Buying and selling your home

Buying a home will probably be the biggest purchase you ever make, so you need to have confidence that your solicitor has the knowledge and expertise to act on your behalf – allied with the organisation and efficiencies to get the job done.

We assist buyers and sellers in all aspects of residential property, including:

• Title searches and due diligence: we conduct thorough title searches and due diligence to identify potential issues and mitigate risk. This investigatory stage is important, so that you understand any issues that relate to the property you want to purchase or the surrounding areas
• Contract review and drafting: we review contracts, safeguarding your rights and obligations and where needed draft legal documents required for the transaction.
• Deal progression: we liaise with estate agents and solicitors to seek to ensure progress with any related sale or purchase to keep up momentum.
• Completion: Trust us to handle the complexities of completion to finalise your property transaction.

Visit our resources section for informative articles and FAQs if you want to know more.

Link to Guide – Buying and Selling your Home

There are many reasons why you are selling your home. These can include purchasing a first home, moving up the housing ladder to a larger property, relocating or downsizing. Whatever the reason, we can provide a top quality conveyancing service.

We can help with:

• Contract drafting: we draft sale contracts, safeguarding your rights and obligations
• Deal progression: we liaise with estate agents and solicitors to seek to ensure progress with any related sale or purchase to keep up momentum.
• Completion: Trust us to handle the complexities of completion to finalise your property transaction.

Link to Guide – Buying and Selling your Home

Why might you want to remortgage your home? This could be, for example, to get a more advantageous mortgage deal with a lower interest rate or to raise funds to pay for a home extension.

We can provide advice on the legal process and efficiently manage it for you.

When you decide to buy a new build property its essential to understand the legal intricacies of the process. Purchasing a newly built home can be an exciting time, but its vital to ensure that your investment is protected and the transaction proceeds smoothly.

Our work on such transactions includes the following:

• Due diligence: this includes checking the developer’s planning permission and other relevant legal information for new build properties, such as access and rights of way
• Contract Review: the purchase contract for a new build can be complex. We will review the contract to ensure that it includes the necessary safeguards, such as completion dates, penalties for delays and specifications of the property
• Title checks: we will conduct title searches to confirm that the property is free from encumbrances and that the boundaries of the title are clear
• Inspections and snagging: we can guide you on the importance of inspections and snagging to identify defects or issues that need to be rectified by the developer before completion
• Completion and handover: we will oversee the progress and completion of the transaction to seek to ensure that the property is handed over to you in the condition promises.

Buying a home will probably be the biggest purchase you ever make, so you need to have confidence that your solicitor has the knowledge and expertise to act on your behalf – allied with the organisation and efficiencies to get the job done.

We assist buyers and sellers in all aspects of residential property, including:

• Title searches and due diligence: we conduct thorough title searches and due diligence to identify potential issues and mitigate risk. This investigatory stage is important, so that you understand any issues that relate to the property you want to purchase or the surrounding areas.
• Management/Landlord pack review – we conduct thorough investigations of the management information which includes but is not limited to, the last three years of accounts, insurance, any major works anticipated and the seller’s statement of account.
• Contract review and drafting: we review contracts, safeguarding your rights and obligations and where needed draft legal documents required for the transaction.
• Deal progression: we liaise with estate agents and solicitors to seek to ensure progress with any related sale or purchase to keep up momentum.
• Completion: Trust us to handle the complexities of completion to finalise your property transaction including serving Notice on the Management Company/Landlord/Freeholder.

Visit our resources section for informative articles and FAQs if you want to know more.

Link to Guide – Buying and Selling your Home

There are many reasons why you are selling your home. These can include purchasing a first home, moving up the housing ladder to a larger property, relocating or downsizing. Whatever the reason, we can provide a top quality conveyancing service.

We can help with:

• Contract drafting: we draft sale contracts, safeguarding your rights and obligations.
• Contacting your Management Company/Landlord – we contact them to obtain the management pack together with the supporting documentation. Please note, there is usually a fee for them providing this information which is payable upfront.
• Deal progression: we liaise with estate agents and solicitors to seek to ensure progress with any related sale or purchase to keep up momentum.
• Completion: Trust us to handle the complexities of completion to finalise your property transaction.

This is never an easy question to answer but is the most common we hear. Timescales are heavily dependent on every buyer, seller, solicitor and mortgage lender involved in a chain and the specific complexities of each property transaction. The national average currently stands at between 14 – 20 weeks depending on whether we are dealing with a freehold or leasehold property. Generally leasehold properties take longer than freehold and when there are more parties in a chain it can take longer as one part of the chain may be under offer earlier than other parts. Whatever happens we will always look to complete for you at the earliest opportunity when we and you are happy that everything is ready to proceed and that you and your mortgage lender, if any, are protected.

Our timescales usually begin from the point a contract pack is received and not when your offer is made as until this point, we cannot do any legal work on your transaction.

There are so many different factors involved in property transactions that are controlled by third parties that it is impossible to give a definitive completion date until the later stages of the transaction. Therefore, we recommend that you plan for some flexibility in case things take longer than expected.

We recommend that you instruct a solicitor when you put your property on the market or when you have an offer accepted when you are buying a home. The earlier you can get paperwork started the better and having information available up front will help your transaction get off to a quick start and allow time for any queries to be dealt with.

Some people wish to carry out DIY conveyancing however all mortgage lenders will require a solicitor to protect their interests. Most people are better off instructing a specialist solicitor to help them with their property sale or home purchase as this is what we do every day and we can help guide you through the process and any complexities and try to make it as hassle free as possible.

Your solicitor will handle all the legal aspects of buying or selling a property for you, will keep you updated along the way and provide you with help and support during the process.

When selling a property, the solicitor will provide evidence of your ownership of the property and the Property Information Forms you have completed to the buyers solicitors as part of a contract pack. They will deal with any questions which may be raised about the contract pack with your help and when completion takes place they will deal with the completion funds, paying off any mortgages secured on the property, paying your estate agent and distributing the funds as per your instructions.

When purchasing a property, the principle of ‘Caveat Emptor’ or ‘Buyer Beware’ applies which means that the buyers take on the biggest risk during a property transaction. This means that the buyer should arrange their own surveys and inspections to uncover any defects, and these should be dealt with prior to completing your purchase as after that they become your responsibility.

Solicitors acting for a purchaser will review the contract pack and legal title to discover any issues which could prevent you purchasing the property, reselling it in future or make it difficult to obtain a mortgage on the property and working with the sellers’ solicitors to rectify these issues to protect you and your mortgage lender. They will also review search results and advise you on these and check your mortgage offer and conditions. Once they are satisfied you and any potential mortgage lender are protected, they will handle the completion process and then register the transfer of the property at Land Registry.

Searches are one of the main steps in the conveyancing process. Each search result provides important information about different elements of your property and can provide important information about how you can use your property in the future. If you are purchasing a property with a mortgage your lender will require us to carry out specific searches and having these will be a condition of your mortgage offer to ensure that the property is secure for them to lend on. The main searches required for property purchases are:

• Local search – obtains a wide range of information from the local authority including known planning and building regulation history of the property, whether the property is subject to any enforcement notices, the status of highways adjoining the property
• Drainage and water search – tells us whether the property has mains water and drainage and the location of any public sewers or water mains in and around the property.
• Environmental Search – provides details about potential contaminated land.

Some searches are only required if you live in an area which is affected by a specific risk such as coal mining. We will let you know if any additional searches are required and their cost.