Choosing an estate agent
A good way to see which agents are active in your particular area is to call into their offices to see what kind of attention you receive. If you’re largely ignored, potential buyers for your property are likely get the same treatment! Another way is to telephone to ask for details of a property that you might be interested in. Gauge the responses – were the staff friendly and helpful, did thy offer to keep you informed of similar properties as they come on the market? What are the sales particulars like? Did they interest you enough to make you want to view?

Valuation
To request a free valuation of your property you can either call us, visit our offices or complete the brief application form on this website and we will arrange a time most suitable for you to visit your property.
Processing the property
Once confirmation of your instruction has been received, we will take photos immediately and process your property for marketing purposes. This complete set of property details is then uploaded onto our website and other property portals, where it is marketed to thousands of potential buyers.

Legal
A solicitor will be required to handle the legal paperwork involved in transferring ownership of your property to the new buyer (conveyance). It is advisable to instruct your solicitor at the same time as putting your property on the market, to allow for collection of the necessary documentation and to speed up the sales process after an offer in accepted. If you wish, we can recommend an efficient, value for money solicitor.
The solicitor will carry out the following:
- Check the ownership of the property by scrutinising the land registry
- Commission local searches to check for current or future issues that may affect the property
- Confirm information on guarantees, boundaries and fixtures and fittings
- Prepare the transfer of ownership documents
- Supervise the exchange of contracts
- Complete the sale and ensure all monies are paid to you the seller.
On the market
When you instruct Newgate to sell your property you automatically benefit from our comprehensive package of marketing services. These are designed to achieve maximum exposure for your property in order to obtain the best price quickly and efficiently. Advertisements are placed in local papers to generate enquiries.
Receiving & accepting an offer
As soon as an offer is received we will notify you. We are obliged under the Estate Agency Act in England to put all offers forward to you. It is then up to you to accept or reject the offer. Once you have accepted an offer, you can choose to continue showing your property or to suspend viewings.

Agreeing to sell
Once a purchaser has been established and the price accepted it is vital that the following details are agreed:
- Date for exchange of contracts
- Date for completion
- Details of any extras included or excluded from the purchased property. We will advise you and negotiate on your behalf throughout this process, keeping you informed every step of the way.
Draft contract and supporting paperwork
Once the transaction is agreed, your solicitor will send out a draft contract to your purchaser's solicitor who in turn carries out preliminary enquiries and orders a Land Registry search. They will also organise all the supporting paperwork (where applicable), ie: Title Deeds, copy of Lease, fixtures and fittings list, seller's questionnaire, planning consent, guarantees, copy of building regulations and share of freehold certificate.

Service charge accounts & building insurance
(in general this is not applicable to freehold properties)
We recommend that you forward copies of your service charge accounts over the last three years, estimates for the forthcoming year, and building insurance certificates, to your solicitor the moment you instruct us to market your property. Alternatively, in the case of apartment blocks, you can ask your solicitor to collect these documents from the Managing Agent.
Contract approval
This is when all preliminary enquiries from the draft contract and local search queries have been settled.

Exchange contracts
When all documentation, including mortgage offers, searches, guarantees and contracts have been received and approved by both parties solicitors you can then exchange contracts.

The contract is signed by buyer and seller(s) and the deposit (usually 10% of the purchase price), is either telegraphically transferred or paid by the buyer's solicitor, by banker's draft. The completion date is set at this stage.