When buying or selling a property, it can be a complex process involving a number of different professionals all working together to meet an end goal. It is important to understand who these people are and what role they play so you can ensure your property sale or purchase is as smooth as it possibly can be.
Conveyancing is simply the legal process of transferring the ownership of a property from one person to another. Whether you are a seller or purchaser of a property, you need an expert conveyancing solicitor in your corner to ensure legalities involving your property transaction progress smoothly.
Though it is easy for you to primarily focus on the cost element alone since everything from estate agents, mortgage brokers, valuations and removals soon add up – remember that the entire marketability of the property you are selling or buying all depends on the legal work carried out.
It all starts with the seller’s solicitors issuing contract documents to the purchaser’s solicitors. Subsequently, their role will be to co-ordinate the transaction by supplying responses to the purchaser’s solicitors to ensure contracts are exchanged in the shortest time frame possible.
Fundamentally, a purchaser’s conveyancer’s role is to ensure that the property being bought can and will be registered at the Land Registry. If the property is being bought with a mortgage, the purchaser’s conveyancer will also be acting for the mortgage lender to ensure their security is appropriately registered against the property.
The purchaser’s conveyancer will also carry out comprehensive checks on the subject property’s title, the land upon which it sits and other locality issues. They will also ensure obvious factors such as the seller of the property does own it and is authorised to sell it, any mortgages are correctly administered and of course the property is suitably registered at the land registry.
If the property is leasehold, New Build or Shared Ownership, further enquires must be made about the lease itself, as well as any obligations you will have, as the owner (the technical term being Tenant). These can include service charges, ground rent, rent on shared ownership properties, repair obligations and responsibility for the cost of upkeep and maintenance.
It doesn’t end there though as your lawyer (be it acting for the seller or the purchaser) must consider a wide range of other factors unique to the property and its location.
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Once the purchaser’s solicitor has received contract papers from the sellers, they will inspect these documents thoroughly. One of the first things they will establish is whether the property is Freehold or Leasehold in tenure. We have over the years had countless cases where the purchaser has been led to believe that the property they are purchasing is a particular tenure by the agents or the sellers themselves and then turned out to be something completely different. In its simplest form, a freehold property is one where you will own both the land and any other buildings built on that land outright whereas leasehold means, you only own (temporarily in relative terms) a certain part of a freehold land. Leases with shorter terms, generally anything less than 80 years can have significant marketability issues as most mortgage lenders would not lend on these properties. Similarly, doubling ground rents or other onerous terms on leases can have dire implications both for you now as the new purchaser or any future buyers whom you wish to sell your property to.
Your appointed conveyancer will establish if there are any easements or rights of way affecting your property.
An easement is your right as a property owner to use someone else’s land for a designated purpose, be it access over it or trivial uses such as laying water pipes for instance. It is also worth remembering that once an easement has been granted, you can then no longer restrict access to it or build over an easement.
A right of way on the other hand is a form of easement, allowing access either on foot or by motor vehicle over someone else’s land. Rights of way are typically required to grant access to public woodland or rivers used for fishing over one’s estate.
Your conveyancer will also establish if any public footpaths (known as rights to roam) fall on your land, having either been granted by a previous owner of the property or any implied rights of way from the general public having had access over your land for years.
It is important to establish maintenance rights as you could be liable to contribute or solely bear the cost of the upkeep of these easements should they fall on your land.
A covenant is a legal obligation placed upon the owner of a property and may determine what can and cannot be done with the land. Covenants can date back many years but also pass with the land and so still be enforceable today. It is part of conveyancing formalities for your solicitor to find out the details of such covenants and restrictions, and then explain them to you so you can make an informed decision about whether this will affect your enjoyment of the property and ensure that you do not breach such covenants during your ownership of a property.
This point is especially applicable if you are buying with the assistance of mortgage finance. Your mortgage lender will also require your appointed conveyancer to act for them too in ensuring the lender’s security is appropriately registered at the land registry. Due to recent changes and restrictions imposed by most mortgage lenders, not all conveyancers or solicitors can act for all mortgage lenders. What this in other words mean is that should your appointed conveyancer not be on the approved list of lawyers for your chosen mortgage lender, you will have to pay for an additional firm of solicitors to represent your lender. At Express Conveyancing, all our panel solicitors are collectively on all approved mortgage lender panels. This means that regardless of who your proposed mortgage lender is, we are sure to have a solicitor who can act on your behalf.
When you are purchasing a property, your conveyancer must ensure that the property has all necessary planning and building control consents.
Planning permission relates to consent from the Local Authority to develop a particular piece of land, be it adding an extension to an existing house or the development of farm land to build a new housing estate.
Building Completion Consent on the other hand is what the council’s inspector would have issued as a sign off confirming any structural work carried out meets current building control standards and is structurally sound. That said, it is not uncommon to find a lot of property transactions involving lack of an adequate Building Completion Certificate. There are usually inexpensive methods of remedying these defects by way of simple indemnity insurance policies providing certain conditions have been met.
This is particularly true when it comes to buying a brand new property, where the property is still under construction. They will also ensure that any planning obligations imposed by the council under a s/106 action could be brought against the new owner.
Our diverse team of solicitors have experience of handling most types of property purchase including those bought through an affordable housing scheme. When speaking to our team, be sure to let us know about the scheme so we can ensure you have an accurate quotation and we match you with the right solicitor from our panel.
We regularly act on properties bought and sold through auction. We can handle traditional method auctions or modern method auctions and offer a range of services. You can find more information about our auction services by visiting our specific page here or you can have a chat with the member of the team.
It is common for prospective buyers to have questions about the property or local area. You may have seen something during a visit to the property or area and want clarification on it. You will have the opportunity to ask these as part of proceedings and your solicitor will make sure they are sent to the seller and their solicitor to answer.
Like questions, this is also a common occurrence. Whilst structural related questions should be addressed to your surveyor, you can raise issues flagged for your conveyancer with solicitor and discuss the different options and best way forward.
We worked with Express Conveyancing when buying our first house, and are both happy with our experience. The price is extremely competitive, and the service was very good. The website was a handy tool to track your progress and when emailing the replies were very quick. Our solicitor she was very helpful and patient when we were panicking and being put under pressure from our estate agent. The whole process was very smooth.
We needed to find a conveyancing solicitor that would be able to complete the sale within 5 weeks. Finding express conveyancing worked out brilliantly. Having presented our situation to them, they issued a quote without hidden fees and matched me with a reliable conveyancing company with two dedicated solicitors which worked on our file straight away. Express conveyancing checked in with us throughout the whole process in the meanwhile. I will definitely recommend them.
I always received update on time, they are very good at calling back. I completed my purchase just under 10 weeks. I am very pleased with service and fee. I definitely recommend the Express Conveyancing to my friends.
From the quote stage all the way through to completion, this was a very straight forward and open process. Express Conveyancing provided a very quick and detailed quote, which was competitive and their partner delivered the service you’d like to expect from a conveyancing firm. Very happy with the service and would definitely use again.
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