Selling your home FAQ's

Now you have decided to sell, you need to get your home ready for viewings and give your home the best chance of selling. First impressions count so put yourself in the buyers' shoes and think about how you can enhance your property's draw.

• keep it clean and tidy. De-clutter and use sensible storage. Potential buyers will want to visualise how they can fill the space;
• Undertake any minor repairs that need doing so buyers will need to really try hard to find any negatives;
• If you want to re-decorate, go for neutral tones, which will appeal to a wider audience;
• Make your home comfortable, cool on hot sunny days and warm if it's winter;
• Banish smoke odours. Open the windows, brew some fresh coffee and add finishing touches such as fresh flowers, to brighten the place up and
• Bring out the best features and use mirrors to increase the sense of space.

When you sell your home the valuer will not place a separate value on the improvements you have made. You will sell the share that you own which will be the value of the property in its improved state

The valuation is carried out by a professional qualified valuer who will have full regards to comparable evidence of similar transactions in the area. It is unlikely and rare for a valuer to make mistakes but occasionally this might happen.

If you are concerned and feel a mistake has been made or you are aware of something that you think the valuer has overlooked then the best thing is for you to discuss this with the valuer initially. You will need to provide evidence as to why you think the valuation is wrong and hopefully any errors will be rectified.

If you are still unhappy then you can elect to have the property re-valued by a different independent valuer but this will incur you additional costs.

You will be responsible for the following costs.

• Your valuation fee.        c. £150-250 +vat
• The cost of the EPC.     c. £50+vat
• Your solicitor’s fees.      c. £1000+vat
• The fee for answering management enquiries £120+vat
• The resale fee. 1% of the share price+vat

As these costs will vary from time to time, please contact the sales team to get an up to date estimate.

If you withdraw your property from sale after you have instructed solicitors you will need to pay a cancelation fee to your solicitors and Gateway.

If after our nomination period ( usually 8 weeks) we have been unable to find a buyer we will give you permission to  sell on the open market through an estate agent.

Gateway is to be informed of the sale price at which your chosen Estate Agents are marketing your property. The sale price must not be lower than the current market value of your property. You will be required to provide us with the Memorandum of sale once a purchaser has been found.

Normal valuation practice governs the time that the valuation is valid for. This is usually 3 months which is generally sufficient to see a sale through to completion.

Your lease terms says that you have to have a valid valuation when you sell the property so if the sale process overruns the valuation expiry date you will need to ask the valuer to update or extend the valuation so that you can complete the purchase. Sometimes there is an additional fee payable for this service.

We cannot nominate a buyer for anyone who owns all of their home.

All leases since 2005 contain a clause which gives us the first option to buy back the property when a leaseholder wants to sell within 21 years of having bought all of their home.

This is to cover some of our administration costs in running the resale service for our shared owners. Our fee is based on 1% of the share price plus VAT.

The amount an Estate Agent might charge for a similar service might be twice our resale fee, which makes it good value for money.