Timeline - buying property off plans

Hi,

Hoping to get peoples opinion on how accurate the following timeline is in relation to First time buyers purchase of a property off the plans.

First some background info:
100% mortgage
will pay booking deposit (approx 3k) ourselves but will get contract deposit from lender as a term loan.
Contract deposit (approx 7k) due 3 weeks after paying booking deposit.

• Firstly, obtain approval in principal from Lender.
• Appoint solicitor. should be done prior to paying booking deposit but from what i understand there is some leeway here.
• Question: Is it absolutely necessary to have solicitor appointed prior to signing of contracts?
• pay booking deposit and inform estate agent of solicitor
• Estate agent sends contract to solicitor
• Go to solicitors office to sign contracts
• Pay contract deposit. as mentioned above, this will be provided by mortgage lender as a term loan (along with reimbursement of booking deposit).
• Question: Will these funds be paid to solicitor and he instructs payment from there or will they be paid to me and then i pay estate agent?
• once contracts sign, wait for property to be ready (july 06 hopefully).
• Lender will have valuation done up in meantime
• When property ready - drawdown

i realise that there will be further steps involved at time of drawdown but for the moment i just want to have an idea of what is involved at initial stage.

any input or other steps relevant to my situation would be appreciated

Hi,
I am in process of buying an apartment off-plans myself, and I ...
- Put down booking deposit without having approval in principle or a solicitor. Deposit refundable at this stage, anyhow.
- Appointed solicitor and mortgage broker.
- Vendor solicitor eventually (approx 2 mths after booking deposit placed) sent contracts to my solicitor.
- Some delays with getting formal approval doc from lender (needed accountant's report, etc), so the 3 week time-limit was nearly up before I signed contracts.
- My solicitor wouldn't meet me until I had the formal loan offer from the mortgage provider. His modus operandi was to have a single meeting where I hand over a bankers draft for the contract deposit, sign the contracts, sign the loan offer docs, draw up list of contract queries. He then chases the vendor's solicitor re the queries, and hands over the signed contract when queries addressed to satisfaction. If I was starting over, I'd look for a solicitor who could be more flexible, and deal with contract queries while my loan approval was pending. (Although maybe they all do this, to protect themselves against undertaking work that they won't be paid for in event that i can't get approval?)
- Vendors solicitors haven't responded to contract queries yet (2 weeks later!)

Contract deposit was in form of bankers draft payable to the vendors solicitor. I provided these funds myself, so not sure how it works if from the mortgage provider.

I put down a deposit on an 'early release' of 6 apartments out of 40-ish, so i think some of the delays I've experienced are due to a lack of information on part of vendor's solicitor, which mightn't apply in your case.

If starting again, I'd:
I'd get the formal offer from the mortgage provider asap. Even if the contract is taking ages to arrive, and there seems to be no rush. And check it - the first formal offer i was given had incorrect term, amount, loan type and property address!
Put more thought into appointing a solicitor, and find out at what stage in the process they'd meet with me, and how frequently they'd be in touch, etc.

Contract deposit (approx 7k) due 3 weeks after paying booking deposit.

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I think that this is only the case if the contracts are delivered as soon as you pay the booking deposit. You have 3 weeks to sign contracts once they are delivered to your solicitor.

thanks for your comments kitm, very helpful to have another view.