Preparing to move

When it comes to selling and buying property it can be a stressful time. Well before you actually do the move there is a lot of paperwork to be sourced, forms to complete and questions to be answered. Read on to find out how BeeMyMinder has helped us to make things smoother.

Fail to Plan, Plan to Fail

If like us you are considering upping sticks and moving then it is sensible to be fully prepared with all your household and personal paperwork. People enjoy the looking for their next (or first) house and spend hours searching the net, visiting homes, making offers etc. But behind the scenes a lot of information needs to be gathered to make the biggest transaction of your life a success.

Depending on your specific situation you may have to deal with multiple companies and different individuals; from the real estate agent (you are selling through and buying with), your mortgage advisor, your mortgage provider (bank), solicitors (yours and others). Add to that other companies for credit checks, house moving, insurance, energy, telephone, water, broadband it goes on and on.

So the best approach you have is to bring together all your household information, bills, policies, contracts, statements, contact details, associated e-mails etc and then make sure you can provide not only the most recent information, but also historical details as well.

Simple questions like:

• Who is your current mortgage provider, what remains on your mortgage, what are your early redemption charges etc, or
• Who provides your gas, electricity, telephone, cable tv? or
• Have you any loans, credit cards, Hire Purchase agreements, other mortgages (not on your current house), store cards?

You want the process to be as quick and simple as possible. But if you are having to chase-up all this information, you only have yourself to blame.

Failing to declare and source the information can have disastrous affects. It may:

• hinder you even getting the chance to place an offer on a house as your credit score / report can come back negative (for non-disclosure)
• lead to having to pay out thousands in early redemption charges on your mortgage
• cost you more to break binding contracts with cable TV, broadband or fixed energy scheme. Unless you can carry it across to your new house, you may have to pay for the remaining period, or a lump to end it early.

What were we able to do?

First off and to be clear, not all information is in BeeMyMinder. You will have to provide proof of a deposit, proof of income, employment etc. This information is not in BeeMyMinder. Nor are your bank statements. We needed to gather our own documents on SA302s, bank statements, pay slips, benefit payments etc.

What we were able to do with BeeMyMinder was to very easily answer a lot of questions without have to plough through mass amounts of information. BeeMyMinder gave instant access to:

• All relevant mortgage details (I even had login details to my mortgage account to source outstanding mortgage amount)
• Details of water and gas / electricity supplier; plus early exit charges
• Council Tax band
• Broadband, cable TV, telephone providers
• Active warranties for our appliances
• Full warranty terms on our recently upgraded bathroom
• Life cover, Income Protection, critical illness (our providers and level of protection).

In Summary

We were in a strong position to respond to requests. Not only to requested information but quick access to scanned policy and statements.

This has been helpful so far, but when we proceed to the next stage of exchange of contacts and moving we’ll be able to get in touch quickly with all suppliers informing of our move and whether to transfer the policy or cancel… well ahead of time. Not last minute.

A future blog will provide some tips on the actual physical move and helpful things to do to minimise hassle and costs.

Now it’s time for a summer holiday with all preparations in hand, including travel insurance.

Wishing you all an enjoyable UK summertime.

Last updated by Nigel Brokenshire at October 18, 2017.