Buying a property

What is the legal process when buying a property?

Conveyancing is the legal transfer of home ownership from seller to buyer. It begins when your offer on a property is accepted and finishes when you receive the keys.

It is important to appoint a fully-qualified, experienced conveyancing solicitor as they will have the knowledge and experience to deal with your transaction.

• ID checks – the first thing your solicitor will ask for is proof of ID. This is necessary to satisfy regulatory and anti-money laundering requirements.
• Seller’s solicitor – Next we will contact your seller’s solicitor to let them know that we are acting for you and to request a copy of the draft contract and other important documents.
• Searches – Once received, we will examine these documents, order your searches and go back to the other party’s solicitor with any questions that we might have.
• Mortgage – If you need a mortgage, you now need to ensure this is in place. When your mortgage is approved your mortgage lender will send a copy of the mortgage offer to us so that we can go through their conditions to make sure they are complied with.
• Valuation and survey – Your lender will arrange a mortgage valuation, which is for their purposes only to make sure the property is worth the same or more than the sum you are borrowing. It is always a good idea to carry out a survey of your own to make sure you have a complete picture of the condition of the property that you are purchasing. We also recommend having safety checks carried out on gas and electrical installations.
• Signing the contract papers – Once all questions have been answered and search results and mortgage offer received we will invite you to sign the contract papers, either in the office or from home depending on what suits you best. We will also provide a comprehensive report outlining all pertinent points that you need to be aware of.
• Exchange of contracts – Once you have signed your papers and a completion (moving date) is agreed we will seek your authority to exchange contracts and legally commit you to your purchase. Exchanging contracts is done via a telephone conversation between the seller and buyer’s solicitor and you pay a 10% deposit when the contracts are exchanged.
• Buildings insurance – Your buildings insurance policy for the property you are buying needs to be put on risk from the day contracts are exchanged. You will need to send confirmation of this to us unless you are buying a new build property from a developer.
• Mortgage draw down – Next we request your mortgage advance from your lender to ensure we receive it in time for you to complete your purchase. We usually ensure it arrives the day before you are due to complete.
• Completion – On the completion date we send the purchase monies to the seller’s solicitor and when they acknowledge receipt, your purchase is complete. The solicitor acting for the seller will authorise the estate agent to release the keys to you, so that you can make arrangements to collect them and begin the process of moving in.
• Land registration – We submit an application to the Land Registry and answer any questions they may have for us. This process can take some time to complete but we will forward the updated title to you when we receive it.

Typically, the whole process takes 10-12 weeks.