Conveyancing

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What is protection?

When buying or selling your home, re-mortgaging, taking out a lease, or doing any other kind of property deal, it is essential to get all of the legal details right. Make a mistake and you could lose a lot of time and money, or be left with on-going problems that should have been foreseen and avoided. Your appointed conveyancer can handle everything related to the contracts of sale, ensuring your interests are protected, as well as processing the financial side of the transaction, ensuring the money changes hands at exactly the right time, allowing the transaction to progress smoothly.

Our panel of conveyancers pride themselves on providing a fast, cost effective, modern conveyancing service to clients all over the world. We’re proud of the national conveyancing service through local agents, the dedicated conveyancing solicitors and conveyancers who make up our friendly team. The highly experienced conveyancing solicitors throughout the UK can deal with every kind of conveyancing transaction, from the smallest cottage to the largest penthouse apartment.

What is Conveyancing?

Conveyancing is the legal side of buying and selling real property, such as houses or land. It involves a number of different aspects, including:
  • Liaising with many different parties – the representative or solicitor for the other party to the transaction, estate agents, surveyors, mortgage lenders and banks, sometimes leasehold managing agents and freehold landlords
  • Investigating the legal title to property, to ensure that the seller has the right to sell it
  • Examining the Official Register of Title or any title deeds (if the property is unregistered).
  • Advising the purchaser on the rights and obligations associated with the property, such as easements (right to pass across land belonging to someone else), drainage and water supply, who maintains the boundaries etc.
  • Obtaining and considering searches from the local authority, water companies, and environmental consultants
  • Asking or responding to enquiries (questions) from the other party to the transaction’s solicitors.
  • Ensuring that all the legal documentation is properly drawn up.
  • Making sure that the right amounts of money are paid to the right parties and any mortgages are redeemed.
  • Registering the transaction with HM Land Registry after it has completed.

Purchase Content

All transactions are individual and will depend on a number of factors as well as the wishes of each party in the chain of transactions.

A rough estimate would be that completion would occur 6 to 8 weeks after the transaction is initially agreed.

Your appointed conveyancer will try to complete your transaction as quickly as possible and if you have any particular requirements you should you’re your conveyancer aware of these as early as you can.
All conveyancing transactions are handled by teams of 3 or 4 individuals. Each team is headed by an experienced conveyancer and supervised by qualified solicitors and Legal Executives.

By working in teams your appointed conveyancer is supported by experienced assistants. This means that even when one member of the team is not in the office there are still other members of the team who will be able to handle the transaction.

It could be any member of the team who will be your main point of contact but if you would like to speak to the specific conveyancer about a particular issue please ask at any time.

In all cases we will carry out the following searches:

Local Authority Search – this search will check the registers held by the Local Authority and will reveal, among other things, matters such as the planning history of the property, whether the road the property is on is a publicly adopted highway and whether any adverse charges are registered in the Local Authority registers.

Environmental Search – this will check the historic use of the land on which the property is built. It will reveal if the information in any public registers suggests that the property could potentially be considered contaminated land under environmental legislation and therefore subject to potentially expensive clean up costs.

In addition to these your conveyancer will check if any specific searches are recommended for the location of the property such as a
flood search or coal mining search. They will advise you of the additional cost for any of these services before these are carried out.

It is recommended that a survey of some type is carried out in all cases.When you are purchasing with a mortgage your lender will carry out a valuation of the property. In many cases this is the only inspection by a surveyor. We would always recommend that a more detailed survey is carried out as this valuation will make very few comments on the condition of the property. It is for the benefit of the lender and you cannot rely upon it if there later proves to be an issue with the property.

You may be able to contact your lender and arrange for their surveyor to carry out a more detailed report for your benefit at an additional cost. There are various other options available for surveys depending on the surveyor you approach. The most common options are:

  • A Home Buyers Report – this is not a full structural survey but provides an option which goes into detail between this and a basic valuation.
  • Full Structural Survey – this is recommended for all older properties or properties which have been significantly altered. This is the most comprehensive survey you can obtain.

If you are interested in this then please speak to your conveyancer, they can advise if this will be possible. Your conveyancer would not advise this unless they are sure there is not a significant risk of a conflict of interest arising between the interests of each party.

In almost all cases where there is a mortgage your conveyancer will also be acting for your mortgage lender and reporting on the title to the property to them.

All conveyancers are on the panel for all the major lenders and the vast majority of other lenders. If you need to confirm whether a particular conveyancer is on the panel for a particular lender, please ask.
This is a consent form for the mortgage. By signing this an occupier will confirm that they are aware of the mortgage and they will agree that in the event that the lender ever has to seek possession of the property they agree to vacate.

Your conveyancer would always advise that an occupier seeks independent legal advice on the contents of this form as the conveyancer would be unable to advise them. Some lenders will require that independent legal advice is obtained.
Until contracts have exchanged either party is able to withdraw from the transaction and no compensation would be payable. This ensures that the purchaser is able to have the legal due diligence carried out and obtain a survey and mortgage. If any adverse matters are revealed then it gives them an opportunity to renegotiate or withdraw from the transaction.

Unfortunately this does also mean that either party can withdraw without giving a reason.Once contracts have exchanged the position is different and there will be financial liabilities to withdrawing from a transaction.
It is now compulsory for all purchases of property to be registered at the Land Registry but this was not always the case.

Some properties which have not changed hands for some time will still not be registered at the Land Registry and your conveyancer will need to see, and report upon, the old paper copies of the deeds. Following completion of the transaction the property will need to be registered.

Your conveyancer will have experience dealing with the properties which are either registered or unregistered.
In most cases houses are purchased on a freehold basis and flats are purchased on a leasehold basis. The freehold title relates to the ownership of the land itself. All properties have a freehold title.If you purchase a leasehold property then you will be the tenant of the property. This could be by purchasing an existing tenancy/lease or when a new tenancy/lease is created.

Residential leasehold properties are usually the subject of a long lease which was initially granted for 99 years or more. By purchasing the property you will become a tenant of the property and will be entitled to exclusive use of the property.

Leases are usually used for flats to ensure that the Landlord retains control of the building and common parts. This means that one person/organisation is responsible for maintaining the main structure and common parts and can charge for this through a service charge.
Exchange of Contracts is the point at which a transaction becomes legally binding. This will not occur until all parties are ready to proceed. A deposit is usually paid at this stage.

Completion is the point at which the balance of the purchase price is paid (and any mortgage funds are drawn down). This is the point at which ownership of the property actually changes.
A deposit of 10% of the purchase price is usually paid upon exchange of contracts. This can be higher or lower if this is agreed between the parties.
Prior to the day of completion your appointed conveyancer will have provided you with a completion statement when your conveyancer need funds from you and instructions for how these can be transferred to them. Your conveyancer will also have requested any mortgage funds.

Under the terms of the contract completion should usually occur by no later than 2pm. However, in practice, completion will occur once the funds have been transferred to the seller’s conveyancer. Where there is a chain of transactions this will depend on how long it takes for the money to arrive with your conveyancer on your sale transaction.
Completions can occur on any banking day that is agreed between the parties. Friday is the traditional day for completion as it allows the weekend for unpacking and organising the house which has been purchased.
It is not usual for access to be granted prior to completion.

If a seller will agree this then it is likely that they will require exchange of contracts to occur and they will require a “key undertaking” by which you will agree to return the keys if requested to do so.
It is possible that you will require planning permission and building regulations approval for any work. There may be additional considerations if the property is a listed building or in a conservation area.

Your conveyancer will not provide detailed planning advice and if there is any doubt in this respect you should seek the advice of the Local Authority and/or a planning consultant.

In addition to these consents, there may be covenants on the title to the property which require consent form a named individual. Your conveyancer will provide details of these covenants when reporting to you.
Stamp Duty Land Tax is payable on almost all transactions where the purchase price exceeds £125,000. Your conveyancer will provide details of the stamp duty payable when providing details of the fees. Details of the current rates payable can be found on the HMRC website together with an online calculator.
This will depend on the exact terms of the contract but regardless of this your conveyancer would always advise that you insure the property from exchange of contracts. This is because from exchange you will be committed to purchase the property even if any damage occurs to it.

If a property is leasehold you will not usually be required to insure the building as it will be insured by the Landlord. You will need to insure the contents once you are in occupation.
Your conveyancer will not advise that removals are confirmed until contracts have exchanged. At any point up to this date it is possible for the date to change or for a party to withdraw from the transaction
If you wish to record such contributions then this can be recorded in a Declaration of Trust. Your conveyancer will ask for these details in their initial instruction forms.

There will be an additional cost for a Declaration of Trust and your conveyancer we will advise you of this cost once they become aware that this is required.
A covenant is a binding promise in relation to a property which is usually registered on the Land Registry title. As owner you will need to comply with these.

Covenants can be either positive (an obligation to do something – such as pay a charge) or restrictive (an obligation not to do something – such as an obligation not to alter the property without consent).
Your conveyancer is not in a position to offer tax advice. You should speak to a suitably qualified financial advisor about your tax liabilities before committing to purchase a buy to let property.
Your conveyancer will submit the application to register the property to the Land Registry as soon as possible following completion. However this process can take some time.

Your conveyancer will advise you once the property is registered but in some cases this can take 2-3 months

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