SL Property Law

The term ‘Conveyancer’ is the term used to describe the lawyer who is handling your property transaction.

Not really, they are both legally qualified professionals, they just secured their qualifications to deal with property law via different methods. Solicitors may be qualified in other areas of law whereas a Conveyancer is only qualified in property law.

Once the details of your transaction are known your Conveyancer will give you a fixed fee estimate confirming how much this will cost. Conveyancing is generally carried out on a fixed fee basis and not the previous methods of hourly rates. This provides you with full transparency and allows you to budget accordingly.

Contact us to provide you with a fixed fee quotation.

Generally, if you are selling, we would recommend to instruct your Conveyancer when putting the property on the market, this will allow your Conveyancer to discuss any matters with you and your agent that need to be brought to the buyer’s conveyancer. Further, if there are any title issues these can be resolved prior to going to market.

Once a sale agreed, already having a solicitor instructed ensures that the transaction starts as quickly as possible.

You should speak with your broker and ensure you have a Decision in Principle from a lender, prior to viewing properties, most agents will not accept an offer without you being able to evidence that the mortgage is agreed in principle.

Once a purchase is agreed, we would recommend proceeding with searches, surveys and mortgage applications as quickly as possible to ensure that there are no delays in the transaction. Mortgages generally have a 6 month validity period which is enough time for the majority of conveyancing transactions.

We would always recommend that our clients have a survey. This could reveal something that could affect your decision on whether or not to purchase a property or being to light remedial works that you need to budget for.

A mortgage company will carry out a very basic valuation but it is not very detailed and you will not be entitled to rely on the same.

There are various different types of surveys and we are able to recommend some local surveyors who can go through the differences between these surveys and carry out one which meets your requirements.

This is often a difficult question to answer as it depends on a variety of factors such as, how long and complex the chain of properties are, whether parties are having mortgages and if they are what the mortgage lenders timescales are, how long the local authorities take to return searches and also the motivation of each party in the chain. Generally, a freehold transaction can take 12-16 weeks. Although it can be much quicker but also slower than this.

In England and Wales, if a conveyancing transaction falls through prior to exchange, each party is responsible for their own costs. Therefore, you would not be able to recover any costs of surveys, searches, mortgages or legal fees from the other party.