Conveyancing involves legally transferring home ownership from the seller to the buyer. It starts when your offer on a house is accepted and finishes when you receive the keys.

Who does the conveyancing? A solicitor or conveyancer usually conducts the conveyancing process, but it is possible (although difficult) to do it yourself as long as you are not taking out a mortgage, as the solicitor will act for you and the mortgage company. In law, conveyancing is the transfer of legal title of property from one person to another.

What do they do?

  1. Your appointed conveyancer will then draw up a draft contract or terms of engagement with you, setting out their charges and deposits required.
  2. Your solicitor will write to your sellers’ solicitor to confirm they are instructed and request a copy of the draft contract and any other details, such as the property's title and the standard forms.
  3. Your solicitor will examine the draft contract and supporting documents and raise enquiries with the seller's solicitor. You will be expected to go through the forms the seller has completed and let the solicitor know if you have any queries or concerns. In particular you will want to double check the tenure of your new home: is it leasehold or freehold? If leasehold, don't rely on your solicitor to check for the length of the lease. Leases below 85 years are a problem, can be costly to extend and you need to have owned the property for 2 years before you are eligible to do so. Leases under 60 years are best avoided.
  4. Property searches. There are things you may not know about the property just from viewing it with estate agents or even getting a survey. The conveyancer will do a set of legal searches to ensure there are no other factors you should be aware of. Some searches will be recommended by the solicitor for all purchases and others will be required by the mortgage lender to protect them from any liabilities that the property may have:
    • Local authority searches: are there plans for a motorway in your new garden? This costs between £70 and £400 depending on the Local Authority and usually takes 1-2 weeks but can take up to 6 weeks
    • Checking the 'title register' and 'title plan' at the Land Registry– these are the legal documents proving the seller's ownership. The title register check costs £3 and the title plan check costs £3. Both are legally required to sell.
    • Checking flood risk – this can also be done at the Land Registry. If you are getting an Environmental Search you might not buy this one separately as the environmental search will contain much more thorough flood information and maps.
    • Water authority searches – find out how you get your water and if any public drains on the property might affect extensions or building works. The water authority search will cost between £50 and £75.
    • Chancel repair search – to ensure there are no potential leftover medieval liabilities on the property to help pay for church repairs. This is a necessity and costs £18. However, you may decide to take out Chancel repair insurance instead for £20 or so. The laws around Chancel repair changed in October 2013 so now the onus is on the Church to establish and lodge liability with the Land Registry.
    • Environmental Search – this report is used on the vast majority of transactions and is provided by either Landmark or Groundsure. Depending which product your solicitor usually uses, the report will give information about contaminated land at or around the property, landfill sites, former and current industry, detailed flooding predictions, radon gas hazard, ground stability issues, and some other related information. The cost should be around £50 to £60 including VAT.
    • Optional and location specific searches – sometimes extra searches are required or recommended depending on the location or type of property or due to particular concerns raised by the buyer. These could include:
      -Tin Mining searches in Cornwall
      -Mining searches in various parts of the UK and Cheshire Brine searches
      -Additional Local Authority Questions such as Public Paths, Pipelines, Noise Abatement Zones, Common Land, etc.