Worked examples / A house purchase
Two buyers, one deposit, and a list that keeps growing.
Owen and Ruth Feasey have had an offer accepted on 14 Sanderling Road, their first house. Before the file can go to the solicitors, the agent needs photo ID for both of them, proof of address, proof of the deposit and where it came from, and the mortgage offer in principle. None of it is hard. All of it arrives in pieces, from two people who both have jobs.
The Feaseys are invented. So is 14 Sanderling Road, and so is Denise Rowntree, who is selling it. The shape of a purchase is real; the names are not.
Three weeks, the way it usually goes
Nine things, two buyers, one vendor, and every one of them answering a different email.
14 Sanderling Road
The first three weeks, by email
Day one
The agent emails a list
Note: Some for Owen, some for Ruth, some for both
Day two
Owen sends his licence
Note: And forwards the email to Ruth
Day four
Ruth sends hers from her phone
Note: A photograph, taken at an angle
Week one
A statement for the deposit
Note: Missing the page that shows where it came from
Part of the deposit is a gift
Note: Nobody said a letter would be needed
Week two
Ruth asks her parents for the letter
Note: By text
The agent chases everything
Note: Including what already arrived
Week three
Proof of address, again
Note: The first one was four months old
Somebody asks what is still outstanding
Note: Three inboxes, and no single answer
Everyone on the sale has their own list
The agent opens one pack for the sale and puts each request on the person who owes it. Owen, Ruth and Denise, the vendor, each get a private link with no account and no password, and each sees only their own requests. Owen does not forward anything to Ruth, and nobody has to work out which of the nine is theirs.
- Photo ID, proof of address and the deposit, each its own request
- A photograph from a phone is an answer; nobody needs a scanner
- The formal mortgage offer is asked for with no due date: send it when it lands
Everyone on this sale
14 Sanderling Road
Owen Feasey
Buyer · link opened yesterday
Ruth Feasey
Buyer · link opened yesterday
Denise Rowntree
Vendor · everything in
The chasing knows who owes what
Owen gets reminders on the schedule the agent set, listing only what Owen still owes: this week, his photo ID and a proof of address. Ruth gets her own. When the last thing on a person’s list arrives, their reminders stop, and nobody is chased for something they already sent.
Reminders for Owen Feasey
14 Sanderling Road · only what is outstanding
Photo ID
Outstanding · 2 days over
Proof of address
Outstanding · due Friday
The gift letter
Part of the deposit is a gift from Ruth’s parents, and the solicitors will want a letter saying so. That becomes one more request, addressed to Ruth’s mother with a link of her own, so it does not travel by text message and get lost on the way. When it arrives it sits beside the deposit, where the next person will look for it.
Doing it for yourself
The same list works the other way round. If the broker’s list has landed on you, you can put it into Docsroom yourself: a request for each of your partner’s payslips, one for the gift letter, one for the statement that shows the deposit. Each person answers from their own link, and when it is all in, it downloads as one ZIP organised by request, ready to send on.
What does not change
Docsroom does not check a passport or decide whether a statement will satisfy a lender. A person still opens each file and decides. What goes is the forwarding, the chasing of things already sent, and the question nobody could answer: what is still outstanding.
Send the next list as links, not an email.
Free for 14 days, no card. Try it on the sale with the most people in it, or on your own move.