Property Conveyancing
Buyers Guide
We breakdown the conveyancing process for a buyer
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CONVEYANCING
BUYERS
GUIDE
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Initial Instruction
In order for us to act on your behalf we will require your formal instructions. To get these we will provide you with what is called a Client Care Letter. This letter lays out our legal fees and potential disbursements that will be required to pay. It also contains information such as our complaints procedure, terms and conditions and everything else you might need to know before deciding to instruct us.
You will instruct us formally by signing and returning that form at which point we can begin the process of ‘conveying’ the property from the seller to you. -
Inspecting the Title
Between us we need to find out as much as we can about the property so that you can make an informed decision.
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Contract Pack
The seller's conveyancer will provide us with a contract pack which contains the Sellers Property Information Form, Fittings and Content Form. These forms are completed by the seller themselves. With these forms the seller lets us know what they know about the property as well as the what will be remaining in the property when they leave.
The pack will also contain the title information as recorded at the land registry, known as the Official Copies.
We will inspect all these documents and if there are any red flags such as building works for which there are no planning permissions we will raise them with the seller’s conveyancers. All these forms and our findings will be presented to you later on. -
Searches
We don’t only rely on information provided by the seller’s and their conveyancers. We will also undertake various searches with other institutions, these include:
Local authority searches - these will tell you whether the property will be affected by things such as new road schemes, whether there are issues with contaminated land or whether the property is subject to radioactive gas
Drainage and Water Searches - this tells you what water and sewerage connections there are to your property.
Environmental Searches - this checks for landslips or subsidence and whether there is any contaminated land near your property.
Chancel Repair Search – ensuring that you have no medieval liability for the maintenance of local churches.
Some of these searches will come back the same day while other searches, such as the local authority searches, might take a few weeks to return. Once we have the result of all the searches will report on them to you. -
Surveys
While you might have performed a thorough inspection of the property you would also be advised to have a professional survey done. If you are buying the property with a mortgage then your lender will also have commissioned a survey but this will be undertaken with the lender’s interests in mind. We will always advise you to instruct your own surveyor.
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Enquiries and Report on Title
In each step of the way, if we find something about the property we are not happy about, or indeed if you let us know of something you are uncomfortable with or want to be clarified, we will raise the issue with the seller’s conveyancer who will, in turn, raise it with the seller. The process might go backwards and forwards a few times until both of us are confident you have enough information to make a decision about whether to go ahead with the purchase of your property.
When all enquiries have been exhausted we will deliver our final report to you with any recommendations that we may have. With the assistance of this report, you will make a final decision on whether to proceed with the purchase. -
Pre-Exchange
In preparation for exchange, you will need to sign the Contract for Sale with which you undertake to purchase the property and the Transfer Deed with which the seller assigns the title to you. Simply signing it does not commit you to the transaction, we will simply keep a copy of these on file.
At this point, we will advise you to take out buildings insurance to cover the property between exchange and completion.
We will request the deposit from you, normally 10% of the purchase price, and this will need to be in our account as cleared funds before we can exchange.
We will liaise with you and the seller’s conveyancers to arrange a completion date, the date on which you will finally own the property and be able to move in. -
Exchange
Otherwise known as Exchange of Contracts, is where we and the seller’s conveyancers swap the contracts that you and the seller have signed. This legally binds both of you to the transaction and the seller’s conveyancers receive your deposit.
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Pre-Completion
Now that you have the security of a completion date set in stone you will be able to make your removal arrangements to move into the property.
In preparation for completion, we will send you an invoice and completion statement. The completion statement will detail all the expenses that have been paid out on your behalf, all monies received from your lender if you are using a mortgage, and any balance due from you to complete the transaction. This balance will need to be in our account as cleared funds before the date of completion.
If you are buying with a mortgage we will contact your lender to ensure that their funds will be in our account in time as well. -
Completion
On completion day, we will transfer all funds required to effect completion to the seller’s conveyancers. Once they have received the funds they will authorise the keys to be released which you would typically collect from the Estate Agent. The property is yours and you will now be able to move in.
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Post-Completion
We will receive the Transfer Deed, signed by the seller, from the seller’s solicitor and send this off with your signed copy to the Land Registry. It could take a few weeks but they will update their records to reflect the fact that you now own the property and send evidence of this back to us which we will forward to you. There are no longer any title deeds per se, your ownership is recorded in the Land Registry database.
