Conveyancing


Our conveyancing section deals with most types of residential property work. We deal with property matters all over UK, from city flats to country homes.

Freehold and leasehold residential sales and purchases.

Whether you are selling or buying property you will need a conveyancer when your offer has been accepted. Our conveyancing service will handle all aspects of your transaction to help ensure a smooth and stress-free move.  Please see the attached costs information.

If you have any questions or wish to discuss any aspect of the conveyancing process please do not hesitate to contact us. We will be delighted to answer any of your questions and provide advice and guidance on the conveyancing process. At the outset we will send out questionnaires which will cover almost all the information we require of you.

Christine Hunt is a Conveyancing Executive who has exclusively worked on residential house purchases and sales for over 20 years. Your transaction will either be dealt with by her or by Michael Hodge, the firm’s Principal, who has 50 years of experience in dealing with residential property matters.


TIMESCALES

Various matters are beyond our control because of the involvement of third parties such as the Land Registry, lenders and individuals further down or up a chain of transactions. Estate agents can be helpful in providing information as they can talk to people who we are prevented from speaking to, as a result of our regulators’ rules, but we have founds that from the moment of instruction to completion, the process has taken about three months, as a general rule.

Once a sale has been agreed, the process of checking identification, asking clients to complete Protocol forms relating to 

    1. Fixtures and fittings and information; 

    2. A TA6 that mainly deals with planning and building information;

    3. Internal forms to deal with money laundering issues and factors that are personal to our clients.

Once these forms are completed they are despatched to the Buyers conveyancers who will review all documents. We then will do all we can to satisfy them enough to enter into a binding contract, which will provide for a deposit and a date on which the remainder of the sale money will be paid into our client account, and in most cases, vacant possession will be given.

On a purchase, again identification and internal forms are completed dealing with information that is personal to the buyer to cover money laundering and borrowing requirements or other funding information. We ask for funds on account to pay for searches with the local authority, water and drainage issues and environmental issues before reporting to you in full on the property that is intended to be bought. If our client, the buyer, is happy, the contract that is approved will be signed and a deposit provided, usually 10%. A completion date is fixed when the balance of the purchase money will be provided and then we have to attend to post completion issues, like land registration and stamp duty payments. Land registration can take up to six months or a year to be completed, depending on the circumstances.


CONVEYANCING FEES 2022

If you are buying or selling a residential property, our legal fees exclusive of vat on each transaction will be tailored to the work involved but will be on a basic scale as follows:  

                                                         Freehold            Leasehold                   

Price not exceeding £200,000    :    £875.00              £975.00

Price not exceeding £250,000    :    £900.00              £1000.00

Price not exceeding £300,000    :    £1100.00            £1200.00

Price not exceeding £350,000    :    £1200.00            £1300.00

Price not exceeding £400,000    :    £1300.00            £1400.00

Price not exceeding £500,000    :    £1400.00            £1500.00

Price not exceeding £650,000    :    £1550.00            £1650.00

Price not exceeding £800,000    :    £1650.00            £1750.00

Price not exceeding 1 million    :     £2000.00            £2100.00

Price above that figure:        By arrangement  (see below)*       

Please Note: If you are buying a new property from a developer, then an additional £350.00 will be charged to the above scale.  This is due to the weight of documents involved with new builds              

These fees are based on the following assumptions:

1. Your transaction does not involve matters that are outside the ‘normal’ ambit of a residential conveyance.   The following list shows our additional fee if any such ‘extra’ service is required:

 2. VAT must be added to all fees.

3.  Disbursements, e.g. searches, Land Registry Fees, Stamp Duty Land Tax, bank transfer fees etc. will also be payable. We will provide you with a full written estimate of all additional costs if you instruct us to proceed but the following are common:

a)   Sales

   - Office copy entries relating to title £6 including plan

   - Indemnity insurance re defective title £150 or thereabouts depending on circumstances

b)  Purchases

  - Stamp duty land tax - Best to look at HMRC website

  - Land registry fees - £50 - £600 depending on size of transaction

  - Local Authority , Environmental, Water and Drainage - usually around £350

4.  We do not charge any extra fees for dealing with SDLT returns but reserve the right to charge for recovering stamp duty on purchases after secondary residences have been sold

 5.  These fees are correct as at 18th June 2022

On recent purchases and sales  of properties for over £1,000,000 our fees have been based more on time and responsibility but on four recent transactions they have been:

Terms of Business