Conveyancing Timelines - David Barney & Company

Our Conveyancing Team are here to help you purchase your new home and sell your current home. We can assist with remortgaging your existing property, transfers of equity (changing ownership), equity releases, rights to buy with your local authority and new build purchases.

Contents: Conveyancing Timelines

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Freehold (Houses) and Leasehold (Flats) Sales and Purchases

Leasehold: extra considerations

Leasehold matters tend to take longer than Freehold matters as there are third parties involved, such as Management Companies and Freeholder/Landlords who need to provide information packs to us (there is usually a fee incurred for this that they charge). There will also be questions about the flat and the building complex it is in for them to answer, such as what the service charge is, are there any major works planned and other legal questions.

The Lease

With Leasehold properties, there can sometimes be issues with how the Lease was originally drafted due to the age of the document. The Lease is the instrument that controls how the building you live in and the flat is run. It sets out rights to you, rights and restrictions reserved to other flat owners in the building and the Freeholder/Landlord and also restrictions you must comply with.

Doubling ground rent clauses

One current issue in Leases are doubling ground rent clauses. For example, the ground rent you pay to the Freeholder/Landlord doubles maybe every 5 years, starting at £250.00 a year and with a lease term of 125 years, it will eventually become an unreasonable amount. Lenders can insist on them being altered before they will lend to a more reasonable clause and this can take many weeks, if not months, to resolve and cause long delays to the process.

Cladding

Cladding is also another major issue at the moment and is causing many sales of flats to either fall through or to be on hold for several months whilst the cladding is either replaced or approved to safety standards.

Always remember with a Leasehold property you NEVER own the property you only have a right to live in it until the lease term expires and then it reverts back to the ownership of the Freeholder/Landlord.

Property Sale: what happens

On the sale of a property, we will issue the contract pack (and order the Leasehold Information Packs from the Freeholder/Management Company on a Leasehold property) and deal with any enquiries raised by the buyer’s conveyancer once they have reviewed the paperwork.

Upon completion, if you have a mortgage, we will redeem this from the sale proceeds in accordance with the undertakings we provide to the purchaser’s conveyancer.

Property Purchase: what happens

On the purchase of a property, once we have received the contract pack, we will conduct an initial review of the documents and raise initial enquiries.

Once established that there are not any obvious issues with the property, we will apply for the necessary searches on your behalf.

Once received, we will raise any additional enquiries necessary with the seller’s conveyancer as well as dealing directly with your lender and advising you on your mortgage offer.

You will receive a detailed report from us on the searches and contract pack received.

Upon completion, we will deal with HMRC for payment of any stamp duty on your behalf and submit the necessary forms. We will also deal with the transfer and registration of the property into your name at the Land Registry.

Typical timescales

In relation to timescales, on average

A Leasehold matter from issuing contracts is 8 – 10 weeks to exchange of contracts with completion 2 weeks later.
On Freehold matters, it tends to normally progresses faster and on average from issuing contracts is 4 – 6 weeks to exchange with completion 2 weeks later.

Every case is different and some can be sooner but some can proceed slower if issues arise such as a problematic survey.

Right To Buy purchases

We will deal with your mortgage lender together with the Council’s solicitor.

We will carry out any necessary searches on your behalf.

Once these have been received, we will raise any legal issues before reporting to you on the legal paperwork and mortgage so that you are fully aware of any issues before you proceed to the completion.

We would recommend you to arrange a surveyor to visit the property before you commit to the completion as the lender may only carry out a desk top valuation rather than a full survey.

Completion can happen around 6-8 weeks from receiving the contract pack from the local authority and once your mortgage offer is received. Completion usually occurs on a Monday to tie in with Local Authority rental days,

New Build Purchases

There is usually an exchange deadline issued by the developer of 28 days from the date the Contract papers are issued.

Completion is often many months after exchange of contracts, once the property has been built and the 10 year warranty issued to say the property is fit to live in.

When that warranty notice is issued completion is normally 10 working days later.

During the process we will deal with the developer’s solicitors and report to you on the contract papers to include the planning documentation and search results and deal with your mortgage offer.

Re-mortgages

We will deal with your new lender and report to you on the new mortgage offer.

Upon receipt of the signed mortgage deed from you, we will discuss a completion deed and complete your new mortgage and arrange for the old mortgage to be redeemed.

We will make our application to the Land Registry to register the new lender’s interest.

On average, from receiving the new mortgage offer, completion will be between 4 – 6 weeks.

Transfers of Equity

We will draft the necessary transfer to remove the Co-Proprietor from the Title and deal with their solicitor if instructed. We will also deal with any existing lender’s requirements.

It is difficult to give a timescale for transfers of equity as many different factors will influence this, but on average it will take 6 – 8 weeks from when we have received confirmation from your lender that the transfer of equity is agreed.

Equity Release

We will arrange to see you either at our offices where we have a lift to take you to our second floor offices or in your home to advise you on the offer letter and sign the necessary paperwork.

We will then deal with the Lender’s solicitors in relation to the release of the funds to you.

On average, from the offer being issued, the matter is usually completed between 4 – 6 weeks.

Buying and Selling a House.
What the Solicitors Do?

Our Step-by-Step Video to Help You Understand

Video Transcript

Step 1. The estate agent finds a buyer, agrees the price, then writes to the solicitors with the details.

Step 2. They write to their clients with their terms of business. To protect against property fraud, you’ll have to provide ID to prove it really is you. You may also have to show how you acquired the money so it is clear it is not the proceeds of crime.

Step 3. If you’re selling, you’ll get some property forms to fill in, giving information about the property, such as if you’ve had new windows, an extension, or flood problems. You’ll also fill in a form confirming what items you’ll leave at the property.

Step 4. The solicitor for the seller sends a draft contract, the property forms, and a copy of the deeds to the buyer’s solicitor.

The deeds are usually simply downloaded from the land registry these days.

Step 5. On receipt of the deeds, the buyer’s solicitor will play detective, looking through the deeds and property forms and ensuring there are no discrepancies. They’ll check for any rights of where you have over neighbouring land, for example, a shared drive or a shared back lane. They’ll look into rights that neighbours may have over your property, for example, a right to use a shared path.

They’ll check for private agreements in the deeds that restrict you doing things such as building an extension. They’ll also make sure the correct paperwork is in place for any new windows, electrical works and gas installations. Inquiries are then raised with the seller’s solicitor to iron out any discrepancies.

Step 6. Next, there are three usual searches carried out by the solicitor.

A local search, which reveals things such as building works done to the property,
an environmental search, which reveals whether the property may be built on contaminated land, and
a drainage and water search, which shows where pipes run and confirms whether the property is connected to the mains.

Step 7. The seller replies to inquiries. Then the buyer’s solicitor sends a report to the buyers, explaining the deeds in the paperwork.

The buyers then sign the contract in readiness for exchange of contracts.

Step 8. The moving date is agreed, called the completion date, and the solicitors call each other and exchange contracts. At this point, no one can back out now without financial penalties.

Step 9. On the day the sale completes, the purchase monies are sent via the banking system.

Once it arrives with the seller’s solicitor, the estate agent is called to say that the buyer can have the keys. This is usually around midday but can sometimes take longer.

Step 10. The seller’s solicitor then repays any mortgage and also pays the estate agent. The buyer’s solicitor will register the change of ownership with the land registry.

We would like to invite you to contact us for a quote that is specific to your needs:

Beverly Davison

Partner

Telephone: 01438 314281

Mobile: 07542 847618

Email: beverlydavison@davidbarney.co.uk

Mark Feely

Solicitor