What Happens on Completion Day? A Straightforward Guide for Buyers and Sellers

Completion day is the final step of a property transaction. It's the day your solicitor transfers the purchase money, ownership of the property legally passes from seller to buyer, and the buyer collects the keys. It usually happens between 7 and 28 days after you exchange contracts, and the exact date is agreed and written into the contract at exchange, so it isn't a surprise.

Once completion has happened, the sale is finished. There's no further step after this, it's the point the whole process has been building towards.

If you want the stages leading up to it rather than the last day on its own, our guide to how long the whole sale usually takes covers the timeline from listing onwards.

Your solicitor's main job on the day is moving money and confirming the legal transfer. Here's the order it usually happens in:

• ●Your solicitor confirms your mortgage funds have arrived from your lender (if you have one).
• ●Your solicitor sends the purchase money to the seller's solicitor through the banking system.
• ●Once the seller's solicitor confirms the money has arrived, they tell the estate agent to release the keys.
• ●You collect the keys, usually from the estate agent, and the property is legally yours.

You don't need to do anything on the day itself beyond being reachable and ready to collect the keys. All the legal and financial work is handled by your solicitor.

If you are buying, see our buying conveyancing service.

If you're selling, your day works in reverse. Your solicitor waits to receive the purchase money from the buyer's solicitor, and once it arrives, confirms this to the estate agent so they can release the keys.

You'll need to have moved out and left the property in the condition agreed in the contract before the keys are handed over, since completion is the point you're legally required to give up possession. If your existing mortgage is being repaid from the sale proceeds, your solicitor also handles that as part of the same process, using a figure called a redemption statement, which confirms exactly how much is owed on the day.

If you are selling, see our selling conveyancing service.

If you're buying and selling at the same time, both transactions are usually timed to complete on the same day, so the money from your sale can go towards your purchase. Our buying and selling service explains how that coordination works.

This is the part of completion day people find most stressful. There's rarely an exact time given in advance, and money transfers through the banking system don't move instantly, so most completions happen somewhere between late morning and mid afternoon, without a precise slot.

A few things genuinely affect the timing: how many properties are in the chain, when each solicitor sends their part of the funds, and how quickly the banks process the transfers. None of this is something you or your solicitor can force to go faster on the day itself.

What you can do is ask your solicitor two things in advance: roughly what time they expect to send or receive funds, and how they'll update you once completion has happened. Knowing what to expect, even loosely, makes the waiting easier.

This is also where early preparation makes a genuine difference. Because Home Panel completes identity verification and source of funds evidence before you're matched with your panel solicitor, there's less risk of an unresolved compliance query surfacing at the last minute and holding up the transfer on completion day itself. That's not a promise about timing on the day, since the banking system and the chain are outside anyone's control, it's simply one specific risk that's reduced by doing that groundwork early. Our how it works page explains the full process.

Delays do happen, most often because a property elsewhere in the chain hasn't completed yet, or funds haven't arrived in time from a lender or another solicitor. If this happens, your solicitor will be in contact with the other parties to establish when funds are expected, and completion usually still happens later the same day.

If completion doesn't happen on the agreed date at all, the contract sets out what happens next, which can include interest becoming payable by whichever party caused the delay. This is a matter for your solicitor to advise on directly, since it depends on the specific terms of your contract, and it isn't something we can generalise here.

If you're changing the ownership of a property rather than buying or selling it outright, for example adding or removing someone from the title, completion works differently. There's no chain, no keys, and usually no need to move out, since the property itself isn't changing hands to a new occupant.

Instead, completion is the point the ownership change is legally finalised and any related mortgage consent is confirmed. Our transfer of equity service explains the process in full.

• ●Confirm with your solicitor roughly when funds are expected to move.
• ●Make sure you're reachable by phone throughout the day.
• ●If you're buying, arrange to collect keys from the estate agent and confirm their hours.
• ●If you're selling, make sure the property is empty and in the agreed condition before the keys are due to be released.
• ●Book removals for later in the day rather than first thing, since completion rarely happens before late morning.
• ●Take final meter readings once you've moved in or out.

If you're planning the wider cost and logistics of the move itself, our moving cost calculator covers removals, surveys and Stamp Duty too, and if this is your first purchase, our first-time buyer checklist covers the whole process from offer to completion.

If you're buying a new build, completion works a little differently again, since the property may not be finished yet. Our new build conveyancing guide explains completion on notice in full.

Last reviewed 14 September 2026. This guide describes process rather than quoting rates, so nothing in it depends on a figure that changes at a fiscal event.