Buying and Selling Property

When buying or selling a property you need reliable, sound advice and cheapest does not always mean the best.  We provide a first class service at an affordable cost, and the service that you will receive from our conveyancing team is certainly value for money.

We are proud to be accredited by the Law Society’s Conveyancing Quality Scheme which is a member’s panel allowing us to undertake work for both our clients and tender in order to streamline transactions.

Please call us for a fixed price quote, or complete the Enquiry Form.

We are here to make each stage of a conveyancing transaction as straight-forward as possible. A typical property sale or purchase can be broken down into five stages.

Pre-contract

Once an offer has been accepted on a property, legal documents need to be prepared to transfer the ownership. The solicitor or conveyancer acting for the seller drafts the sale contract for approval by the buyer’s solicitor or conveyancer. The contract will include details about:

• The parties
• The title to the property
• The price
• Any restrictions that are to be imposed on the property or matters which affect the
• property already
• The completion date

Before the contract is exchanged, the buyer’s solicitor or conveyancer will investigate the property by raising enquiries, reviewing the title and reviewing search results. The seller does not have to voluntarily tell a buyer about problems there might be with the property or neighbourhood. The seller should, however, reply truthfully to enquiries which the buyer’s solicitor raises and the buyer can rely on the replies that a seller gives.

Exchange of contracts

When the buyer and seller are happy with the contents of the sale and purchase contract, they each sign a copy of it and their solicitor will take the formal steps required to exchange contracts. Once contracts are exchanged, the agreement to sell and buy is legally binding and neither party can pull out without being liable for payment of compensation. A buyer will pay the seller a deposit (usually 10 per cent of the purchase price of the property) at exchange of contracts.  This is also when the completion date, or your moving date, is fixed.

Pre-completion

After exchanging contracts, there are a number of further matters dealt with which include preparing the transfer document for signature by the parties, arranging for funding to be in place for  completion day and conducting final Land Registry searches to protect the buyer from any other Land Registry applications that may be submitted before the buyer is registered as the legal owner of the property.

The seller and the buyer will use this period of time to arrange their removals, reading of utility meters and so on.

Completion

Completion is the day the parties have been looking forward to.  It is your moving day, when ownership of the property passes to the buyer.  Once the buyer’s solicitor or conveyancer is satisfied with everything, he or she will transfer the purchase monies to the seller’s solicitor or conveyancer.  It is often the case that a seller will have a mortgage secured on the property and the buyer’s solicitor will require a solicitor’s undertaking from the seller’s solicitor to repay all borrowings in full.

Once the purchase monies have been received by the seller’s solicitor or conveyancer, the solicitors or conveyancers will formally complete the transaction and the seller will be asked to pass the keys to the property to the buyer.  The purchase is complete and ownership of the property will formally transfer to the buyer when the transfer has been registered with the land registry.

Post-completion

After completion, the buyer’s solicitor will deal with payment of stamp duty land tax (where applicable) and register the buyer as the owner of the property.  Any mortgage taken out by the buyer is also registered at Land Registry against the buyer’s title to the property.