Congratulations, your offer has been accepted.
Contents.
What happens now
You have found your next home, and the family selling it has said yes. Congratulations — take tonight to enjoy it.
I act for the seller, but a sale only works when everyone in it is looked after — so from today I look after you too. I have confirmed the sale in writing to both sides and sent the memorandum of sale, the document that introduces buyers, sellers and both solicitors to each other. The home is now off the market, marked Sold Subject to Contract.
You have three jobs this week, and each one is worth days later on: instruct your solicitor formally, submit your full mortgage application, and book your survey. The next chapters walk you through all three.
From here your purchase is tracked milestone by milestone, and my sales progressor AI Myk chases both solicitors every single week — so your file is never the one sitting still. If anything changes, or anything worries you, ring me first.
"An accepted offer is a promise, not a result. The next few weeks are where it is kept."
Your team — who to call for what
Within a week of today there will be six of us working on this one house, and half the stress of buying is not knowing whose job a question is. Here is the cast — pin this page to the fridge.
The house, the sellers, access for trades and quotes, timing, negotiation, nerves — and anything you cannot place. I act for the sellers, but the sale only completes if you are looked after too. If in doubt, this is always the right number.
Everything between you and the lender: documents, rates, product questions, and progress on your mortgage offer. Using Nexpad from chapter three? 03300 552 651.
Contracts, searches, enquiries, ID checks — and every pound that moves. The only account you will ever send money to; chapter seven explains how to do that safely.
Books its valuation and issues the formal mortgage offer. Speak to them through your broker — going direct rarely speeds anything up.
Acts for the other side and will not take your calls — by design. Anything for them routes through your solicitor, or through me.
Every single week AI Myk contacts both solicitors for a status report, logs it against the milestones, and flags anything sitting still — then you get the update without having to ask for it. No news never means nothing happening.
"If you do not know whose job it is, it is mine. Ring me, and it lands with the right person the same day."
Your mortgage checklist
Your lender sets the pace of the first month, and nothing slows a lender down like a missing document. Get this pile together tonight and your application goes in complete, first time.
"A buyer who has not applied within a week is telling everyone something. Be the buyer whose application went in on day two."
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.
The true cost of buying
The deposit gets all the attention, but it is not the whole bill. Nothing on this page should ambush you at completion — so here it is, all of it, with when each amount leaves your account.
Paid on booking, this week. The price rises with the survey level — chapter nine helps you choose.
Paid to your solicitor early on, so the council searches can be ordered in week one or two.
Broker fee and/or lender arrangement fee, at application. Many brokers are fee-free, and arrangement fees can be added to the loan — always ask for the figure in pounds.
The first premium starts on exchange day, not moving day — chapter fourteen explains why.
Plus VAT and disbursements. The balance is settled at completion, itemised line by line on your statement.
Paid through your solicitor within 14 days of completion. Around here, many buyers pay little or nothing — the next chapter shows exactly what.
Booked the hour you exchange, paid moving week. A local move with a good firm sits in this range.
Not a bill — your buffer for the locksmith, the leak, the van that needs one more day. The calmest buyers have one.
Before the big day your solicitor sends one document listing every pound in and out — price, mortgage, fees, searches, stamp duty. Read it line by line. Nothing on it should be new to you, and if anything is, ring them, then me.
Stamp duty, explained
Stamp Duty Land Tax is paid once, shortly after completion, and your solicitor handles the return and the payment for you. It works in slices, like income tax — each rate applies only to the part of the price inside its band, never to the whole price.
A £200,000 home: nothing on the first £125,000, then 2% on the remaining £75,000 — £1,500.
A first-time buyer at £200,000 — or anywhere up to £300,000: £0.
Then 5% on the slice from £300,001 to £500,000. Above £500,000 the relief vanishes and standard rates apply to everything. Every buyer on the deeds must be a first-timer — one previous owner between you, and the relief is gone. Your solicitor claims it on the return; it is not automatic.
Owning any other residential property when you complete — anywhere in the world — adds five percentage points to each band, from the first pound.
The return and payment are due within 14 days of completion. Your solicitor collects the money with the completion funds, so it is settled before you have unpacked the kettle.
Rates and thresholds move at Budgets, and a printed page cannot know. Before you rely on a number, take thirty seconds with the official calculator at gov.uk/stamp-duty-land-tax — and your solicitor confirms the exact figure on your completion statement long before the day.
Gifted deposits & source of funds
If family are helping with your deposit, you are in good company — and one piece of admin, done in week one, keeps their kindness from costing you time. Your solicitor and your lender are legally required to trace where every pound of your purchase money comes from. It is not suspicion of you; it is anti-money-laundering law, and it applies to everyone equally.
A short signed letter from the giver confirming the money is a gift, not a loan, and that they will own no share of the home. Your solicitor and broker both have templates — it takes ten minutes.
Passport or driving licence, plus proof of address. Yes — your mum gets identity-checked too. Warn her kindly; it surprises everyone.
Usually three to six months of bank statements showing the gift building up or arriving. A sudden, unexplained lump sum is the one thing that stalls a file.
A declared gift is completely routine — lenders see them daily. An undeclared one surfacing at underwriting means delay, occasionally a decline. Say it on day one.
"Nobody enjoys asking their dad for three months of bank statements. Ask him in week one anyway."
Protecting your money
You are about to make the largest bank transfer of your life, and criminals know exactly when buyers do it. The scam is called payment-diversion fraud: days before exchange, an email arrives looking exactly like your solicitor's — same name, same signature, same thread — saying their bank details have changed. Buyers in this country lose whole deposits to it every week. It is also entirely beatable. Four rules.
Your solicitor gives you their account details once, at the very start, on paper or in person. Any message changing them is fraud until proven otherwise — no exceptions, however genuine it looks.
Before the first transfer, ring your solicitor on the number you already have — never one from the email — and read the details back to a human.
Transfer one pound, ring to confirm it landed, then send the balance. Every good solicitor is happy to work this way; be wary of any who is not.
Fraud clusters on Friday afternoons and completion weeks, when everyone is rushing. Pressure to move money fast is itself the warning sign — nothing in conveyancing is too urgent for one phone call.
"No genuine solicitor will ever be offended that you checked."
An email at an odd hour, a changed tone, any mention of new details — stop, and ring your solicitor or me before a penny moves. Ten minutes of checking has never lost anyone a house; ten seconds of hurry has.
Choosing the right solicitor
You are free to instruct anyone you like. But no single decision 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, 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.
Once you have instructed, two things keep your side moving: do the ID checks the day the link arrives — ten minutes on your phone — and return every form the week it lands. Files wait weeks for forms more often than for anything legal.
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."
Survey options explained
The survey is yours: you choose it, you pay for it, and the report comes to you. There are four versions to know about — and every single one reads worse than the house. That is by design, not a verdict.
Ordered by your lender, for your lender. It confirms the agreed price supports the loan — sometimes without anyone visiting at all. It says nothing about condition, and you may never see it. Never rely on it as a survey.
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. Fair warning: it will 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".
The deep one — worth it for older, extended or unusual homes. The surveyor goes 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. Dozens of pages, half a day on site. A long list of notes is the product doing its job, not the house failing.
Read it with a cup of tea, not at midnight. Surveyors are paid to be cautious, and almost every point raised is maintenance, not emergency. If something genuine turns up, chapter ten walks you through exactly what to do — quotes, negotiation and all. Ring me before you panic: I have read hundreds of these, and I will tell you honestly which points matter.
The survey flagged something
First, breathe. Almost every survey flags something — chapter nine explains why the report is built to worry you. The question is never whether the list is empty; it is what the list actually costs. Here is the calm route through, in order.
Once for the fright, once for the facts. Then call: I have read hundreds of these on homes just like this one, and I will tell you straight which points are Yorkshire-normal and which deserve a closer look.
"Damp noted to rear elevation" is terrifying; a £340 repointing quote is not. Get two written quotes from local trades for anything genuine — I arrange access with the sellers, usually within days.
With quotes in hand there are exactly three: proceed as agreed, renegotiate the price, or ask for the work to be done before exchange. All three are normal. The size of the number picks the route.
Ask once, in writing, quotes attached, genuine items only. Sellers respond to evidence, not to the word "survey" — and a list of small demands poisons goodwill you may need again at exchange.
A renegotiation backed by written quotes almost never kills a sale; a vague "the survey was bad, we want money off" very often does. Bring me the report and the quotes, and I will put the case to the sellers properly — my job is a fair deal that completes.
When the valuation comes in low
Sometimes the lender's valuer decides the home is worth less than you have agreed to pay. Your mortgage is recalculated against the lower figure and a gap opens in your budget. It feels like a disaster. It is actually one of the most fixable problems in the whole purchase — and it says less about the house than you would think, because valuers are paid to be cautious whenever the market is moving.
Your broker submits recent sold prices of genuinely comparable homes and asks the valuer to look again. It succeeds less often than buyers hope — but with real evidence, it does succeed.
A different lender sends a different valuer, and different valuers reach different numbers more often than the industry admits. Your broker can usually re-place the application within days.
The low number follows the house: the next mortgage buyer will very likely meet the same valuation, and the sellers know it. That makes a price conversation legitimate — and I will be straight with both sides about the figure.
If you have the cash and still believe in the price, you can simply make up the difference. Right for some buyers on the right house — never something you should feel obliged to do.
"A down-valuation is the start of a conversation, not the end of the purchase. Ring me the day it happens — the only wrong response is silence."
The timeline
Every purchase runs at its own pace, but a well-chased one looks like this. Where yours sits on this map is exactly what I keep you told about, every single week.
"Nothing is certain until exchange. After exchange, nothing is uncertain."
Contracts are signed, swapped and dated, and your deposit is paid over. This is the moment the purchase becomes legally binding — until it, either side can walk away; after it, neither can. Your buildings insurance starts today.
Moving day — usually one to two weeks after exchange. Your solicitor sends the balance, the seller's solicitor confirms receipt, and the keys are released to you.
Utilities
Nothing here is difficult — it is simply easier in the right order. One job is worth doing early; the rest belongs to keys day or the first quiet evening.
Gas, electricity and water, before you unpack a single box — date-stamped photos end every billing dispute.
The sellers will leave details — or I will find out for you. Give each your readings and completion date; they bill the sellers up to it, you from it.
Two minutes now, before you need them in a hurry — usually under the kitchen sink and in the hallway.
Run heating and hot water on night one, even in summer — find any problem while the paperwork is fresh.
The one that punishes lateness — installs can take two weeks. Book the day you exchange, for the day after completion.
Register with Bradford Council from your completion date — five minutes online.
Yorkshire Water, for most homes here — open your account with the reading from keys day.
You inherit the old suppliers, not their contracts — once the first bills arrive, move to any tariff you like.
Licences do not move house on their own — update the address online, two minutes.
Insurance
One date on this page matters more than all the others, so it gets the big type.
For most house purchases, the property is at your risk from the moment contracts are exchanged — before you own it, before you have keys. Your lender will insist on it too. Get a buildings policy quoted now and ready to start the day we exchange, not the day you move.
Covers the structure — walls, roof, floors, fitted kitchens and bathrooms. The rebuild cost is in your survey or the lender's valuation; insure against that figure, not the purchase price. Buying a leasehold flat? The freeholder usually insures the building — your solicitor will confirm.
Everything you would take with you if you moved again. Start it from completion day, and check whether your current policy covers goods in transit — many do not, and not every removals firm's cover is generous.
A mortgage is usually the biggest debt of your life, and protection is the boring conversation everyone is glad they had. The Nexpad team on chapter three advise on life cover, critical illness and income protection alongside the mortgage itself.
Your policy schedule, the rebuild figure, the start date confirmation — keep them with your purchase documents. Your solicitor may ask for proof of cover before exchange; having it ready saves a day at the worst possible moment.
"Quoted this week, ready for exchange. It is one phone call now, and a scramble later."
Your moving checklist
Nothing gets firmly booked before exchange — the date is not fixed until then. But everything can be researched, quoted and pencilled in, so that when we exchange, your move takes six phone calls instead of six weeks.
Get two or three quotes now so you can confirm the hour we exchange — good firms book up two to three weeks ahead.
Kettle, tea, chargers, toilet roll, bedding, the kids' favourites. It travels in your car, never the van.
"Kitchen — everyday" beats "Box 14" — and measure the big furniture against the new doorways now.
Moving day is long, loud and full of open doors. Grandparents or a day of childcare turn it from stressful into merely busy.
At both ends — a van that cannot get near the door adds hours. Warn the neighbours and mention any tight lanes or steps.
The money moves between solicitors and I hand you the keys myself — usually early afternoon. Load the van in the morning; do not plan an 8am handover.
Change of address guide
Work through this over two evenings in the first fortnight — official things first. The redirection below is the safety net for whatever you forget.
Set it up a week before you move, for at least three months. Every redirected envelope in month two is someone you still need to tell — and it keeps your post out of a stranger's hands.
Any question at all — about your mortgage, the survey, the solicitors, or just how it is all going — ring me. There is no such thing as bothering me about your own move.
