Buying or selling a property involves much more than exchanging contracts on completion day. From legal checks and searches to managing deadlines and keeping everyone informed, conveyancing plays a vital role in ensuring a successful move.
SoGlos talks to Willans LLP solicitors partner and conveyancer, Suzanne O'Riordan, who shares some key insights to help Gloucestershire homebuyers and sellers understand this essential and important process.
What does a conveyancer actually do?
Essentially a conveyancer is going to convey, or transfer, a property from one party to another, seeing that process through from start to finish.
On a purchase, we're looking at the registered title or the deeds packet, checking the seller has the right to sell the property, understanding what the buyer wants to do with the property and how they want to use it – and any restrictive covenants that may prohibit a client from using the property in the way that they want to – and we're looking for things like making sure the property has got rights of way over private land if it's set back from the road.
We're also acting for mortgage lenders, taking in money and paying for the property, exchanging contracts, and seeing the buyer through to completion.
On the seller side, we're evidencing that the seller owns the property and has the right to sell it, drafting contract papers supporting the registered title, responding to any enquiries the buyer's solicitor may have, and taking it all the way to the exchange of contracts.
Conveyancing is high risk insofar that we're taking care of a lot of money, so there's a lot of compliance involved.
To use a first-time buyer as an example, a conveyancer needs to get to know the client: Who are you? Who are you buying with? Where is your money coming from? And if they're maybe having a gift from a parent or grandparent, that then extends to us meeting those other parties, carrying out due diligence on them, and looking after mortgage lenders as well, so yes, there's a lot going on.
Who can conduct the conveyancing process?
It has to be a regulated firm and it should be a solicitor, a licensed conveyancer, or chartered legal executive.
At Willans, we also have paralegals in the team that support parts of the transaction, too.
When does the conveyancing process start?
Usually conveyancing starts when you've either found a property to buy, or you've sold your property. When the selling agent – if there's an agent on board – issues a memorandum of sale, that gives you the details of the property, who's acting for whom, then the lawyers can take it from there.
But I will often recommend that conveyancing starts before then, when you're thinking about putting your property on the market. Before you even get a buyer, you can fill in various property information forms and get your paperwork in a row, so you know what documents you need to pull together.
What are the main stages of the conveyancing process?
I would break it down into four stages – pre-contract, exchange of contracts, pre-completion and then completion.
During pre-exchange of contracts we are looking at the registered title, checking everything out, doing our searches, complying with mortgage lenders' requirements and conditions, engaging with the client if they've got any issues or additional reports that they want carried out on the property, and reporting to them on their purchase.
Exchange of contracts is the point where buyers commit to purchase the property, agree to a completion date, and that becomes fixed – unless it's a new build where the property hasn't been finished yet, in which case there would be a different mechanism for completion.
During pre-completion, your lawyer is engaging with your mortgage lender and drawing down your mortgage money, collecting the balance of money from you, and setting you up so that we're able to pay your stamp duty on completion.
And then post-completion, we will have completed and paid your money for the property, then we'll be paying HMRC your stamp duty land tax, and dealing with the registration formalities at the land registry. That can take a little while at the moment, because the land registry has got quite a substantial delay.
But essentially they are the steps you take to get from beginning to end.
How much does conveyancing cost – and how is this calculated?
Willans has a fee scale, so you can see our typical fees for residential purchases and sales at willans.co.uk/our-fees/residential-purchases-sales.
Fees are calculated on a number of things – for example, is it a freehold or leasehold property? If it's a leasehold, we know that's more complex by nature and therefore will be more expensive due to the time it takes and the number of parties involved.
The way we work is that we always want to speak to the client and ask questions in the first place, so the client has a true understanding of what the fee will look like and there are no shocks later on. You can only properly provide an estimate by actually speaking to the client and asking those questions.
On occasion something unforeseen might happen – like a boundary issue – but we aim for clarity from the outset.
Willans offers fixed-fee conveyancing – what does that mean?
We offer fixed fee conveyancing and our intention is for clients to understand what it is they're going to be paying at the end of the process – to tell you what the lawyers fees are going to be to take you from start to finish, and be as accurate as we possibly can in terms of disbursements.
While fixed fee isn't unique to Willans, it's fairly standard practice nationally, our fee structure is different to a lot of our competitors as we don't seek to have a fixed fee with lots of add-ons, we're giving you a global figure rather than a base fee plus lots of extras.
We don't want clients to be disappointed that they thought they understood a fee structure, only to find it markedly different, so we want to add everything in right from the outset. Transparency is absolutely key.
We tailor everything around that initial conversation around the client's objectives, timescale and what they're trying to achieve.
Do buyers and sellers both need their own conveyancer?
Buyers and sellers should be independently represented – and ideally by a different firm. The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) certainly prefers it that way.
It's best to keep them separate so that each client is looked after and their interests are properly protected, so that there's no risk of conflicts of interest.
Why should buyers and sellers consider instructing Willans to be their conveyancer?
We've got really good, experienced lawyers in the team that have been with us for a long time.
I've been a conveyancer for 30 years and I've been with Willans for 27. When I joined Willans, we were a team of four, and now we're a team of 20. As the team has grown, exposure in the town has grown, and we've got such a good reputation that it's been really organic.
We don't have a massive turnover of staff, and we're not such a big team that clients don't know who's got responsibility for looking after them. They have their dedicated lawyer and that's your first port of call.
I often work for families through the generations, with clients coming back to me again and again because I've looked after them for years.
And we don't want to tell clients how conveyancing has to be, we want to tailor it to you – so if you want everything on your phone, or you want paper documents sent in the post, we can do all of those things.
It's a fantastic team to lead, and an amazing firm because we have so much expertise across different teams, so we can support clients with whatever legal needs they might have.
How can clients get in touch with you?
For more information, and to get in touch with Suzanne, visit willans.co.uk/team/suzanne-oriordan.
