A London file
A file, here, is a set of notes to have ready before a request.
A short version can go on the form at The London Realtor. The full list stays with the household, so a later repeat can be checked against your words rather than against a softened version.
Name the job
The first line says what the file is. A purchase. A sale. Both. If both, the line also says which one leads, and what happens if that lead slips. A household that writes both and then refuses to choose an order has not finished the line. The order can change later. It still has to be chosen on purpose, not discovered when two dates collide.
Write the constraints
Constraints are the things the household will not bend in order to be agreeable. Rooms, stairs, a garden or the refusal of one, the way people get to work, the sound a street can make at night, the changes an owner is willing to take on. Each constraint should be specific enough to fail a house. A vague wish fails nothing. Keep the list short enough that a later walk can say which limits hold.
Write the place
The place line is a decision. Name the part of London, and write whether the lot is inside a heritage district or only near the name. The City's lines for Wortley Village–Old South, Old North, Woodfield, Old East Village, downtown, SoHo, and Blackfriars/Petersville are on the neighbourhoods page. Those notes follow designations and plans. They do not invent a street as the edge of a name. A place this site does not describe should still be named in your own notes, including what you would need the agent to find out.
Keep the money sentence private
The household should know the carrying cost it can pay, and the seller should know what work it will not fund before a showing. Those figures stay in your own notes unless you choose to put a range in the request. This site prints no sold price and no fee. A figure you cannot explain is a reason to stop.
Write the dates, and the questions
A file without a date is a wish. Write the date that cannot move, and the date that can. If a sale has to fund a purchase, write both, and write which one the household will disappoint if they cannot both be met. The hire does not get to pick that disappointment in a rushed week. If the notes say a week is the longest the file can go without news, a longer silence is a missed standard.
Leave room for the questions the first conversation has to answer. What will the agent repeat back? Who is named in the written agreement? How do showings get booked? What will the agent not promise? What would end the engagement? The sequence on how hiring works can be rewritten in the household's words. If the answer is only charm, the notes have caught it.