18 Tips to Buying or Selling Your Home in Ireland

18 Tips to Buying or Selling Your Home in Ireland

Buying Selling Your Home Ireland

Buying or selling a home can be a daunting and confusing experience. We have outlined some helpful tips to keep in mind whether you are a first time buyer, moving house or adding to your property portfolio.

It’s the biggest and most important transaction you can make, and one of the most stressful.

Everyone needs a Solicitor and a Chartered Building Surveyor to ensure the title to the property is in order and that it is structurally sound.

8 Tips When Buying a Home

Always get a professional survey done and make sure they’re Chartered!

Always ensure a fully insured Chartered Building Surveyor carries out a survey on your behalf. This will enable you to buy with confidence following receipt of the survey report which will describe the property you hope to buy and will detail defects or other issues of concern that might be relevant.

Make sure your Solicitor sees your building survey

This will mean that he/she will be more familiar with the property you are buying and will know what questions to ask the Vendor with regard to Certificates of Compliance in relation to Building Regulations and Planning Permission for the construction of the property and for extensions or other works carried out to the property.

Ask your lender if they need to see your survey report

It is always better to give your lender as much information on your property as possible as it will avoid delays and misunderstandings later on.

Home Repair of Defects

If defects in the property exist, get professional advice from your Chartered Building Surveyor on the likely cost of making good these defects or upgrading the property, prior to making an offer.

Future Property Upgrading Works

If future upgrading works are to be considered to make the house suitable for your needs, get professional advice from your Chartered Building Surveyor on the likely cost of carrying out these works and any planning restrictions that may affect your future plans prior to making an offer.

Mortgage/Funding

Ensure you have proper funding in place before making an offer. A clean offer where the purchaser has finance in place can help you to acquire the property before anyone else.

Home Loan Conditions

– Have your Solicitor review your loan offer as soon as you get it and make sure that you are in a position to comply with terms of same. Remember loan approval “in principle” means nothing until you see the formal offer.

Home Insurance

Get a clear indication of the re-instatement cost of the house you intend to buy for your house insurance policy. Have terms in place for your life insurance policy as soon as possible. Getting these two issues sorted out can be one of the biggest causes of delay in getting you into your new home.

8 Tips When Selling a Home

Remember “Sale Agreed” never means sold

Your home is not sold until unconditional contracts have been signed and a full deposit paid.

Title

Ensure your Solicitor has adequate time to take up your title deeds and review them. This means that if any title issues arise, you have plenty of time to get them resolved, before contracts are sent out.

Certificates of Compliance

Ensure you have certificates of compliance in relation to Building Regulations and Planning Permission for the property and for any extensions, sun rooms, porches, skylights and so forth which may have been added on. It will be far too late to find out something is wrong once the property has gone “sale agreed”.

Check with your lender

If you have a mortgage on your property ask your Solicitor to request an up to date redemption figure and ensure that there are no fixed rate or other penalties for clearing your mortgage.

BER and Land Registry Mapping

Ensure these are in place before the property is offered for sale; this will help speed up the selling process.

Household Charge and Local Property Tax

Ensure these are fully paid up to date and your Solicitor has receipts to prove that these have been paid.

Pre-Sale Survey

Engage a Chartered Building Surveyor to carry out a pre-sale survey on your behalf. This will highlight any issues that may need resolving prior to putting the property up for sale. This will assist in avoiding delays in the sales process, which may occur following issues being brought up by a purchaser’s surveyor.

Redecoration

Redecorating or ‘fixing up’ the property, especially the outside of the property could increase the interest in the property. Be careful though, poor quality redecoration and repairs may detract from the property’s better points.

Warranties/Guarantees

Provide warranties and guarantees for fixtures and fittings such as kitchens, windows, boilers and the like and have details of servicing of boilers and equipment to hand. Buyers will see the benefit in these being available.

Declutter the Property

Presenting the property in a clean, uncluttered manner will improve your ability to speed up the sale and maxim