Buying a Commercial Property: Stage 4 – Completion

• Posted onJune 10, 2020

This is the final instalment in our Buying a Commercial Property. At this stage we focus on completion.

You can find the other instalments here:

Stage 1: Doing Your Research

Stage 2: Knowing the Market

Stage 3: Buying or Renting?

To close the loop Commercial Property Buying loop, we shall assume that the you have identified your property and funding is in place. You also have the deposit available and searches and enquiries have all been dealt with satisfactorily.

What is ‘Exchange of Contracts’?

Exchange of Contracts is the point of the transaction where things become legally binding, and traditionally, contracts were exchanged/ swapped between solicitors. These days, exchange of contracts is much more likely to be confirmed over the telephone, and the contract will be forwarded in the post rather than in person.

Once exchange takes place, there is a contract between the buyer and seller. The buyer has committed to buy, and the seller has committed to sell. The price, completion date and any other terms to the deal are contained in the contract. Sometimes Exchange of Contracts will take place simultaneously with completion, so the deal is all finalised on the same day.

What is ‘Completion’?

Completion is where the transaction is finalised and the property becomes yours.

In practice, this will involve receiving the mortgage money from the lender, and the balance of purchase monies from the client. Together the purchase price is paid to the sellers solicitors, and they would redeem any mortgage currently secured on the property by the seller. The sellers solicitors will already be holding a Transfer Deed signed by the seller and once the sellers solicitors receive the purchase money, the Transfer Deed would be dated. It is likely that the Transfer Deed will be forwarded by post to the buyers solicitors, but a scanned copy is often also sent by email.

If an agent is holding any keys, they will be authorised to release them to the buyer.

What happens next?

Behind the scenes, once completion has taken place, WSP will deal with a Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) return to HMRC. In some transactions, SDLT may be payable, in others, although SDLT thresholds may not have been reached, a return may still be required.

When purchasing, we will also submit the application for registration at the Land Registry. This may take several weeks or months to be concluded, depending on the workload of the Land Registry, and the complexity of the transaction, but once completed, we will let you know and a copy of the title will be supplied to you.

For help with buying a Commercial Property you can find all the information about our services here.  You can get in touch by filling in the form in the sidebar of this page, alternatively, you can call us on 01453 847200 and someone will be happy to help.