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Buying or Selling a Home
Residential Conveyancing
Some Tips
Cost Of Selling
Cost of Buying
What is a normal purchase or sale?
What do we do on a purchase?
Can costs be reduced?
Can I do anything to keep my bill down?
What work does our fee cover?
What is a normal purchase or sale?
In a sale we expect to take the following steps:
| 1. |
Take the details of the sale from you. The price, the buyer's details, where your title deeds are etc.
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| 2. |
Obtain the title deeds from your existing lender if you have a mortgage. If you do not have a mortgage we have to rely on you to provide us with the original deeds.
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| 3. |
Obtain an official copy of the entries on the Land Registry records from the Land Registry.
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| 4. |
Draw up, a draft contract and lease if appropriate and send them to the purchasers solicitors together with a copy of the title documents and any other relevant papers provided to us by you or with the original deeds.
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| 5. |
Deal with any reasonable enquiries about the property received from the purchaser's solicitors. This means dealing with those enquiries where we have the information available from the deeds and other papers we are holding and requesting you to supply the necessary information in respect of any questions you should have the answers to. If we have to obtain information from other people e.g. the local planning dept or managing agents of a flat we will take reasonable steps to do so but if they fail to answer and we have to spend an unreasonable amount of time chasing them, that time might incur an additional cost.
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| 6. |
Co-ordinate and carry out the "exchange of contracts" (that's the moment you become legally committed to the deal and can no longer change your mind).
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| 7. |
Between exchange of contracts and completion, deal with the final formalities of getting the transfer document signed, preparing a financial statement showing the monies to be received on completion and any payments to be made out of them e.g. estate agents fees, any mortgages to be redeemed or our charges.
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| 8. |
On completion , receiving the purchase monies, redeeming any mortgages you have told us about or we have notice of from some other source, paying any monies due to other people, sending the deeds and transfer to the purchaser's solicitors and accounting to you for any balance. |
What do we do on a purchase?
| 1. |
Take the details of the purchase from you. The price, the seller's and the estate agents details.
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| 2. |
Obtain a copy of the title deeds from the seller's solicitors and a copy of the intended contract. Check them to see if they are legally sound and fair. As you will appreciate we don't see the property itself and therefore can't check it's physical condition or whether the boundaries are where they should be. That is the job of your surveyor. We deal with legal matters only.
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| 3. |
Send the normal Local Searches to the relevant local council and local water authority.
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| 4. |
Ask the seller's solicitors normal questions about the property plus any additional questions required as a result of information given to us by you.
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| 5. |
Prepare a report on the property and forward it to you. Answer any queries you may have concerning the report.
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| 6. |
Get the contract signed by you and collect the deposit from you. Co-ordinate exchange of contracts.
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| 7. |
Between exchange of contracts and completion, deal with the final formalities of getting the transfer document signed, preparing a financial statement showing the monies to be received on completion and any payments to be made out of them e.g. estate agents fees, any mortgages to be redeemed or our charges.
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| 8. |
Prepare the transfer document, carry out final searches with the Land Registry and the Land Charges Dept.
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| 9. |
Complete the purchase (subject to us being in funds and there being no legal or other obstacle to completion).
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| 10. |
After completion, deal with the payment of Stamp duty and the registration of your ownership at the Land Registry. |
Can these costs be reduced?
Our clients expect and deserve a good service. To provide this, we need staff and equipment, all of which costs money. We do try to keep the costs over which we have some influence under control and the main way of achieving this is to use our staff efficiently. We employ enough staff to provide a good service on an average day but some days are busier than others. For example, the beginning and end of the week are busier than midweek as is the end of the month. Periods just before Christmas, Easter and Bank Holidays are always particularly hectic. As a result, there are times when we and our staff are very busy and although we always try to deal with all work within 48 hours, occasionally this may not be possible. It might be a particularly busy time or another client's case may be at a crucial stage and need all of our concentration. On these occasions, please be patient. We could employ enough staff to deal with even the busiest days without stress but if we did, it would mean that on quiet days most of them would be sitting around with nothing to do. This would increase our overheads immensely and as a result, force us to increase our charge to you.
In order to be fair, everything is dealt with in the order it arrives. If your case is especially urgent and you want us to queue jump it, we will do so whenever possible. But please accept that this causes disruption to our system and means that another client's work is put back. We cannot do this too often and we will need to make an additional charge when we do. Therefore, please only request this in a real emergency.
Can I do anything to help keep my bill down?
Leave us to get on with your case as quietly as possible. We will be doing all that is necessary and we will report to you when something important or interesting happens. If you have any information to pass on to us or want to ask any questions, if possible please write us a short note or send us an e-mail. We can deal with those so much more speedily and easily than we can deal with a phone call. If you do need to phone us please be willing to talk to your solicitor's assistant. He or she are trained and experienced enough to answer most routine queries. If they cannot deal with your query personally they will discuss it with your solicitor and either the solicitor or their assistant will come back to you as soon as reasonably possible. If the solicitor knows what your question is it gives them a chance to find out the answer before they return your call. If you refuse to leave a message and insist upon the solicitor phoning you back to find out what your query is, it will slow down the transaction.
We normally deal with your case in a way which moves it forward reasonably quickly. However if you are in a rush and want us to chase the other parties involved and generally do what we can to speed matters up, we will do so. However, as you will appreciate this usually means spending more time on the case and may mean that the final bill will have to reflect this. We are very happy to do this for you where necessary but will not automatically do it unless you ask us to. Most cases have their own natural speed and if you allow the case to proceed at that rate, the costs are kept to a minimum.
We like to work with our clients as part of a team and find that clients are often able to do some of the routine work themselves and, indeed some prefer to do so whilst others like us to deal with every aspect of the case. What this means is that the share of work between yourselves and us is at your discretion and we will do as much as you want but the more you assist, the quicker and more economical the case will be. In the end, the ultimate thing which decides how much work we do for you and the cost involved is safety. As your professional advisers we have to do whatever is needed to safeguard your interests. We cannot cut corners.
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