Sale- at what point in time does ownership pass to P?

[jinny]

When you sell your house, is the property still technically yours UNTIL both parties sign the transfer of deeds?

[P.Pilcher]

I think, but stand to be corrected that the ownership change takes place on completion of the contract to sell/buy. It is this date which is recorded by the land registry when the change of ownership is registered. It is of course essential for the purchaser to insure the property on exchange of contracts, because once this is done, he can't get out of the purchese even if the property burns down.

P.P.

[jinny]

Does that mean the actual date of when the property was sold, say on a certain date?

[P.Pilcher]

There are two very significant dates in the purchase/sale of a property. The first is the date on which purchaser and seller hand each other contracts to sell/buy the property - at this point the buyer also hands over the deposit as proof of his/her good intentions. Once the seller possesses the buyers bit and vice versa, the sale WILL go ahead irrespective of what happens subsequently or seller can sue buyer for breach of contract and vice versa.
The contract will contain a "completion date" this is the second important date which is usually, but not always a month after the exchange of contracts. On this date, all legal formalities will have been completed, and the buyer hands over the balance of moneys for the purchase owing to the seller. In exchange for this, the seller hands over the necessary forms to entitle the buyer to register his purchase with the land registry, and the keys to the property. The contract of sale/purchase is thus completed and, armed with his keys, the buyer can now take possession of the property. This is the date IMHO on which the property changes hands. At some time after this, the buyer will contact the land registry to register his ownership of the property.
Obviously what I have described above is a simplification of the actual process which is all carried out by the conveyancers or solicitors of the purchaser and seller.

P.P.

[Jennifer_M]

To make it simple your property is yours up until the point where your bank's received the money/you've handed the keys over.
Up until that point any party can change their mind.
However as P.Pilcher states, once the contracts have been exchanged you would have to pay penalties if you changed your mind.

[Richard Webster]

As an English conveyancing solicitor http://www.rwco.co.uk I think that P. Pilcher summarises the point well.

A further point I would make is about signing documents. A lot of people think that when a legal document is signed it becomes binding. In most cases this isn't the case - the signature is just a necessary preliminary to your solicitor doing something else such as exchanging contracts that makes it binding.

There isn't really such a thing as "signing a transfer of deeds..."

In most cases there will be a Land Registry Transfer Deed (a TR1 or TP1) which will have to have been signed by the seller (and often also by the buyer) before completion. As P.Pilcher says this is then sent to the Land Registry who register the change of ownership and then they often destroy the original Transfer Deed. In a lot of cases there are no actual "deeds" to transfer as the Land Registry keeps a central record of land ownership in most cases. A deed is just a particular kind of legal document, and for any property there may or may not be some old "deeds" in a pack with old searches, planning permissions etc, which are often commonly collectively called "the deeds". Mortgage lenders used to keep these bundles of documents but are now less and less interested in doing so.

[P.Pilcher]

Good heavens Richard - I'm flattered!

P.P.