Provided the property is correctly priced and professionally marketed, agreeing on a sale generally only takes between four and six weeks. From this point, closing a sale typically takes between three and six months. Below are the steps detailing the journey from sale agreed to sold

1.     Your offer is accepted and you will need to pay the estate agent a booking deposit of at least €10,000. Unless the property is at the upper end of the market, agents will rarely seek a booking deposit over €15,000. Any amount over this, the estate agent will need to complete a customer risk assessment form together with a customer due diligence checklist. Most agents will not take the property off the market until the deposit is paid. We recommend that buyers pay the deposit immediately upon acceptance. Unlike normal booking deposits, this one is fully refundable regardless of the circumstances.

2.     Once the booking deposit is received, memorandums of sale are prepared by the agent and emailed to both the vendor’s and the purchaser’s respective solicitors. Both parties, particularly the vendor need to have a solicitor in place. The memorandums of sale will include the below information.

• Property address
• Vendor’s name
• Vendor’s solicitor contact details
• Purchaser’s names
• Purchaser’s solicitor contact details
• Sale agreed price
• Booking deposit

3.     Once this information is shared with both solicitors, contracts for sale can be drawn up by the vendor’s solicitor and sent to the purchaser’s solicitor for signing. For the contracts to be prepared, the vendor must supply their solicitor with the below documentation and information

• Locate the deeds, if there is a mortgage on the property, the deeds will be with the lending institution. Sign a client’s authority for your appointed solicitor to request the deeds. This can take up to 4 weeks and even longer if the lending institution isn’t based in Ireland
• Gather the below personnel information:
  • PPS number
  • If you are married; a copy of your marriage cert
  • Proof of residency; a copy of your passport
• Confirm whether the below taxes are paid or not relevant:
  • Household charge 2012; provide receipt of payment
  • Up to date Local Property Tax history; available on revenue.ie
  • NPPR payments 2009 – 2013; certificate of exemption or discharge
• Investigate planning issues relating to the property
  • Ensure there is a grant of planning for any extensions
  • Many extensions are exempt from planning, in this case, arrange a certificate of exemption
  • You may require an up-to-date land registry map
• If the property is part of a Multi-Unit Development, the management company will need to answer a set of queries, commonly referred to as a requisition 37. This can take time and the sooner it is requested the better.

4.     The above list is long and many of the documents won’t be at hand and will need to be requested. Ideally, the vendor should be working on this list prior to the sale closing. If everything is in order, contracts can be issued straight away. This can speed up the sales process significantly.

5.     If the purchaser is borrowing to purchase the property, they will need to notify their lender that they are sale agreed on a property. The lender will require the property to be valued by a valuer on their panel. Generally, the buyer is given a list of valuers on the lender’s panel and they select one and arrange access through the agent. Bank valuations are done to give the lender comfort that the purchaser is not overpaying for the property. The lender will only lend on the amount the valuer values the property at. Anything greater than this value and the purchaser will need to make up the difference to complete the purchase. In our experience, bank valuations are nearly always consistent with the purchase price.

6.     The purchaser will want the property surveyed by a building surveyor and the agent should insist this is done once the property is sale agreed. For both parties, it is a hurdle to jump and if the purchasers end up pulling out of the sale as a result of the survey then this should be known as early in the process as possible. Sometimes lenders will request a copy of the survey depending on the valuers report. Regardless of the purchaser’s position, the lender may decide to lend less or not at all depending on the valuation report. In our experience, this is a rare occurrence.

7.     The contracts will be sent to the purchaser’s solicitor. They will raise contract queries, which the vendor’s solicitor will need to respond to. There can be some back and forth here, which can take time as the solicitors like to correspond by mail.

8.     Once the purchaser’s solicitor is satisfied that all the queries have been satisfactorily answered, then the purchaser will sign the legally binding contract and pay a deposit of 10% of the value of the property, less the booking deposit that they have already paid to the agent. It is important to note that there is a standard law society clause that states the deposit is subject to the letter of loan offer. This is present in the highly unlikely event that the lender decides not to lend, despite approving the loan and being satisfied with the value. We haven’t seen an incidence of this before but the clause remains. Subject to this clause, this deposit is non-refundable.

9.     At the same time as signing the contracts, the purchaser signs a letter of loan offer. From the date of signing the purchaser will need to put building insurance in place. The lender will require the purchaser to put a mortgage protection policy in place.

10.  The signed contracts are sent back to the vendor’s solicitor for the vendor to sign. Once the seller signs the contracts, the vendor’s solicitor requests the funds from the lender. It can take several weeks before the funds hit the purchaser’s solicitor’s client account. When these funds are transferred to the vendor’s solicitor’s client account, the estate agent can release the keys to the purchaser. The agent can’t release the keys until they receive written confirmation from the vendor’s solicitor confirming that the sale has closed.

11.  Once the contracts are signed and a closing date has been agreed upon, then the purchasers will get the opportunity to do a final walk-through of the property. Provided nothing unforeseen is discovered during the walk-through then the sale can close.

12.  The keys will be ready for collection from the estate agent’s office together with hopefully a nice housewarming gift for the purchaser.

13.  On closure the agent will deduct their fee from the booking deposit. The balance will be sent to the vendor’s solicitor together with a statement detailing the fee and the booking deposit. The solicitor will prepare a final account for their client, the vendor.