When you have decided on the home you want to buy, you can make an offer to the seller. Contact the estate agent and say that you would like to make an offer on the property and tell them what price you are offering.

Tell them your offer is ‘subject to contract and survey’ – this means that you are offering to pay this amount in principle, providing there are no legal or structural issues with the property.

Your solicitor will check there are no legal issues, and you will need a surveyor to check that there are no structural issues. If your survey reports something you were not aware of when you made your initial offer, you can withdraw your offer, or revise it. The seller will normally specify what is included in the sale of the property – for example, if kitchen appliances, curtains, carpets etc. are included or not – so be clear when telling the estate agent what you expect to be included in the offer.

Sale agreed

If your offer is accepted it is usually called ‘sale agreed’ and you will need to pay a booking deposit to the estate agent. Booking deposits vary – they can be a specific amount such as €5000, or a small percentage of the offer you have made. The booking deposit is refundable up until you sign the contracts. Paying your booking deposit is a strong signal to the estate agent that you intend to buy the property and will usually mean that the home won’t be put on the market again for three to four weeks.

Once your offer is accepted, the estate agent will prepare a document of sale details and send this to the seller’s solicitor and to your solicitor. This document contains details of the price, conditions of the sale, the estimated ‘closing date’ – the day you will be given the keys of the property – and the names and addresses of all those involved in the sale.

Once the seller’s solicitor receives the sale details from the estate agent they will send the contracts for the sale of the property, along with a copy of the Title Deeds of the property to your solicitor. Title deeds are legal documents showing the ownership of a particular property. Each time the ownership changes a new deed is drawn up to show the change.