Residential Property (buying and selling houses)

What is residential conveyancing?

The term residential conveyaning means the legal process of either buying or selling a house. The term applies whether you are buying or selling a house which you intend to live in, or have lived in, as your main house or if you are buying or selling houses as part of an investment portfolio (i.e. rental properties).

What is the legal process?

When selling a house, it is our job to draft and check all the legal paperwork in order to transfer the legal ownership of your property to your buyer. It is also our job to answer, on your behalf, any questions that are raised by your buyer or their Solicitor in relation to the legal Title to the property. We do this either by referring to the legal principles that apply or by asking you to provide answers to those questions which require personal knowledge of the property.

When buying a house, it is our job to check the legal paperwork that has been provided by the Seller’s Solicitor to ensure that you are obtaining a good legal Title to the property. We also carry out a range of searches which assist us in identifying any problems to do with matters such as Drainage and Water, Environmental and Planning matters. As part of our service to you we will provide you with a full report on Title so that you are in possession of all the information relevant to your new home.

Whether buying or selling a property, if you have a mortgage, we will ensure that the lender’s requirements are fully met, at no additional cost to you.

How long does it take to buy and sell a house?

There is really no definite answer to this question. We aim to complete transactions within 6 to 8 weeks. However, there are various factors which may mean that we either exceed this timescale or complete the matter much more quickly.

For example, if you are a cash buyer and are buying a property which is empty and where there is no chain (i.e. your seller does not have a related purchase) it could be entirely possible to complete the purchase within 4 weeks or less.

However, if you are buying with the aid of a mortgage and selling a property too, where both your buyer and your seller have related transactions and also have mortgages, the whole process could take much longer.

The basic rule is; the longer the chain and the more people in that chain who have mortgages, the longer the transaction will take to complete.

How do we charge?

We charge fixed fees for all property transactions and at the time of providing you with an estimate as to costs, we will also tell you how much all the searches, land registry fees and stamp duty land tax will cost too. That way, you can be certain that there are no hidden costs and can budget from the very beginning of your transaction.

Although we don’t make any profit from the searches that we undertake on your behalf, those costs do vary depending upon where your property is located as each Local Authority will charge a different amount.

Therefore, in order to ensure that the information provided by us is correct at the time you ask for it, we ask clients to telephone us (01392 274006), or to complete our online enquiry form to obtain an accurate no obligation estimate as to the costs involved with your transaction.

Other things to think about when buying and selling houses:

Although your main focus will, undoubtedly, be either completing the sale of your house of moving into you new home as soon as possible, you must also consider the following:

• Do you need to update your Will?
• Do you want to own your new home with your spouse or partner as tenants in common or as joint tenants?
• Do you need to have a Trust Deed drawn up to reflect the different amounts of money you and your spouse or partner have invested in the purchase of your new home?
• If you are buying your house with you partner and are unmarried, should you enter into a cohabitation agreement?

If you would like further information about any of the above, please telephone us and we can advise you as to whether the above apply in your circumstances and if so, provide you with a fixed fee.