Industry News

Why is reading the legal pack so important?

Publish Date: 19 April 2022

By Jade Shrubsole

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Further reading

Material information for property listings announced

Leasehold reform act 2022

It’s often said the most important document in the legal pack is the document that’s been left out. The vendor decides what goes into the pack so if something is missing, you’d perhaps want to ask yourself why? It’s your job as the bidder to completely satisfy yourself with the complete legal situation of the property.

Reading the legal pack is a two stage process, look through it yourself first, then ask your solicitor to look and clarify any points you wish to look further into.

Getting a lawyer to check a legal pack may be expensive but you should never risk buying something at auction without being sure or just hoping everything is going to be ok. When buying a property at auction you will be buying under the conditions that the auctioneer has set, often used are the common auction conditions set by RICS.

However, vendors can add extra conditions with their solicitor and add in special conditions which can sometimes include extra fee’s. Without checking the legal pack fully you could end up paying much more than you expected, whether that’s in fee’s or because an important document has been left out.

It’s another reason why our website is so important if there is an issue with a property, you can often find the property to have been to auction a few times – this can all be found by running a search on our website. 1/3 properties have been to auction before that’s why it’s so important to do your due diligence beforehand.