Your Property Experts
We recognise that buying or selling a property is quite possibly the largest financial transaction you will ever make. Property is a complex and often risky business, yet we see some people exercising more care when purchasing a pair of shoes or a handbag than they do when buying a property. We are property experts and throughout our careers, have seen many of the problems which arise during the conveyancing transaction. You need an experienced Conveyancer on your side, so speak to us today about how we can help you to achieve a smooth transaction.
It can be tempting when choosing a Conveyancer, to go for the cheapest however we would urge you to exercise caution when appointing your Conveyancer.
Legal mistakes are costly, which is why it pays to engage a professional for your property transaction. Our Conveyancers have decades of conveyancing experience between them and have a thorough knowledge of the conveyancing process. In addition, we use effective systems to flag potential risks, protect our client’s interests and ensure they are properly advised. We only have fully experienced and fully qualified staff handling your case as we aim to ensure your sale, purchase or remortgage is as stress-free as possible. Conveyancing is not an area for novices, you need expert help and assistance which is why we only allow fully qualified and experienced members of the team to handle your conveyancing transaction.
What’s included in the conveyancing process?
Whether you are selling or buying, there are many legal and due diligence steps involved in a property transaction to ensure the matter proceeds as seamlessly as possible.
Conveyancing
Conveyancing is the legal and administrative process of transferring land or property from one party to another. When dealing with the sale, purchase, transfer or remortgage of a property, you need to use the services of a competent Conveyancer. Look no further than Davis & Co. as we have decades of experience in this field. All of our Conveyancers are fully experienced and fully qualified Conveyancers.
Estate agents
Most sellers engage an estate agent to value the property and put it on the property market. The estate agent facilitates physical inspections of the property, takes any offers made by potential buyers and presents these to the seller for consideration. They usually act as a point of contact throughout the transaction.
Property Lawyers
A Property Lawyer is a fully qualified Licensed Conveyancer, Solicitor or Legal Executive. Please be very careful when appointing your Conveyancer because unless they have the title of Licensed Conveyancer, Solicitor or Legal Executive (for example if they are known simply as a Conveyancer, or Conveyancing Executive or Case Handler), they are not fully qualified and may not be able to provide the high level of service demanded by the conveyancing process. Do not be afraid to check the credentials of the person you are thinking of appointing to look after your conveyancing transaction. At Davis & Co we only have fully qualified individuals looking after your transaction as we recognise you need the best possible level of support at what can be a stressful time.
A Property Lawyer generally becomes involved when an offer has been made by a potential buyer and accepted by the seller. At Davis & Co we are happy to provide estimates at the outset before an offer has been accepted, so that you are fully aware of the costs of the transaction should your offer for the property be accepted. Contact us now for a no-obligation quote.
The Process
There are three stages to the conveyancing transaction. Stage one is the pre-contract stage, the stage before everything becomes legally binding. Stage two is the exchange of contracts at which point the transaction is binding and Stage three is the completion, when the completion of the property sale or purchase takes place.
At the beginning of the transaction when we have been instructed, we will send you an initial client care letter explaining the process and the costs involved, including stamp duty, VAT and any other disbursements.
What’s involved with a sale?
On a sale, we will check your ID and undertake compliance formalities to ensure that you are entitled to sell the property. There are several documents which form part of the draft contractual package which we will send to you initially for you to complete and return. One of the forms you have to complete is a Sellers Property Information Form (TA6) and this contains important information about your property such as whether it has flooded, or if it has been underpinned or whether it benefits from any extensions or structural alterations. There are a lot of questions on this form, and you may have to locate historical information from your files to assist your replies. Please answer the questions to the best of your knowledge and belief and provide as much information as you can. Another form you will have to complete is the Law Society Fittings and Contents Form (TA10) which confirms which items you are leaving at the property on completion, and which are being removed. Again, this is quite a lengthy form.
At Davis & Co we appreciate how daunting these forms can first appear, so if you have any queries at all, please contact us. The documents must be returned to us as soon as possible so that we can get the draft contracts issued to the buyer’s solicitors. If you delay in returning the documents to us, this will cause a delay to the overall transaction.
Once we have issued the draft contracts, they will be “approved” (agreed) by the buyer’s solicitors, and they may ask us to clarify certain matters about the property. These are known as “legal enquiries” and sometimes we can respond to these matters ourselves without troubling you as we will have the information within the legal title and the documents you have supplied. Sometimes, however, we do not have the answers and at that point, we will contact you for clarification. We will be relying on you to get the replies over to us as soon as possible so that we can keep the transaction moving on your behalf.
If you have a mortgage on the property, we will contact your lender fairly early on in the process to obtain an initial redemption figure. If there is an early repayment penalty, we may contact you to ensure you are aware of this.
Once we have responded to the enquiries raised by the buyer’s solicitors, they will draft a Transfer Deed for our approval. This is the document which effectively transfers the property into the buyer’s name on completion. Once we have approved the Transfer, we will send it to you with the Contract for you to sign and return to us. Once received, we will retain these documents on our file pending the confirmation of the completion date.
Once the buyer is ready to exchange, we will conduct the exchange of contracts which is a telephone call between the lawyers. Once we have exchanged contracts, this means that the transaction is legally binding and you are obliged to sell the property and the buyers are obliged to purchase the property on the date agreed in the Contract. The date agreed in the Contract is the completion date and this is when the transaction is formally completed, the mortgage is repaid, your estate agent’s invoice is paid and the balance will be remitted to you. We send funds by electronic transfer to you on the day of completion.
What’s involved with a purchase?
On a purchase, we will check your ID and undertake compliance formalities to ensure that we have verified your identity and checked the evidence of the source of your funds. It may seem that we are asking a lot of questions, however, our regulatory environment demands scrutiny at the highest level and we will not be able to proceed without this information. If at any stage you have any queries about the level of detail we are requesting from you, please contact us so that we can explain matters to you.
Once the compliance formalities have been completed, we will request search fees from you. Please note, this request will be made formally through the post as we do not remit our bank details by email. Please be aware of cybercrime. Once we have sent out the bank details to you in the post, we can confirm that those details will not change before the end of your transaction. If you therefore receive an email purporting to be from this firm requesting that the funds be sent to an alternative bank account, this is likely to be a scam. Please therefore check our firm’s bank details by contacting us before remitting any funds to us. We cannot be held responsible if the funds are sent to an incorrect account.
When we receive the draft contracts from the seller’s solicitors, we will review the contract package. We are looking at a number of matters when assessing the draft contracts for you such as, (a) are the vendors entitled to sell the property to you? (b) are there any restrictions or covenants which are going to limit your use and enjoyment of the property? (c) are there any onerous legal rights or rights of way affecting the property? (d) Are there any shared rights of access? (e) Does the property benefit from all required statutory consents? (f) What alterations have been made to the property? There are many other matters which we assess on your behalf, however, basically, we wish to ensure that from a legal point of view, you are purchasing this property as “water-tight” as possible. We want to ensure that when you come to sell the property in the future, there are no issues for you. Sometimes the matters we are raising may seem insignificant to you, however, when we act for you, we also act for your mortgage lender and lenders are very risk-averse. Therefore, even though you may be unconcerned about a particular issue that we are raising, your lender may have a different view.
When we have raised our first set of enquiries we will send a copy to you, together with the Sellers Property Information Form (TA6) and Law Society Fittings and Contents Form (TA10), and the title deeds for the property including a plan thereof. Please can you ensure you check these documents carefully, especially the plan, and let us know immediately of any discrepancies. You must check this very carefully because if there is anything wrong, we need to correct this before we complete the transaction. If things are only noticed towards the end of the transaction, this will cause unnecessary delays. Similarly, if you believe that certain items are included in the sale of the property but have not been listed in the Law Society Fittings and Contents Form (TA10), please let us know as soon as possible so that we can get this remedied for you.
At the same time as raising enquiries, we will instigate your searches. The standard searches we do on every transaction are the local, drainage and environmental searches, however, depending on the location of the property, further searches may be carried out. For example, in Nottinghamshire, because it is an ex-mining area, we carry out a mining search in addition to the above. Similarly, if the property is located in Cornwall, we will always carry out a tin mining search and other specialist searches. We will let you know whether we feel specific searches are required for the property you are purchasing. Once we have received the search results, they may reveal matters which we need to check with the seller’s solicitor. If that is the case, we will raise further enquiries on your behalf.
Once your mortgage offer has been received, we will review the provisions and we will write out to you with the mortgage deed for signature and return. In our mortgage report, we will confirm several matters such as the term of the mortgage, the amount of the mortgage payment every month, whether there is an early redemption charge and other matters. Please read through our letter carefully and let us know if you have any queries or concerns concerning your mortgage. Also, the onus is on you to let us and your mortgage broker know if anything has changed concerning your circumstances since the date the mortgage application was made. Please bring any such matters to our attention as soon as possible as if we later become aware of any such matters, this may cause a delay to your transaction.
We also recommend having a survey carried out on the property by a RICS surveyor. Surveys are arranged directly by you, however, if you would like us to recommend a surveyor to you, please contact us. Both parties may negotiate any issues arising from the searches, fixtures and fittings and the surveys, to reach an agreement any time before exchange of contracts takes place. These matters are usually dealt with via the Estate Agent and then notified to us when the new price has been agreed. Please note that any change in the price of the property will affect your mortgage offer and will have to be reported to them before we can proceed.
Once we are happy with the replies to enquiries, we have received your mortgage offer and we have received and are satisfied with the searches, we are ready to proceed to exchange of contracts. On exchange of contracts, we will normally require a ten percent deposit to secure the exchange. Exchange of contracts renders the transaction legally binding and you will be obliged to purchase the property, and the vendors are obliged to sell the property to you on the date in the contract. The remaining balance will need to be paid over to us at least one working day before the completion date.
On exchange of contracts, you must have a valid buildings insurance policy in place and we will ask you to supply this to us before we exchange.
On completion, we send the completion monies to the seller’s solicitors on the morning of completion. Even though we send the funds as early as we possibly can, it is sometimes the case that transactions will not complete until the afternoon of the day of completion. We will be in touch with you throughout the day of completion and if you have not heard anything at all by 11am on the day, please feel free to contact us. We will let you know as soon as we hear from the seller’s solicitors that completion has taken place. You will then be able to collect the keys from the estate agents.
Fully Qualified and Experienced Conveyancers
Conveyancing is a complicated process, and we know that each client has different needs and circumstances therefore we do not believe that “one size fits all”. That is why Davis & Co provide a bespoke service for each client, whether they are first-time buyers, wealthy investors, or downsizers. We only have fully qualified Licensed Conveyancers, Solicitors or Legal Executives with several years’ experience handling your file as we believe our clients deserve the best. Good communication and professionalism are essential, which is why Davis & Co has invested heavily in technology to facilitate regular updates and keep you informed every step of the way.
Our conveyancers are at the top of their game – they have conducted numerous property transactions and know where to look for the pitfalls. We do not want our clients to fall into any traps and that is why we provide a thorough and comprehensive service. Our Trustpilot reviews confirm that we are amongst the best when it comes to conveyancing.
Our Property Lawyers have excellent reputations for their knowledge and high levels of service. Clients use us on a regular basis because of this. Why not join them? Give us a call today for a no-obligation quote and let’s get your transaction moving.
Why Davis & Co?
At Davis & Co our Licensed Conveyancers and Solicitors offer a proactive and professional service. We have many years of conveyancing experience and are trusted advisors to a range of clients who return regularly and refer friends and family. Our Trustpilot ratings confirm that our service is very good with 180 out of 181 people giving us a five-star rating.
If you need assistance, contact one of our lawyers at [email protected] or call 0115 855 7918 for a no-obligation discussion and for expert legal advice.
Helpful information:
Buying or Selling Your Home: gov.uk
Buying a property: https://www.clc-uk.org/consumers/home-buying-process/
Selling a property: https://www.clc-uk.org/consumers/home-selling-process/