Selling a Property Made Simple
Selling a home can be just as daunting an experience as buying; and choosing the right Estate Agent to sell your home is vital – which is why we at Westways do our best to make this process as smooth as possible.

A quick step-by-step guide to selling a property follows:

Choosing an Estate Agent
An all-important decision – which agent to choose? A good way to make this choice is to find out how long they have been established and very importantly how consistent their staff has been. This will tell you how much knowledge and experience they have of the locality. Also look out for logos of membership to professional bodies i.e. NAEA (The National Association of Estate Agents) being the largest professional Estate Agency organisation in the UK. Members of this organisation work to a professional code of practice and rules of conduct.

Valuation
Call Westways for a free no obligation market valuation or, visit us at our newly refurbished offices. We also carry out valuations for purposes of: probate, matrimonials, disputes and remortgages.

Instructing
Once you have instructed Westways to sell your property we will take full details and measurements of your property, take photographs and prepare property details for marketing purposes. Your property will then be uploaded onto our website and other property portals. Your property will also be regularly advertised in the national press, various local trade journals and magazines.

Agency Fees
There are three types of agency fees, which are as follows:

Sole Agency
This is where you instruct only one Estate Agent to sell your property. Many favour this type of appointment, as Westways will negotiate a lower fee than normal.

Multiple Agency
If you enter into a multiple agency agreement, you have the right to instruct more than one Estate Agent to sell  your property.

Joint Sole Agency
A join sole agency is where you have appointed two agents to act on your behalf to sell your property. This means that you pay commission to only one agent who will then share the fee with the other agent.

Viewings
When you instruct Westways to sell your property we will in almost all cases accompany prospective purchasers and show them around your property.

Offers
Once a prospective purchaser has made an offer on your property we will notify you verbally and in writing in accordance with the requirements of the Estate Agents Act, as amended in July 1991 and it is then up to you to accept or reject the offer.

Legal Process
Once you have agreed to accept an offer from a purchaser, a solicitor will be required to carry out the necessary conveyancing procedures before transferring the legal ownership to the buyer.

It is advisable to find a solicitor at the time you are looking to sell your property so that they can prepare documentation in advance; allowing the purchaser’s solicitors to receive draft documentation almost immediately.

Your purchaser’s solicitor will in turn carry out and raise preliminary enquiries. If you are selling a leasehold property, we recommend that you forward copies of your past service charges, ground rent and buildings insurance (at least three years) to your solicitors together with any estimates for scheduled works.

If you have carried out any alterations or extensions to your property please provide your solicitors with relevant plans, building regulations approvals, planning consent, completion certificate and guarantee certificates. Having all these documents ready saves time and speeds up the sale of your property.

Exchange of Contract
Once all the legal documentation i.e. searches, guarantees, mortgage offers, etc have been approved by both solicitors, you may then proceed to exchange contracts. At this stage a completion date would need to be set.

Upon exchange of contracts our commission fees as agreed become payable. We at this stage send our invoice to your solicitor requesting payment out of the proceeds of sale upon completion. You can now arrange your removals