The day you have been waiting for has finally arrived. The final part of the process – Completion Day! You are almost there, but there are a few legal formalities which need to be dealt with on the day of completion. We will try and cover in brief, what happens on the “Completion Day” from a Conveyancers perspective.

• The Conveyancer must have all necessary funds from you and your Lender (if one), in good time for completion. Your Conveyancer will have provided you with a final completion statement which will detail how the funds have been calculated. The Lender will send the mortgage advance funds (if required) to your Conveyancer in readiness for completion.
• Once the Conveyancer has all funds required, the purchase monies are transferred from the buyer’s Conveyancer to the seller’s Conveyancer via the banking system on the day of completion. This can take a few hours to be processed.
• During this time the seller must be moving their belongings out of the property. The seller will have been notified by their Conveyancer of the time in the Contract which they must be out of the property by and must provide vacant possession. This time is usually between 12.30pm and 2pm. The buyer will be busy loading their removal van ready to receive the call that completion has taken place.
• Once the seller’s Conveyancer has received the monies from the buyer’s Conveyancer, they will call the buyer’s Conveyancer to confirm receipt of funds and will authorise the Estate Agents (if one) to release the keys to you. If there is no Estate Agent involvement, you and the seller must communicate and make the arrangements for the keys to be handed over.
• Once you have been given the keys – it is time to move into the property! This is the exciting part. Once you have gained access to the property, we recommend that you read the meters that day and register the meter readings with the relevant utility companies (details of which should have been provided to you by the seller in the protocol forms).
• On the day of completion, your Conveyancer will pay the Stamp Duty Land Tax (if any due) to HMRC and will start the process of registering you as the legal owners of the property at HM Land Registry. Please be advised that this registration process can take many months to finalise due the strain which the Land Registry are under currently. Your Conveyancer will provide you with copies of the updated title deeds once the registration process has been completed.

Now it is time to sit back and enjoy your new home!

If you are looking for a Conveyancer or have further questions about the process of buying a house, please contact the Conveyancing Team here at Phillips Law who will be happy to assist.