Accepting an offer feels like the hard part is over. In practice, it's the point where the real work of getting a sale to completion actually begins. Here's what happens next, in order, and where sales most commonly stall.
The memorandum of sale
Once an offer is accepted, the agent issues a memorandum of sale to both sides' solicitors, confirming the agreed price and the buyer and seller's details. This document isn't legally binding — in England, a sale only becomes binding on exchange of contracts — but it's what formally kicks off the conveyancing process on both sides.
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Get a conveyancing quoteStaying on top of the process
The period between instructing solicitors and exchange is where most delays quietly build up, often because no single party is chasing every stage on both sides of the transaction. Regular check-ins with your solicitor and agent — rather than waiting for them to call with an update — tend to catch a stalled search or an unanswered enquiry days or weeks earlier than it would otherwise surface, which matters more than it sounds given how tight the overall timeline usually is.
Instructing solicitors and searches
The buyer's solicitor begins local authority searches, environmental checks and a review of the title, while the seller's solicitor prepares the draft contract and responds to the buyer's enquiries. This stage is often the slowest part of the whole process, since search turnaround times vary by local authority and any issues raised typically need resolving before the sale can progress.
Exchange, not the accepted offer, is the moment a sale actually becomes binding.
Survey and mortgage valuation
If the buyer is using a mortgage, the lender arranges a valuation to confirm the property supports the loan, and the buyer will typically also commission their own survey to check the property's condition. Issues raised at this stage — from valuation down-valuations to structural concerns — are one of the most common reasons a sale renegotiates or falls through, so it's worth being upfront about known issues from the start.
Resolving enquiries and agreeing a completion date
Once searches are back and any survey issues addressed, solicitors exchange final enquiries and both sides agree a completion date. This is also when any chain above or below the sale needs to align, since every party in a chain typically needs to be ready to exchange at the same time.
Exchange of contracts
At exchange, both sides sign identical contracts, the buyer pays a deposit, and the sale becomes legally binding. This is the point at which either party pulling out becomes a serious legal and financial matter, rather than simply changing their mind — it's the real turning point in the process, more so than the original accepted offer.
Keeping a chain together
Where a sale sits within a longer chain, the biggest risk to a smooth completion often isn't your own transaction at all — it's a delay or a breakdown elsewhere in the chain. Regular communication between all the agents and solicitors involved, rather than each link only tracking its own sale, is what catches a stalling chain early enough to do something about it, rather than discovering a problem days before an agreed completion date.
Completion
On the agreed completion date, the remaining funds transfer, the seller's solicitor confirms receipt, and the keys are released. Nationally, the gap between exchange and completion, combined with everything before it, typically means 12–16 weeks from accepted offer to moving day — one of the reasons we aim to manage that timeline down to around 8 weeks wherever possible.
If you want a sale managed proactively through to completion, not just to an accepted offer, the place to start is a Selling Advice Meeting and Valuation.
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