At Martin-Kaye we have a specialist Right to Buy team with great deal of experience in the Right to Buy market. We are able to assist you with everything from completing the application forms through to completion.

You can rest assured that the same person will look after your matter from start to finish and will always be available to you. All cases will be undertaken for a fixed fee and we do not require any money from you in advance. If it does not complete you are only responsible for payments due to third parties and no legal costs.

You are entitled to buy your property from the Council at a discounted price if you have been a tenant for two years or more, although this is now five years if you became a tenant after 18 January 2005. Your local authority will advise of the procedures involved in applying to buy your property, although we would always advise that you visit the government web site www.odpm.gov.uk for more information.

You will ultimately receive a formal offer for you to buy your property and it is then down to you to decide whether the offer is acceptable. You should bear in mind that once you complete your purchase the council will not undertake any repairs that you discover need doing after you have bought it from them.

The formal offer is called a section 125 offer and it is at this point that you must insert your solicitors details. This will enable the council to send the transfer documents to the right firm. If you have any difficulty completing the application forms you are very welcome to give us a call.

Please refer to the checklist below outlining what happens in an average transaction:-

What Martin-Kaye do

• Obtain Transfer documents from the local authority / housing trust
• Serve notice on them if they do not send them to us within the legal time limit
• Check the title and forward a full report on title to you
• If necessary, raise enquiries with council
• Apply for appropriate searches, check results and report to you on each one
• Receive your mortgage offer, check the contents, ensure compliance with the terms and conditions and report to you in full
• Prepare completion statement (financial summary of the transaction) for your approval
• Signed Transfer and Mortgage documents in our possession – agree completion date with you and the Council
• Advise your lender of completion date and apply for funds
• Forward signed Transfer or Lease to council for them to sign before completion
• Check that your rent is paid up to date (the Council will not allow completion unless it is all paid up to date)
• Obtain deposit in cleared funds from you (if applicable)
• Day of completion – send funds to Council
• If applicable, pay Stamp Duty Land Tax
• Register property at the Land Registry

What you need to do

• Ensure that our details are completed on your section 125 acceptance form
• Arrange a survey – if you are mortgaging your lender will automatically undertake a valuation report but this is not very thorough and you would be advised to consider the merits of a full survey, especially with older or unusual properties.
• Arrange finance - you may well need a mortgage. If you do not have a linked sale you will also need to ensure you have a deposit available at short notice
• Arrange building insurance – it should be valid from the day contracts are exchanged
• Arrange life cover – please speak to a financial adviser
• Read all correspondence and return all documents that need signing as quickly as possible
• Tell us if there is anything unusual about the property eg rights of way, etc as soon as possible
• Once you know we have the Transfer and mortgage documents in our possession, agree a completion date
• Ensure that all rent is paid up to the date of completion
• Ensure that building insurance and life policies are on risk from the date of completion
• Completion day – there is nothing more for you to do!