FROM CHOOSING THE RIGHT NEIGHBOURHOOD TO CHECKING THE PAPERWORK — LESSONS FROM AN INTERNATIONAL FIRST-TIME BUYER IN LONDON

Buying a property in London can be daunting, particularly when you’re a first-time buyer or you’re unfamiliar with the UK property market. We know because we’ve done it. We came to Silvia as international first-time buyers, with plenty of enthusiasm but relatively little understanding of how buying a home in London actually worked.

Silvia‘s advice proved invaluable and ultimately helped us buy an off-market property. But the experience also taught us an enormous amount about what matters before, during and after a purchase. These are the 10 golden rules for buying a property in London that we wish we’d known from the beginning.

BEFORE YOU FIND THE PROPERTY

1. Buying a property in London starts with knowing what you want

Before opening Rightmove for the 47th time that morning, make a list.

What’s your budget? How many bedrooms do you actually need? Garden or no garden? How important is the commute? And, most importantly, what are the things you simply won’t compromise on?

If you know you don’t want a basement flat, don’t go and see basement flats because the kitchen photographs look lovely. London has enough properties to distract you for several lifetimes.

A clear list of non-negotiables keeps the search focused and saves an extraordinary amount of time.

2. Don’t search the whole of London

London is enormous. Trying to search everywhere generally means understanding nowhere particularly well.

Choose perhaps three neighbourhoods you would genuinely be happy to live in and get to know them properly: the streets you like, the streets you don’t, transport, schools, parks, shops and, crucially, what your budget actually buys there.

The more focused your search becomes, the easier it is to recognise a genuinely good property when one appears.

3. Trust good advice — you may not “just know”

Everyone tells first-time buyers the same romantic story: You’ll walk through the door and you’ll just know.

You might. We didn’t.

Particularly if you’re buying your first property in London — and even more so if you’ve come from another country — you’re making decisions in a market you don’t yet fully understand.

This was where Silvia’s experience became invaluable to us. She could see things we couldn’t yet see: value, potential, compromises that mattered and ones that didn’t. Ultimately, she helped us buy a property off-market.

Your instincts matter. But so does having someone beside you who understands the market better than you do.

4. A good mortgage broker is worth every penny

Our mortgage broker cost us around £300 and secured our mortgage deal in roughly a week.

When you’re borrowing hundreds of thousands of pounds, this is not the moment to decide that £300 is where you’re going to economise.

A good mortgage broker can help you understand what you can afford, navigate lenders and find the right mortgage deal. Even a relatively small difference in the terms of a mortgage can be worth considerably more than the broker’s fee over time.

Silvia introduced us to ours — and it was one of the best recommendations we received during the process.

5. Get a very good conveyancing solicitor

English property law can be bewildering, particularly if you haven’t grown up with concepts such as leasehold, freehold, share of freehold, service charges, covenants and licences to alter.

Your conveyancing solicitor isn’t just there to get you to exchange. They are there to understand precisely what you’re buying.

This is one area where we would strongly advise against simply choosing the cheapest option. You want someone who will read the documents properly, ask questions and explain the answers to you in language that doesn’t require a law degree.

We used Cripps www.cripps.co.uk, whom we would recommend.

ONCE YOU’VE FOUND IT

6. Buying a London property? Ask the uncomfortable questions before you exchange

This may be our most important rule.

Once your offer has been accepted, something psychologically strange happens: you become terrified of losing the house.

Remember something important: the seller wants to sell it, too.

If something in the title, lease, freehold arrangements or property documents isn’t clear, ask about it. If something needs clarifying or changing, deal with it before exchange.

Don’t dismiss something because everyone says, “Oh, I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

We learned this particular lesson the hard way.

There are very few property problems that become easier to resolve after you’ve handed over the money.

7. Get a proper survey

The beautiful kitchen is irrelevant if the roof needs replacing.

Before exchange, commission an appropriate survey and have someone independent assess the actual condition of the property.

You want to know about structural movement, damp, roofing, drainage, electrics and other significant defects while you still have the ability to investigate, renegotiate or walk away.

A survey can feel like another expensive item on an already terrifying list of expenses. Compared with discovering a major problem after completion, it can be extremely cheap.

8. Planning to renovate? Bring in your architect early

If you already know the property needs substantial work, don’t necessarily wait until you’ve collected the keys before speaking to an architect.

Planning applications, listed-building issues, freeholder consents and other approvals can take time.

Getting advice early means you can understand what is realistically possible and potentially start preparing drawings and applications while the purchase is progressing.

Those weeks before completion can otherwise disappear into a peculiar limbo of emails, searches and waiting for solicitors to reply. Put them to work.

9. Before completion, collect everything

This is the boring rule that Future You may one day be extremely grateful you followed.

Ask for the complete history of the property that’s relevant to your purchase: planning permissions, building-control certificates, licences to alter, guarantees, warranties, consents for previous works and — where relevant — historic service-charge information and building records.

If works have been carried out, establish what was done, when, by whom and with what approvals.

Do it while the seller is still motivated to find the paperwork.

Six months after completion, when they’re surrounded by boxes in another house and you’ve suddenly discovered you need a certificate from 2017, their enthusiasm for rummaging through old files may have diminished considerably.

Download it. Label it. Save it. Back it up.

You may never need it. That’s the ideal outcome.

10. Find out who your neighbours are

This sounds like the least technical item on the list.

It may be one of the most important.

You can change a kitchen. You can redecorate. You can extend, subject to the necessary permissions. You cannot renovate the people living downstairs.

If possible, understand who your immediate neighbours are before you buy. If you’re buying a flat or share of freehold, this matters even more because you may eventually need to make decisions together about the building.

Knock on the door. Ask the seller. Ask Silvia. Spend some time outside the property. Understand how the building works and who is responsible for what.

If you’re a young family and there’s another young family downstairs, perhaps you’ll become friends and your children will grow up together.

Or perhaps you won’t.

Either way, it’s useful information to have before you exchange.

A note from Silvia: This guide was written by one of my clients, who came to me as an international first-time buyer trying to navigate the London property market. We eventually found their home off-market, but the experience taught them rather more about buying property in London than they ever expected to know. These are their ten golden rules — five for finding the right property, and five for making sure you know exactly what you’re buying.