The hardest parts are behind you. Phase 6 is completion day itself — a morning of bank transfers you cannot see, ending with keys you can hold — followed by a short legal tail your conveyancer handles and a settling-in fortnight of registrations and services. Five steps, none of them scary, all of them easier when you know what is supposed to happen.
The shape of the finish
Completion is when the mortgage money moves and ownership transfers; keys follow the money, usually by early afternoon. Afterwards come three quiet legal tasks — the stamp duty return, Land Registry registration, and document keeping — plus the practical business of making the house yours: services, security, registrations and a first look at how the place actually works.
Your last two jobs
First, be reachable and patient on completion morning — the process is bank-to-bank and your influence over it is zero. Second, verify the legal tail happened: confirm the stamp duty was filed and, months later, that the title register shows your name. Conveyancers are reliable; owners who check are more reliable still.
Then it is just your house
The journey's final step is deliberately mundane: council tax, utilities, a boiler service, meeting the neighbours. Somewhere in that fortnight, the purchase stops being a project and becomes an address. You will have done, start to finish, one of the most complicated consumer transactions that exists — properly.
Your action list
Practical tips
- Read the completion-day step the night before — knowing the normal timeline stops the 11am panic.
- Keep the purchase folder intact; several of its documents matter for years.
What can go wrong
- Completion timing depends on banks and the chain, not on your removal van's schedule — build slack into day-one plans.
- The journey is not legally finished until SDLT is filed and the Land Registry updated; do not archive the folder before checking both.
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