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Selling Advice

Selling Advice

The Selling Guide
Professional marketing and presentation are the key for selling or letting any property. We are renowned for our up-to-date marketing techniques. Our innovative and creative methods ensure that your property gets the maximum exposure which helps to sell or let your property quickly.

Your property will be advertised on this brand new, user-friendly website. It is directly linked with our computerised database to maximise efficiency. Our advanced technology matches tenants with properties as they come on. It then automatically emails the property details to all active applicants. This is done as soon as we receive your instruction.

At Oppida Estates we appreciate that selling a home or a property requires important financial decisions and that these decisions can affect you and your family. With our client-centred approach and excellent customer service, we can help you achieve the maximum price for your property with the minimum amount of hassle.

The Perfect View: Maximum Exposure = Maximum Offers!
Our policy is to accompany all viewings. Having access to your property at short notice is important in order that we can show your property to prospective purchasers as soon as they contact us with an interest in viewing your property. We will notify you of any viewings that are taking place and to follow up the viewing with a phone call to give you detailed feedback from the applicant.

Where to Start?
We advise that you instruct your solicitor as soon as you are ready to start marketing your property. This will avoid delays and allow time for your solicitor to collect all the necessary documentation required to transfer the ownership of your property to a buyer. (This process is known as conveyancing) and we recommend that you use a solicitor who specialises in conveyancing. Each of our offices will have a selection of solicitors that we work with on a regular basis who we would be happy to recommend.

When you instruct Oppida Estates to sell your property, you will receive our comprehensive marketing package. Getting your property noticed is key, and at Oppida Estates as soon as we have received confirmation of your instructions to market your property with us, we will arrange for photographs and a video tour to be taken, which will be shown on our website, property portals and in our brochure.

All our prospective buyers will be alerted to your property via telephone calls, text messages and email alerts. Further to this, the photographs are then used in our extensive marketing activities which include your property being featured in our office window, in mail drops, and weekly and monthly advertising.

First Impressions Count
It is important that you keep your property as presentable as possible throughout the time that your property is on the market for sale. How you present your home can have a huge impact on people’s impressions and your success in selling your property for the price you would like to achieve. Here are a few little things you can do to help with the sale of your property:
  • Air the rooms.
  • Fully draw back the curtains to get maximum daylight in the rooms.
  • Paint the front door and ensure the entrance is clean and tidy.
  • Spring clean your property (including skirting boards and windows).
  • Give the bathroom sinks and baths a wipe over.
  • Have some flowers in the main room.
  • Weed and clean up the garden.
  • Maximise a feeling of space – get rid of clutter. This is particularly a good time to do it as you will not want to pack and transport unused items to your new property.
  • Redecorating may not be necessary – discuss this with your local Oppida Estates agent.
  • Make sure the shower works and is free from mould.
  • Do a check to see if there is anything that needs to be fixed such as a doorbell or dripping tap.
  • Put a lock on any rear gate.

Receiving Offers
As soon as we receive an offer on your property, we will discuss it with you and then confirm it in writing. If you have received an acceptable offer you need to make a decision as to whether or not to continue to market your property; we can advise you on this.

There is always the possibility that you will receive multiple offers and that you may receive several identical offers and need to decide between buyers. In these instances, we will spend time with you going through the individual details of each of the offers to bring this situation to a satisfactory conclusion:

Open bids (“Dutch auction”): Oppida Estates will negotiate with each buyer until they drop out, one by one, and the highest offer is left on the table. This method can achieve a high final offer from a buyer in the best position to proceed.

Sealed bids: Buyers are invited to submit their final offers in writing to Oppida Estates, and the sealed bids are opened at a pre-agreed date and time. The highest offer wins. This method is seen to be fair to all buyers. As people are casting their offers blind and have only one chance, they are encouraged to put down the maximum they can afford. However, this system does not necessarily take into account which buyer is in the financial best position to proceed.

Contract race: The buyers are advised that you, the vendor, will sell to the buyer who can exchange contracts first. This avoids you having to choose between buyers.

Offer Accepted
Once you have accepted an offer on your property the following details need to be agreed:
  • Details of any fixtures and fittings to be included or excluded in the sale of your property.
  • Date for the buyers or lenders survey on your property.
  • Date for exchange of contracts.
  • Date for completion.
Throughout this process we will be on hand to advise you and negotiate for you (if needed) and keep you informed every step of the way. This and the following stages of the selling process are critical as this is where many sales fall through. At oppida Estates we believe that by working closely with our vendors, applicants and solicitors, problems can be averted, and a successful sale achieved!

Service Charge Accounts
If you live in a leasehold property your solicitor may require the following documents whilst preparing your Contract of Sale: Service charge accounts and buildings insurance (This is generally not applicable to freehold properties).

We recommend that you forward copies of your service charge account for the past 3 years, estimates for the next year and your building insurance certificates to your solicitor. Try to get this sorted soon after you instruct us to market your property. It will help speed the process if your solicitors have this to hand when you have accepted an offer on a property.

If you reside in an apartment block you can ask your solicitor to get this information from your Managing Agents.

If you live in a freehold property your solicitor may request the following documents:
  • Title documents (from you or your Bank/Building Society).
  • Evidence of payment of last Council Tax (last 12 months).
  • Paid utility bills.
  • Guarantees and warranties related to damp proofing, etc.
  • Gas safety check certificates.
  • NHBC certificates.
  • Planning and Building Regulations approvals for extensions etc.
  • Exchange of contracts- the End is in sight
An exchange of contracts occurs once all the queries have been satisfied by the buyer’s solicitors and once they have seen the local searches and have agreed to them.

Your buyer may need a mortgage to purchase your property, and thus only once they have received a confirmation on their mortgage offer will they buyer be ready to exchange contracts.

The contract needs to be signed by you and the buyer. The deposit (which is usually 10% of the purchase price) is transferred to your solicitor. Once they receive the deposit, the contracts can be exchanged. It is at this point that the sale is legally binding.

The completion date is set.

Completion – Heading for the Finish-Line
A completion can be set for any day from the day of exchange to a few weeks after exchange, depending on each party’s requirements and what was agreed.

The balance of the purchase price is sent from the buyer’s solicitor’s account to your solicitor’s account.

It is at this point that you have sold your property.

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