Seller / Buyer information

 


Useful things to know



FIRST THINGS FIRST

Once you have found a chalet you would like to purchase the first thing you need to do is instruct a solicitor to act for you. I would strongly recommend appointing a local solicitor to act on your behalf as they know how to deal efficiently with the sale of holiday homes.

A list of solicitors I have worked efficiently with can be found on this website

However you are obviously free to choose whichever solicitor you want



DEPOSITS

Most owners may ask for a deposit to be paid direct to their solicitor at the start of the sale (this is often referred to as a undertaking)

 

The reason for this is that as a seller the first thing they have to do is immediately pay the site owners legal fees and this can amount to £1100.00 and should you as the buyer pull out of the sale at any time they as the seller are still liable to pay this money to the site owners solicitor.

This is not a uncommon procedure and the deposit will of course come off the final balance so as the buyer you will still only pay the agreed price.

For instance say the agreed price of the chalet is £1500,00 and you pay a deposit of £1000.00 then the final balance left to pay on completion would be £14000,00 (plus any legal fees & apportionments).

You will however lose your deposit should you pull out of purchasing the chalet.

Some owners will not proceed with the sale unless this "chalet reservation" is agreed to.

Your solicitor will deal with this for you should your seller require a deposit

APPORTIONMENT OF SITE FEES

On top of the chalet purchase price you will also be required to pay a apportionment of the years annual site fee as this will of already been paid by the current owner.

Site fees are paid on a yearly basis by the current owner to the site owner.

When you purchase the chalet you will be expected to pay the current owner back for their unused portion of the site fees, this will be calculated from the day you actually own the chalet. Your solicitor will sort this out for you during the buying process so its nothing to get worried about.




REFERENCES

You will be asked during the purchase process to provide 2 personal references and a bank reference. I recommend getting these in place directly having appointed a solicitor as some banks take up to 6 weeks to provide a reference and this will severely impact on the time it takes to complete the purchase.



TIME FOR THE SALE TO COMPLETE.

Various factors are involved in this, but prompt action from yourselves in reply to all correspondence will speed the process up. The shortest I have ever had one complete was 4 weeks with some taking nearly 12 months.

The average time on Bermuda is around 18 to 20 weeks.

The average time on Sundowner is 16 to 18 weeks.