Buyers guide

Falling for a house and then discovering you are eighty thousand short is a miserable way to start, and it wastes the weeks in which something you could have bought went to somebody else.

• Your deposit, and where it is. If part of it is a gift from family, or sitting in investments that take time to release, both your lender and your solicitor will need that documented.
• A decision in principle from a lender, through a broker who deals with prime central and north west London regularly. Large loans, lending into retirement, self employment, bonus income and foreign currency earnings are all handled very differently from one lender to the next.
• Stamp duty land tax, which depends on the price, on whether you already own another property anywhere in the world, and on your residence status. On a prime purchase it is often the largest single cost after the deposit, so get the figure from the HMRC calculator and have your solicitor confirm it. Do not leave it as a rough idea.
• Everything else: legal fees and disbursements, searches, survey, removals, and on a leasehold flat the freeholder or managing agent fees on the notice of transfer.
• What it costs to run. Camden council tax, the service charge and ground rent on a flat, and heating a Victorian house with single glazed sash windows in a conservation area where you may not be permitted to replace them.

Set your true ceiling, including the tax, and then look slightly below it. Buyers who stretch to the last pound have nothing left when the survey finds a roof.

The portals show you what is publicly for sale today. In these four postcodes a meaningful share of what changes hands never appears on them at all, because the owner wanted privacy and the agent already knew three people who were looking.

So do both. Browse what is on the market, and also register your search with Tessa so you hear about the quiet ones. Registering properly matters: the more precisely you describe what you want and what you would compromise on, the more useful the call is when it comes. Tell her the streets you would not buy on as well as the ones you would.

Then learn the ground. The area guides set out what each of the four is actually like, because these are small places with real differences inside them. Which side of Haverstock Hill, whether a Primrose Hill street is quiet or a cut through, which Belsize Park conversions have gardens and which have the use of a square: none of that is visible from a listing. Walk the street on a weekday morning and again on a Saturday night before you commit.

• Damp and movement. Fresh paint on one wall low down, a smell in the lower ground floor, doors that do not close square, cracks that run diagonally from window corners.
• The roof, the gutters and the parapet. Look up from the street opposite. Stucco fronts and parapet gutters on these terraces are expensive to put right.
• Windows. Original sashes are part of why the house looks as it does, and in a conservation area you may be required to keep them. Budget for repair and draughtproofing rather than replacement.
• Services. Age of the boiler, the consumer unit, and whether the house has been rewired. On a flat, where the meters are and how it is heated.
• Noise and light. Flight path, main road, pub, school run, and which rooms actually get sun. A north facing lower ground floor is dark in a way photographs never show.
• What the neighbours have done. Loft conversions, basements and rear extensions on either side tell you what you are likely to be allowed, and what you may have to live next to while it is built.

Ask the agent directly: how long has it been on the market, has a sale fallen through, why is the owner selling, and what is the chain. Tessa will tell you. Not every agent will.

A great deal of what is for sale here is a flat in a converted house, and the lease is as important as the flat.

• Lease length. Under about eighty years, extending gets significantly more expensive and lenders get fussier. Get the extension priced before you offer, not after.
• Service charge and ground rent. Three years of accounts, what the charge has done year on year, and what is in the reserve fund.
• Major works. Ask specifically whether any section 20 consultation has been issued or is coming. A bill for external redecoration on a stucco terrace can run to tens of thousands, and it lands on whoever owns the flat when it is demanded.
• Who manages it, and whether the leaseholders own the freehold between them. Self managed blocks are often cheaper and occasionally chaotic.
• What the lease permits. Letting, pets, flooring, and alterations.
• Conservation area and Article 4. Most of these streets are in one, and Camden Article 4 directions remove permitted development rights in places. If you are buying with plans to extend, check what is achievable before you exchange, not afterwards.
• Listed buildings. There are many here. Listing covers the whole building inside and out, and unauthorised work is a criminal offence, so any past alterations need their consents evidenced.
• Basements and neighbouring works. Camden has a well known history of basement applications. Check both what has been dug and what has been applied for nearby.

Make yours the easy one to say yes to.

• Have your decision in principle in writing, from a named lender.
• Have proof of your deposit ready to show.
• Instruct a solicitor before you offer, and give the agent their details with it.
• Be clear and honest about your chain. A discovered complication costs you the house.
• Say what timetable you want, and mean it.

Offer on evidence. What have comparable houses on comparable streets actually sold for, not been advertised at. If you are offering below asking, say why, plainly and without insult: a survey issue, a short lease, a known upcoming works bill. A reasoned offer gets a negotiation. A cheeky one gets a no.

• Memorandum of sale. Issued to both solicitors and both parties so everyone works from the same facts.
• Identity and source of funds. Both the agent and your solicitor are required to verify these. Getting your documents over on day one saves a fortnight later.
• Full mortgage application. Your lender will instruct its own valuation, which is for the lender, not for you.
• Your survey. On a period house, a full building survey. Read it properly and get quotes for anything significant before you decide what to do about it.
• Searches and enquiries. Local authority, drainage, environmental, plus whatever the title throws up. In Camden this stage is rarely quick.
• Leasehold pack review, where it is a flat. This is where the service charge history and any planned works appear.
• Buildings insurance arranged from exchange, not completion, on a freehold house.

Eight to twelve weeks is normal, longer for leasehold. The buyers who complete are the ones who answer their solicitor the same week.

At exchange the contracts become binding, the completion date is fixed, and you pay your deposit, usually ten per cent, which is at risk if you then fail to complete. Have your survey read, your mortgage offer in hand and your questions answered before this point, not after it.

Completion is normally one to four weeks later. Funds move, the keys are released through the agent, and your solicitor deals with stamp duty and registering you at the Land Registry. Take meter readings the day you move in, and set up the council tax and the utilities in your name.

• Deposit, paid in part at exchange and the balance at completion.
• Stamp duty land tax, paid by your solicitor after completion. Check the current figure with the HMRC calculator.
• Conveyancing fees plus disbursements and searches. Leasehold costs more than freehold.
• Survey, and any specialist report it recommends.
• Mortgage arrangement and valuation fees, and a broker fee where one applies.
• Leasehold notice fees charged by the freeholder or managing agent on transfer.
• Removals, storage and the first round of works.

Buyers pay no fee to Tessa. She acts for the seller, and she will tell you so. What you get from her is a straight answer about the property, early notice of the ones that never reach the portals, and a sale that is actually chased through to completion.

Lenders will consider five or ten per cent on an ordinary purchase, but at NW3 prices most buyers put down twenty five per cent or more, partly because the best rates sit at lower loan to value and partly because large loans are underwritten more strictly. Flats above shops, short leases and unusual construction all tighten what lenders will offer, so establish your ceiling with a broker before you start viewing.

It is not a legal requirement, but it changes how your offer is received. Two buyers offering the same figure are not equal if one has a decision in principle from a named lender and the other has a hope. In a quiet market it may not matter. On a house that three people want, it decides it.

Below roughly eighty years, extending becomes markedly more expensive because marriage value comes into the calculation, and many lenders become reluctant. Below sixty years, your choice of lender narrows sharply. A short lease is not a reason to walk away, but it is a reason to get a proper valuation of the extension cost and to reflect it in what you offer.

On a period house in NW3, yes. The lender's valuation is not a survey and is not done for your benefit. A building survey on a Victorian or Edwardian house routinely finds roof, damp, drainage or structural movement issues that are worth many times its cost, and it gives you evidence to renegotiate with rather than a feeling.

On exchange of contracts. Until then either side can withdraw without penalty, and you will have spent money on searches, survey and legal work that you do not get back. That is why the weeks between offer and exchange are worth pushing through quickly rather than leaving to drift.

It depends on the price, on whether you already own another property anywhere in the world, and on whether you are UK resident, and the rates change with the fiscal calendar. Rather than quote a figure that may be out of date, use the HMRC stamp duty calculator and have your solicitor confirm it before you exchange.