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Conveyancing
Outlined below is a description of what conveyancing (the legal stuff) involves. Here at The Estate Agency Discount Club we work with an established firm that have proven their abilities to us and past clients time and time again. Our key partner LMS offers online access to your file notes, ensuring you are fully informed 24 hours a day 7 days week as other direct links to your case handler.
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What is Conveyancing?
Conveyancing, the legal transfer of the ownership of a leasehold or freehold property, is a process fraught with complications. And although in theory it can be completed in an afternoon if all goes smoothly, it is more likely to take months. The sale and purchase of a leasehold property is more complex than with a freehold property. If the property you are selling is leasehold, you should find out what the financial restrictions imposed by the lease are as well as any conditions and restrictions.
You must be absolutely sure that you will have exclusive rights over the land, so a solicitor or licensed conveyancer should be used for the transfer of property ownership. These legal professionals will not only have the knowledge that it takes to check into every aspect of your ownership, but will also be insured against something going wrong in the process. That means you have recourse to compensation should they make a mistake in the process that costs you money.
A conveyancing expert will charge you anything from a few hundred pounds to several thousand pounds to complete a purchase or handle a sale. The price depends on the transaction's complexity and the value of the property. Again, because of the relative complexity of a leasehold sale, legal fees will be higher for homes of this type.
The conveyancing process starts with the investigation, in which draft documentation is provided by the seller's conveyancer to the buyer's conveyancer. Then pre-contract enquiries are carried out; at this stage the buyer's conveyancer will ask the seller questions about disputes with neighbours or alterations to the policy. This is followed by the local authority search, which involves looking at the register of local land charges to find out about any plans that could affect the property. This could take between four and six weeks and is required by the mortgage lender.
The next stage in the process is the assessment of draft contracts, in which the conveyancer checks that the wording of the contracts is correct and unambiguous. With a leasehold property, the apportionment of expenses is checked thoroughly and the terms of maintenance and management of the property are also checked. The deposit
on the exchange of contracts is negotiated here as well as the time between exchange and completion.
At the point of exchange of contracts, there is a binding contract between the buyer and seller – the terms of the sale and the price are set and neither party can pull out of the transaction without incurring substantial financial penalties. The completion date is set and at this point you need to take out buildings insurance. Your conveyancer will check that neither the buyer nor the seller has a bankruptcy notice against him. Finally, title searches at the Land Registry are carried out.
On completion day, funds are transferred and the buyer gets access to the property. Finally, stamp duty is paid and the purchaser is registered with the Land Registry as the legal owner of the property. Title deeds are then sent to the mortgage lender and with this the process is complete.
