Buying or Selling a Home

Your property is likely to be your biggest asset and, more importantly, your home. It is essential that you are guided through your purchase by an experienced and helpful conveyancing lawyer.

How We Can Help

As the transaction progresses, we liaise with you at regular intervals, highlighting any potential issues or problems that may have been identified at an early stage.

We also work with your Mortgage Lender and Estate Agent. Once we receive satisfactory search results and replies to any queries raised by the seller’s solicitor, we provide you with a comprehensive report, together with the documents for you to sign. The report is based on the search results and the legal title documents provided by the seller’s solicitor.

Following an exchange of contracts, we guide you towards the completion of your purchase. After this point, we will submit your Stamp Duty Land Tax Return and register your purchase at the Land Registry.

Once you have received an offer on your home, you need to appoint a property lawyer to draw up the contract and liaise with the buyer’s solicitor.

How We Can Help

To begin, we send you forms and questionnaires relating to the property. These are designed to minimise the enquiries raised by the buyer’s solicitors. It is important that these are completed as comprehensively as possible and returned to us together with any documentation requested. These form the basis of the “Contract Pack”, which we send to the buyer’s solicitor.

Once the buyer’s solicitor is happy with replies to enquiries, contracts will be
exchanged and a completion date fixed. We will liaise with the Estate Agent and any Mortgage Lender, arranging for any mortgage to be redeemed and the agent’s invoice paid upon completion. Our costs will also be deducted from the sale proceeds, so you do not need to worry about paying us directly.

Please click the link below to view additional information about the costs and timescales for our Residential Property services, in line with the Solicitors Regulation Authority Transparency Rules.

When you buy a new build property, it is often under construction. If this is the case, you are likely to be offered a completion date which is “on notice”. When this is offered, as soon as the property is structurally complete and has been signed off by Building Control, we are served with notice. In most cases, this gives us approximately two weeks to complete the transaction. This is enough time for you and your lender to re-inspect the property and for you to liaise with the builder in respect of any “snagging” items. These will need to be put right by the developer.

Please note that minor snagging cannot hold up a completion If you have a related sale, it is important that the buyers of your property are aware that completion is to be “on notice”. If they, or the rest of the chain, are not prepared to wait for this date, you may have to move into rented accommodation until your new build is ready.

It is usual for developers to require a swift exchange of contracts (usually 28 days from receipt of contract papers). This will also affect any related sale, which will probably need to exchange at the same time. You need to ensure that your Estate Agent makes this clear to any buyers and liaises with the chain to achieve this.

We will, of course, work with your buyer’s solicitor. You will generally be provided with NHBC cover for 10 years, although smaller developers sometimes issue an Architect’s Certificate. Generally, this is not as comprehensive as NHBC and only covers the structure for approximately six years.

House developers are now, with the help of government initiatives, able to offer finance and ownership options such as Help to Buy and Shared Ownership Schemes. We can help you with these.