Your solicitor drafts the contract pack — the title, the contract and your completed property forms — and sends it to the buyer's side. Nothing else can start until this lands, which is why instructing early matters so much.
The buyer's solicitor orders local authority, drainage and environmental searches on your property. Councils take anywhere from days to six weeks — the least controllable stretch of any sale, which is why they are ordered early.
The buyer's solicitor reads everything and asks questions — the boiler service, the boundary, the paperwork for that extension. A long list is normal and not hostile. It is a solicitor doing their job properly.
Your solicitor replies — and often needs you: a certificate, a form, a fact about the house only you know. This is the milestone where your speed matters most. Same-day answers here save weeks at the end.
The buyer's solicitor confirms every answer satisfies them. It looks quiet from the outside, but this is the moment the legal risk drains out of your sale — the last of the questions, answered.
The contract is agreed final on both sides. From here your file moves into closing: the deposit, the signatures, and the two big days the ninth chapter explains.
"Conveyancing is a long, careful conversation between two solicitors. My job is to make sure it never becomes a long silence."
The chain, explained
A chain is every sale linked to yours — because your buyer is selling too, or you are buying on. Every link must exchange on the same day and complete on the same day, which is why one slow solicitor three houses away can hold up everyone.
On day one I map the whole chain — every agent, every solicitor, every buyer's position. Then I ring up and down it every week, because the agent four links away is not going to call me. You hear where the real block is, not a rumour of one.
No link completes unless every link does. Agreeing a completion date is a negotiation along the whole chain — which is why it happens late, and why I start asking early.
A chain moves at the speed of its slowest solicitor. You cannot choose the other links' conveyancers — but chapter eight shows how much choosing yours well is worth.
If your buyer has nothing to sell and you are not buying on, you can skip this page entirely — it is the fastest kind of sale there is, and the seventeen-day story in chapter eight was one.
The survey guide
Soon after the mortgage application, visits get booked — MBSP shows them as Survey Booked, then Survey Complete. There are four versions your buyer might order, and every single one of them reads worse than the house. That is by design, not a verdict.
Ordered by the lender, for the lender. It confirms the agreed price supports the loan — sometimes without anyone visiting at all. It says nothing about condition, and the buyer may never even see it.
A traffic-light snapshot for newer, conventional homes: green, amber, red against each element. No advice, no valuation — just a health check. The least common of the three.
The one most buyers choose. Condition plus anything visibly wrong — damp readings, the roof from the ground, the obvious defects — without lifting boards or moving furniture. And fair warning: the ratings usually open with four or five red 3s before the surveyor has judged anything — gas, electrics, heating and the flue are marked 3 automatically, because surveyors are not qualified to test services. There, a 3 means "have a specialist check it", not "something is wrong". Beyond that, cautious wording is standard; expect "could not be inspected" a dozen times.
The deep one — for older, extended or unusual homes. The surveyor goes further: into the loft, under what can be lifted, behind what can be moved — structure, movement, damp, timber, roof coverings, with repair options and rough costs against each defect. It runs to dozens of pages and takes half a day on site, so expect it later in the diary than a Level 2. The same automatic red 3s apply to gas and electrics here too. A long list of notes is the product doing its job, not the house failing. Do not panic at the page count.
Surveyors are paid to be cautious, and almost every point raised is maintenance, not emergency. From here there are only three ways forward: the buyer proceeds as agreed, we have a sensible price conversation backed by quotes, or specific works are agreed before exchange. I handle that negotiation — you decide the answer, never under pressure.
If the lender's valuation comes in below the agreed price, the same applies: we renegotiate, the buyer bridges the gap, or we appeal with real comparable sales. I have fought down-valuations before and won — the appeal is mine to build, not yours to worry about.
Mortgage timelines
Unless your buyer is cash, their lender sets the pace of the first month. Here is the clock they are running on — the same milestones MBSP tracks for you.
"Buying your next home too? Your own mortgage runs on this same clock — start it this week, not when the solicitors are ready for it."
Mortgage & protection advice for every move you make.
Your home may be repossessed if you do not keep up repayments on your mortgage. Nexpad is a trading style of Nexpad Mortgages Limited, an appointed representative of HL Partnership Limited, authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.
Choosing the right conveyancer
You are free to instruct anyone you like. But no single decision in this guide moves your completion date more than this one — and I can prove it with two of my own sales from this year.
Both were ordinary Bradford homes with ordinary buyers. The seventeen-day file had solicitors who answer the phone to me, work digitally, and pick things up the day they arrive. The nine-month file sat in a national factory-conveyancer's queue behind four hundred others. Same market, same paperwork — the only difference was who was doing it.
Before you instruct anyone, ask me. I will tell you honestly who is performing for my clients right now — recommendations earned on completed sales, nothing else.
"The cheap quote saved a hundred and fifty pounds. It cost eight months."
Exchange vs completion
Contracts are signed, swapped and dated, and the buyer's deposit is paid over. This is the moment your sale becomes legally binding — until it, either side can walk away; after it, neither can. The completion date is fixed here too, which is why nothing gets firmly booked before it.
Moving day. The money crosses between solicitors, and the moment it lands, the keys are released — I collect yours and hand them to your buyer myself. Usually one to two weeks after exchange; occasionally the same day, though that leaves no room to breathe.
"Nothing is certain until exchange. After exchange, nothing is uncertain."
You will never chase me for news
The worst part of every sale is the silence — weeks where nothing seems to happen and nobody rings. You will not get that from me. Here is exactly when you will hear from us, in writing, every single week.
AI Myk emails your weekly progress update: what moved this week, what happens next, and exactly who we are waiting on — even when the honest answer is "nothing new this week".
Searches back, enquiries answered, mortgage offer in — the moment any of the twenty-two stages completes, an email lands the same day. Good news does not wait for Thursday.
MBSP shows every stage live, so you can look for yourself at midnight if you want to. And for everything else there is me: 07515 720 054.
You will hear that too — what has stalled, why, and what I am doing about it. I would rather give you bad news early than good news late, because a problem named on Monday is a plan by Tuesday.
Your sale never sleeps.
From today your sale has a full-time chaser. AI Myk and MBSP are custom, state-of-the-art software, built from the ground up for Brownsett Personal Estate Agents alone. They work hand in hand to create a journey where you feel more involved, less stressed — and your file is never the one sitting still.
My AI assistant, built to automate sale progression. He works your file every single day, whether I am busy or not — and unlike the rest of the industry, he has no caseload of four hundred, no holidays, and no Friday afternoons.
He never replaces me. He makes sure nothing ever waits for me.
Michael Brownsett Sale Progression — the private portal where your sale lives. Log in at any hour and see exactly where things stand, without ringing anyone to find out.
mbsp.uk · your login arrived the day your offer was agreed.
"Most sales don't fall through because of the buyer. They fall through because nobody chased anybody for three weeks."
Tips to avoid delays
Most delays are not legal problems — they are waiting problems. Nearly all of them trace back to one of these six, and every one is in your hands.
Not when the forms arrive — today. Every day before the contract pack goes out is a day added to the far end, where it hurts.
The property and fittings forms are an evening's work with a cup of tea. Files wait weeks for them more often than for anything legal.
The unglamorous thing that stalls week one. Ten minutes on your phone the day the link arrives, and it never appears on a chase list.
Most enquiries need you, not a lawyer — where a certificate is, what stays, when the boiler was serviced. Every reply travels through two solicitors, so your day becomes their week.
Certificates, guarantees, building regs sign-offs — the full list is on the next page. Every document found before it is asked for is a week you never lose.
Yours, and ask your solicitor about theirs. A fortnight away in week six is fine if everyone plans for it — and a mystery delay if nobody mentioned it.
"And tell me everything. A problem I hear about on Monday is a plan by Tuesday. A problem I find out about in week eight is a delay."
Getting your paperwork ready
Almost everything your solicitor will ask for is already somewhere in your house. Find it this week — a drawer, a folder, one evening — and you remove half the chase list from your sale before it is written.
The big one: boundaries, disputes, alterations, guarantees, parking, insurance. Answer honestly and fully — "not known" is allowed, a guess is not. An evening's work with a cup of tea.
Room by room: curtains, light fittings, the shed, the greenhouse. Being precise here prevents the classic completion-day row about a curtain pole.
Sign-offs for extensions, conversions, new windows, a moved boiler. If a consent is missing, say so early — an indemnity policy usually solves in days what silence turns into weeks.
Damp-proofing, timber treatment, roof work, FENSA or CERTASS certificates for windows, new-build warranties. Send whatever you hold — even the faded ones help.
Boiler service history, Gas Safe paperwork, electrical certificates for any work done. These are the exact answers to the survey's automatic red 3s.
Your Energy Performance Certificate is on the listing — that one is mine. Your job is the solicitor's ID and proof-of-address checks, done the day the link arrives.
Do not let one missing certificate stall week six. Tell your solicitor the moment you know it is gone — a replacement copy or a one-off indemnity policy costs a fraction of the delay it prevents.
The jargon-buster
Fourteen terms you will hear between now and moving day — and what each one actually means.
"And if a solicitor's email ever loses you, ring me. Translating is part of the job."
Any question at all — about your solicitor, the survey, the chain, or just how it is all going — ring me. There is no such thing as bothering me about your own sale.