Whether you are buying your first home, selling or moving to a different part of town or country we can help. We will put you in touch with a professional solicitor who is providing this service for our clients and helps you to deal with the whole process from the moment you put your offer in and help take the stress out of the move.
What is “Conveyancing”?
'Conveyancing' refers to all the legal and administrative work associated with transferring the ownership of land or buildings from one owner to another. The conveyancing process starts after an offer has been made and accepted to buy a property and solicitors' details exchanged by the two parties. The whole process is explained below. The Conveyancing Process:
There are essentially 3 main stages in the conveyancing process. These are:
Pre-contract
Between exchange of contracts and completion
Post completion
Obtaining a purchase contract from the sellers' solicitors, with details of the property and its ownership.
Sorting out any pre-contract enquires and obtain copies of any existing guarantees, planning consents, etc.
Obtaining the sellers' fixtures and fittings list to see what they will be leaving in the property, and you will get a copy to check.
When your mortgage offer has arrived, your conveyancer will arrange for you to sign the contract and hand over your deposit for him to hold in readiness for "exchange".
When the mortgage conditions have been met and the sellers are ready to proceed, a completion date is agreed that suits everyone in the chain. Contracts can now be exchanged and the transfer deed effected.
Once this has been done your conveyancer can call down the mortgage advance from your lender and send you a final completion statement. On completion day, your conveyancer pays the required amount to the sellers' solicitors in exchange for the title deeds. You can now move into your new home.
Your conveyancer will now register your name and mortgage at H.M. Land Registry and send the deeds to your lender for them to hold as security for their mortgage advance.
DIY Conveyancing: Pros and Cons
DIY-conveyancing is perfectly possible. If you are not put off by legal jargon and willing to deal with the large amounts of paperwork involved then you might manage without a professional conveyancer or solicitor. However, it is advisable to think about this very carefully, as it is a complex and time-consuming business. If it is not carried out properly you could, for example, find yourself involved in costly legal disputes over boundaries, or discover that there is a new road planned to be built opposite your home, or even that the seller did not have the legal right to sell the home. In reality very few homebuyers undertake the conveyancing themselves, for three main reasons:
Many mortgage lenders will insist on employing a solicitor to protect their interests. They will not risk having shoddy conveyancing work.
There is a higher chance of things going disastrously wrong.
The other people involved may not be happy with you doing your own conveyancing, and may even reject your offer on this basis.
There are some cases in which DIY conveyancing is particularly inadvisable, for example:
The property is being sold by a divorcing or separating couple (this requires specialist skill or knowledge).
The property is not freehold.
The property is unregistered.
The property is not a house.
Glossary of Terms:
Completion: This is the date set in the contract for when ownership of the property is transferred following payment of the balance of the purchase price. This is also the day on which most people actually move house.
Deposit: This is part of the purchase price and is paid upon exchange of contracts. It will normally be 10% of the purchase price.
Exchange of contracts: This is the point at which both parties become committed to proceed with the transaction. Literally it is the exchange of one copy of the contract signed by the seller for the copy signed by the buyer, normally following a telephone conversation between the seller’s and buyer’s solicitors.
On completion day, your conveyancer pays the required amount to the sellers' solicitors in exchange for the title deeds. You can now move into your new home.