Sounds like the OP likes the idea of some quick cash and an easy life hence the off market private sale but is being pushed by the buyer and not keen to loose out….?

Some further clarification evidently required…

Buyer has not *insisted* on no lawyers on either side, or threatened to pull out if we think of getting one… the buyer simply wants to proceed privately and, as such, conveyancers are either not interested on the selling side because they don’t want to deal with private buyers, or have confirmed they are not able to take on the work on a timeframe of less than multiple months due to the current frenzy of buying and selling. At no point has he refused to buy from us if we decided we did want to lawyer up – he would just rather proceed without them. The interactions have all been on a very friendly, above-board and co-operative basis! No threats or dodgy attempts to manipulate us to make hasty decisions.

Buyer has indeed provided proof of funds (bank statements). His own mortgage is paid off already – I’ve already said no mortgages apply on either side. As commented above, £125k is not a suspiciously large amount of funds to have available in the circumstances.

The assertion of the actual forms required for the Land Registry – proof of ID, change of registration – are demonstrably true as the requirements to make the sale when handling your own conveyancing. House sale contracts all follow a standard wording that is readily available – including terms specifying the property is sold as seen and the buyer has no comebacks after exchange.

And re. not wanting to sell the camera stuff on eBay – that was because eBay is unarguably plagued with dodgy buyers who will rip you off and can easily get their money back via PayPal leaving you out of luck. Reversing a bank transfer via Faster Payments not so much.

As pretty much everyone has said, from different perspectives, it ultimately boils down to being willing (or not) to take the risk(s) and bypass months of time and significant expense. Yes it’s only a smallish % of the overall price, but it’s still significant. I’ve never really understood how people will strive and strain to earn or save small amounts of money here or there and then go ‘ah, it’s only a few grand’ when dealing with house prices and the associated expenditure.

Paying for insurance (which is effectively what this is) is always a trade-off. The risks of discovering something awkward and expensive when *buying* a property are significant and we would not be happy with that level of exposure. The risks when *selling* a wholly-owned property to a cash buyer already known to us, who has shown proof of funds, are really very small indeed, and the paperwork is entirely manageable when the buyer is not requesting anything additional. So in short – in the absence of any specific clear and present risk that we can perceive or anyone has been able to inform us of, we are (or rather, she is) willing to go ahead.

in the absence of any specific clear and present risk that we can perceive or anyone has been able to inform us of

Many years ago, my boss at the time asked me to compile him a list of all the things I hadn’t thought of yet. This kind of feels like a similar question.

I can’t think of any. But not being able to think of any is precisely why I paid someone who might.

Here’s an idea. Your reluctance to get solicitored up is down to not wanting to add months to the process. Fair enough. Can you perhaps instead simply pay a smaller fee for half an hour of their time to seek some advice?

Fair enough – the two big things you need to sort then are the TA7 and LPE1 (obtained from the freeholder or managing agent of the block). There are still risks as the seller – if you cock the paperwork up or do not hand over the right paperwork the buyer can sue you later if stuff turns up that they were not expecting. Yes the risk is lower for you but certainly not zero, particularly with a leasehold property.

Also key is the timing of signing the TR1 and the transfer of funds. Sign the TR1 and hand it to the seller before you receive the money and they essentially own the property but have not yet paid you for it. Yes contractually they have to pay you however that could involve a lengthy court dispute. Conversely will they be happy to transfer you the money before you sign and hand over the TR1? Best solution is to sort out some kind of escrow account via a err… solicitor…

As to the cost of a conveyance of this size, you’re looking at £600 or so as the seller – probably less of a monetary hit than you took selling the cameras to MBP.

Anyway, genuinely wish you good luck and hope it does all just come together for you. Having bought and sold a couple of times now I can quite see the appeal of not having to deal with lawyers but it is not something I would dare take on myself even having worked at (particularly having worked at?) a conveyancing firm…

As for a specific clear and present risk – not getting £125k and being short one flat. It could actually happen. OK you think the risk is minimal because you know the chap etc but that’s like me asking what the risks of driving a car are, you telling me I could crash and die and then me replying ‘well that ain’t happening as I am a brilliant driver’.

When we bought our house (no mortgage companies or estate agents involved) it took about 6 weeks, including us getting a proper survey done (well a standard house buyers one where the surveyor covers their bum by telling you all sorts of things that could be wrong but aren’t).
Should only take a month at most. N.B. we both used small time, small town solicitors (ours is a one man band) and they seem to be more efficient as getting a couple of hundred into their account quickly is good business for them but the big firms you can just get lost in the system.
Yes it is sort of insurance but also saves hassle as all you have to do is fill out a few simple forms for the solicitor (and they tell you if you’ve accidentally spelt the streetname wrong or whatever) and go into their office to show ID and sign things in front of them and not have to worry about which t you have left uncrossed and whether you should have filled out addendum 3 of form fj65 or whatever it is.

Not meaning to jump on the ‘get a solicitor’ bandwagon but have you considered your/your wife’s capacity to sell a flat that doesn’t ‘belong’ to you (your wife may be the beneficiary of the estate of which the property is part, but that does not give her the right to deal with the legal estate)?

Have you gained a grant of probate, considered the appropriate contract provisions and more importantly, the provisions to be inserted into the transfer to pass the said legal title? Perhaps the appointment of a second trustee to overreach any other equitable interests? The Land Registry are very particular about such things and you may find yourself accidentally in breach of whatever contract you download from the internets.

If you want any specific advice, feel free to inbox

Some pretty good internet advice here on the various bits that form part of the leasehold pack you need to provide also. Note the caveat that as seller you *have* to disclose various bits of information whether the buyer asks for them or not. Get it wrong and you could be sued:

https://www.samconveyancing.co.uk/news/conveyancing/ta7-leasehold-information-form-explained-2532

https://www.samconveyancing.co.uk/news/conveyancing/leasehold-information-pack-3094

Note this is not advice, I am not a a lawyer, I have no affiliation with the site linked to etc etc 🙂

First off I was thinking yesterday how this thread looks like a classic “I am asking for feedback but I am going to ignore any feedback I don’t like” internet hissyfit 🙂 The main reason for that is that it’s not been my decision and I’ve been relaying the position as it changes… the decision wasn’t made before creating the thread but the position solified quite rapidly thereafter…

@Cougar: I agree asking for unknown unknowns is a problem, but I do think there’s an element of solicitor-led stoking of fears about the mysterious hazards in the property world… hence asking for real-life examples. Such conveyancers we have talked to have only offered the full package or not at all, unfortunately.

@dannybgoode: Re. the TA7 and LPE1 and leasehold information pack – the details are either being provided or the buyer already has them due to being an existing owner in the block – there’s a checklist of supporting documents the buyer and my wife have been working through, but he already has the bulk of the information that would be in the pack.
The escrow thing is a good one, I agree – the solution again is provided by the buyer being co-operative – he has agreed to pay a deposit, get sight of the forms to view for errors etc., and will transfer the money before we hand over the final signature and keys – there’s a sort of physical escrow of the keys in a coded lockbox, and the code will be provided on satisfactory confirmation of the payment.
Funnily enough the ‘I won’t crash’ analogy came up in an argument about this whole thing between me and my wife, when I was raising the various concerns about e.g. money laundering – except in the other direction that if I was so concerned about risk, I should be forbidding her from driving up the M5 to the flat to hand it over… in that case my counter-argument was that those driving risks were known and accepted. But it’s quite true that she could die driving over to the contract exchange but that risk is OK… not sure what conclusion I can draw from that!

@slowol: I agree it *should* only take a month but at present there is a logjam of house sales going on due to the stamp duty holiday – sure, the deadline was extended but there are still way more sales than usual in process. One conveyancer we tried repeatedly to get a call back from eventually emailed to say they weren’t taking on any more work for the foreseeable months due to this. Another interesting piece of advice was that the actual form filling is approximately as complicated as a passport & visa application and we’ve successfully navigated the process for US visas in the past. In comparison to that, the solicitor who was involved with the initial process of handling the Will was so inept she hadn’t noticed all sorts of errors (wrong surnames, wrong addresses, earlier version of the will had no executors – fortunately the later one did) so paying them to spot errors for us was not appealing.

@noone: Probate was granted some weeks ago (surprisingly quickly, as it happened) and my wife is executor, with the other sibling beneficiaries happily leaving it all up to her – they will not be sticking any oars in. I will inbox you though just to clarify what you mean about provisions to be inserted…

Such conveyancers we have talked to have only offered the full package or not at all

That was one of the reasons I did my own conveyancing to start with. Buying a property at auction you get a full legal pack, all the searches etc. You also have to pay for it if you win the auction. The conveyancers I spoke to still wanted to charge full whack so effectively paying for it twice. The real kick in the nuts being there was absolutely nothing of use or interest in the searches as it was just an empty building with no services.