Our Quick Guide to Conveyancing
Buying and selling a home can be a traumatic experience if you are unprepared - take some time to understand what is involved and let us know at the outset what your needs are so that we can work with you.
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Selling your property
Just deciding to sell your home can be a very stressful time. Once you have decided to take that step you need to consider whether it is a Buyer's market or seller's market. If properties are selling quickly you will need to find somewhere to either buy or move to straightaway.
Going with an Estate Agent
The majority of people put their property on the market with an estate agent. It is important to consider not only the reputation and strength of the estate agent in the local market but also what their charges and the terms of the contract you will be required to sign. You will need to consider whether or not this ties you in to an extended period and to ensure that they are operating a "no sale, no fee" arrangement so that you do not have to pay any fees if they are unable to sell your house. Find out from them if the cost of advertising your property is included in the price or is there an additional sum to pay.
Make sure that the estate agent does not tie you in to using their own solicitors. They are probably being paid to pass the work to their preferred solicitor. This will unnecessarily increase the cost of doing the legal work. You should be advised by both the estate agent and the lawyer if a referral fee is being paid.
Home Information Packs
If you are to market the property on the open market with or without an Estate Agent,
you must now have in place a Home Information Pack ('HIP') before you are able to
place the property on the market. The HIP contains the following:-
- Index
- Sale Statement
- Official Registered Entries and filed Plan (title to your property)
- Local Authority Search Result
- Water & Drainage Search Result
- Energy Performance Certificate
- Property Information Questionnaire
If you use an Estate Agent, your Agent will either advise that that Agent can supply a HIP, or if you prefer to have an independent HIP, the Agent will require confirmation that the HIP has been ordered.
Instructing a Conveyancing Solicitor
Make sure that you have a full and detailed quote with no hidden charges. Find out from your solicitor before agreeing to instruct them whether or not they propose to charge you if the sale falls through. Many solicitors tend to keep their initial quote low but "add on extras" to the unsuspective. Examples of these are fees to arrange for indemnity insurance to avoid any problem regarding your title (whether there is one or not) or a separate fee to redeem your mortgage.
Once you have instructed a solicitor the solicitor will need to prepare a contract. To enable a solicitor to do this he will need:-
- The Title Deeds for the property
- Information from the Land Registry
- Full details of your existing mortgage
- Fittings and Contents Form
- Copies of any planning permission relating to any works undertaken
- A seller's property information form completed by you
When the contract papers have been sent to the Buyer's Solicitors they may need to carry out further searches on the property which depending on the search involved may take approximately 1-2 weeks to obtain. However, many of these searches are now returned online and therefore are obtained much more quickly. The Buyer's Solicitor may also ask various questions relating to the property after he has received the above paperwork and the search results. These questions will be answered by us on your behalf after we have discussed these fully with you.
The Buyer will also at this time be ensuring that the finance is available to buy the property and also instruct a surveyor to carry out an inspection of your property on their behalf.
Subject to everything being in order your solicitor will ask you to sign a contract and when the Buyer has signed an identical contract these will be exchanged which is when a formal commitment for you to sell and the Buyer to buy the property is made on the terms agreed. At this stage a completion date will be agreed which is the date that you will have to leave the property.
Completion will only formally take place when the sale proceeds have been received by the Seller's Solicitors on the Completion Day. At this point the property belongs to the Buyer and the Title Deeds to the property will be passed over and any mortgage repaid out of the monies received, along with the estate agent's fees.
The balance of the money, sometimes referred to as the equity, will be sent to you unless this is being used to buy another property.
No legal fees will be charged if a matter aborts but responsibility for payments made to third parties will remain payable.
Buying a property
Buying a property for most of us is the largest investment we will ever make in our lifetime. It is important therefore for a Buyer to fully investigate all aspects of the property, both physical and legal.
Purchase price
When you have found a property that you want and carefully considered the price you are willing to pay, you will usually contact the estate agents and make them an offer for the property. If this is accepted you should contact your solicitor immediately as well as the person or company arranging your mortgage.
Searches
The first step to be taken by your solicitor is to submit searches to various authorities and you will be required to pay for these before they are undertaken. Your solicitor will ask the Seller's Solicitor for the contract and other relevant documentation which will also contain the seller's property information form and title deeds.
Survey
Once your solicitor has had a chance to look through the documents, dealt with any issues and are in receipt of your mortgage offer they will contact you with a title report for the property and advise you at that stage if there are any issues.
When all matters have been satisfactorily dealt with, you will need to sign the contract, at which stage you will be asked to provide a deposit. This is usually 10% of the purchase price, but it is often possible to use the deposit received from your Buyer if you are selling a property at the same time. It may only be necessary in such cases to 'top-up' the deposit if you are purchasing for a higher sum.
Exchange contracts
At the time contracts are exchanged you will need to have decided on a date you want to move on which will be agreed with your Seller and also your Buyer if appropriate.
When contracts are exchanged you are then legally bound to purchase the property. If you change your mind after exchange of contracts you will at the very least lose your deposit and be liable for any financial loss incurred by the Seller.
Completion
Before the completion date your solicitors will need to obtain funds for the purchase from either yourself, a linked sale and/or your lender which will be transferred to the Seller's Solicitors on completion.
After completion your solicitors will need to pay the stamp duty on the property, register your ownership and any mortgage with the Land Registry and either forward the Deeds to you or your mortgage provider.
No legal fees will be charged if a matter aborts but responsibility for payments made to third parties will remain payable.
Re-mortgaging a property
Re-mortgaging is now very common for a variety of reasons. Before re-mortgaging you should ensure that there will be no penalty charges payable to your existing mortgage company and that you are not tied into them.
Once you have agreed to remortgage your property, your solicitors will need to obtain the title to the property and carry out any searches required by your new lender.
A surveyor may also be appointed to carry out a valuation on your property depending upon the amount you propose to remortgage for.
Your Solicitor will then need to approve the title to your property on behalf of the Lender and deal with any queries at that time.
When this has been done a mortgage offer should be received, at which stage a mortgage deed will need to be signed and a completion date decided upon. On completion, existing mortgages will need to be paid off by the new mortgage funds and various documents have to be filed with the Land Registry, to remove any previous mortgages that have been repaid and add on your new mortgage.