Deciding to move home is one of life’s big decisions and can be a very stressful experience; from leaving friends and neighbours behind to packing up all your possessions into boxes, it’s not something you’d want to do every day. The legal side of moving home can be complicated and ensuring you have a good solicitor to manage the process for you is vital if everything is to go according to plan.

 

Finding the right house to move to is just the first step in the process. Your estate agent may well be able to help you with this by alerting you to any properties that come up for sale that meet your requirements. Once you’ve seen a few places and decided to make an offer, your estate agent can be a great source of advice. Even if you’re absolutely desperate to buy a certain property, it never pays to be too keen when making your offer.

 

Before you move, your solicitor will have to check everything is in order with the property you want to buy. This is a vital part of the overall process and can cast up issues that you otherwise wouldn’t have been aware of. Things such as not having planning permission for the conservatory, the house being built on old mine workings and confusion over the title to the property are all best discovered at this stage so you are fully informed of what you’re getting for your money before it changes hands.

 

Picking up your new keys is one of the most exciting parts of moving home. This will mean that your funds have been transferred correctly and you’ve signed all the paperwork in order to legally own the property.

 

An important issue that is often overlooked when people are buying a property together for the first time is arranging adequate life insurance. This is very important to have in place so that if anything was to happen to either party then the funds from the life insurance policy would be sufficient to pay off any mortgage outstanding.

 

Making a will when you buy a property is also advisable. If you are living on your own you need to consider who the property should be left to when you’re no longer around, which again a solicitor will be able to advise you on.