We went sale agreed around February. That means that we had won the bidding war, paid a deposit to the agent to confirm we wanted the place. We thought that would be the end of our stress, but the final stages have their own challenges. The main goal for this phase is to get all the documents ready for the bank so that they can prepare the drawdown. We also need to work with the solicitor for the paperwork but that’s the easy part. The solicitor did most of the work and we just showed up to sign the paperwork once.

If there is anything to learn in this phase, it is that we are working towards a closing date.

Bank Documents

Since we got the approval in principle, the bank will now work on updating the documents. They are mainly asking for updated bank statements, proving that we still have money in the account we declared earlier. I encountered one problem when asked to get a statement for the fixed term deposit account in my bank where the bulk of my money is placed. You see, the bank does not provide a statement for fixed term deposit, as there had been no transactions since opening the account. I was asked to visit the bank branch, the person took my details and said they would look into it. Waited one week, called the bank and apparently there was no request on file. On the phone, they asked that I just provide the statement from when I put the deposit. The mortgage provider did not want to accept that (by then, we had wasted 2 weeks waiting). The mortgage provider could not accept the letter, so I had to call my bank a few more times to see what they can do. On one of the calls, I got hold of a kind gentleman, who suggested I see the bank service agent in a branch to see what they can do. Off I go to the bank the second time. This time around I made sure I spoke to the service agent and not the person who is handling the queue. The best they could do is send a letter saying I still have the money in that account. It’s one sentence, on a letterhead. That’s all it took for the mortgage provider to accept and process. By then we had already spent 4 weeks chasing after a statement.

Solicitor – first payment

The mortgage provider will send a loan package to the solicitor once they are satisfied that our paperwork, which is mainly bank statements, are satisfactory. We are then asked to sign the contract and the bank documents at the solicitor’s office. This is the first time we met the solicitor face to face. The solicitor would go through all the details of the documents, like what we are actually agreeing to.

Once we signed the document, the solicitor provided us with their bank account number. This is when we will transfer the 10% down payment for the house (minus any booking fee that we had paid).

Once the solicitor has received the money, they will send the document to the vendor to sign. Once the vendor has signed, this is when the solicitor will tell us the closing date. The bank needs to release the money to the vendor before the closing date. If that goes well then the vendor needs to hand over the house to us at that date.

Insurance

In order to process the drawdown before the closing date, I would need to purchase mortgage protection and home insurance. We already got approval for the mortgage protection insurance and they are just waiting to activate it. We got a quote for a house insurance from SuperValu. The bank and solicitor keep telling us that we need to buy enough coverage as recommended in the valuation and survey report.

I had 3 attempts to finally get the home insurance. The first time we bought the insurance, we asked them to start at the closing date. The solicitor told us that we need to start “today”, so that the bank can release the money. I guess that makes sense since they want to protect their interest as soon as they release the money. Remember, the drawdown needs to happen anytime before the closing date. So starting at the closing date is already later than the drawdown date.

After I bought the insurance the second time and submitted the documents, the bank told us that we need to add the bank’s address to the policy. Since we bought the insurance online, there was no way we could enter an address. I had to call the center. They would make the adjustment and post it to the new house, which we had not yet moved into. It’s a mess and we are running out of time. By now we are into the second week after the vendor has signed the contract.

On the 3rd attempt, I decided to go to AXA insurance. They have an office and I just needed someone who can handle it there and then. I went in and told them the situation that I am in. The person at the counter told me he can issue me the policy on the spot and also make the necessary changes to the address for the bank. I left happy, better still it is a lot cheaper than what I was quoted from the web.

On the positive side, we did get our refund when cancelling the SuperValu insurance.

Drawdown

I uploaded the insurance policy to the mortgage provider, then the solicitor also uploaded all the documents that they needed. The bank gave a timeline when they will send the money over to the solicitor. In our case, the drawdown date was about 2 weeks before the closing date. Not sure if it was done on purpose, we were told the approval was already complete but there were a few more weeks before the drawdown.

Final inspection and Final Payment

The solicitor called us when the drawdown money was in their account. They asked that we arrange for a final inspection. This is when we see the house before it is handed over, to see if anything is different since the last time we saw it during the open viewing. I think it was 3 months since we last saw the house. They only gave us a few minutes to do the inspection, we managed to check out the position and number of power sockets. This is so we can plan out the space utilization and how many power sockets to add. We also checked out the condition of a room that seems to be in bad shape, wanted to see what is underneath the carpet.

Just before the closing date and keys handover, we were asked to provide the final payment. This is the fees for the solicitor and my portion of the Local Property Tax. The current owner has paid LPT for the whole year, so I will pay him back for the portion of the year that I took over.

Getting the keys was surprisingly uneventful. In the morning of the closing date, our solicitor said that they have to finalise some checks. By lunch, they called the agent, who then called us to collect the keys.