A Guide to the Conveyancing Process · Put simply, Conveyancing is the process by which one person, the seller or vendor, sells a property and another person, the buyer or purchaser,

A Guide to the Conveyancing Process

Buying your new home should be an exciting experience, but, at times, it can be confusing and frustrating. At Thomson & Bancks Solicitors we aim to do all we can to streamline the legal process of buying and selling your house or flat, and make

sure that your expectations of moving are met as quickly as possible. We aim to ensure that all the legal formalities are carried out in a competent and efficient manner. This guide aims to explain what we do to help you and to improve your understanding at each stage of the buying or selling process of a home.

Put simply, Conveyancing is the process by which one person, the seller or vendor, sells a property and another person, the buyer or purchaser, buys the property.

The sale and purchase of a property takes place intwo stages:First Leading to exchange of formal contractsSecond Leading to completion

Until contracts are exchanged the agreement is not binding on any party; either party can withdraw at any time without reason and without paying compensation to the other.

Once contracts are exchanged however the agreement is then binding on both parties and if either attempted to withdraw from the contract they would have to compensate the other for any loss that may be suffered. You would usually have to pay a deposit of 10% of the purchase price on the property you are buying when contracts are exchanged. If you withdrew from the contract you would lose this deposit and would also have to pay the compensation referred to above. If you are also selling a property we would usually be able to use any deposit received on the sale for the property you are buying.

On exchange of contracts, a completion date is set. This is the date when ownership of the properties will pass; when you can move into the property you are buying and when you must give vacant possession of your present property to your buyer. There can be a gap of anything between a few days and a few weeks between exchange of contracts and completion depending upon the circumstances. Occasionally exchange of contracts and completion can take place simultaneously; on the same day.

What is Conveyancing?

The Process

Your Sale:

Starting the Sale of your

Present Property

Your Sale:

Documents on a Sale

With the agreement of the other solicitors involved we will adopt the Law Society’s National Conveyancing Protocol known as “Transaction”.

The use of the Protocol will ensure, as far as possible, that delays are kept to a minimum.

So that we can give the necessary information to the buyer’s solicitor about your property, we will send you a Property Information Form (and for a leasehold property a Leasehold Information Form). Please read the notes on the front of the form(s) carefully and then fill in the form(s). The buyer will be relying on the answers given which must therefore be accurate and true. However, if you do not know the answer to any question this does not matter so long as you say so.

We will also send you a Fittings and Contents Form to be completed. Copies of the forms will be sent to the buyer’s solicitors. Please therefore complete the forms legibly. Please sign and return the forms to us as soon as possible.

You should let us know of any change occurring in any of the information given in these forms, so that we can pass this on to the buyer’s solicitors.

Your Sale:

What we do for you in

selling a Present

Property

We will obtain your title deeds and documents to prepare the contract to be sent to the buyer’s solicitors, with the other documentation referred to above.

We will deal with any additional enquiries raised by the buyer’s solicitors, asking you for any other information that is not otherwise readily available. When everything relating to the sale has been agreed, we will ask you to sign the contract in readiness for the exchange.

Your Purchase:

Starting the Purchase of

your New Property

Your Purchase:

What we do for you in

buying a New Property

Again with the agreement of the solicitors involved we will adopt the Law Society’s National Conveyancing Protocol. So that we can make all appropriate and necessary preliminary enquiries and searches on your new property and to help us to provide the best possible advice and service, we need to know the intended use of your property.

Unless you advise otherwise, we will assume that you intend to live in the property and that you and no one else will be occupying it. If this is not the case e.g. if you intend to use it partly for a business, extend the property, or if there will be other adult occupiers, please let us know.

The local and other searches we will be carrying out on your new property only relate to the property itself and not to any adjoining land or property. If there is anything in particular concerning any neighbouring property or land which you think should be taken up with the local authority, or if there are any particular points you wish us to ask the seller’s solicitor following your own inspection of the property, please let us know as soon as possible.

As soon as we receive the contract documentation from the seller’s solicitor, we will check the title and requisition the preliminary searches that we believe are necessary.

Investigation of title: involves checking that the seller actually owns the property and whether the property is subject to adverse rights (e.g. a right for the neighbour to pass over the property) or covenants (e.g. that the property cannot be used for certain purposes).

We will ensure that there are no onerous restrictions or other matters that may affect your proposed use of the property and that there are no defects in the legal documents. If a defect is found that cannot be rectified, it is sometimes necessary to obtain indemnity insurance to protect you, your mortgage company, and future buyers of the property. This is normally provided at the seller’s expense.

Preliminary Information: We will check the information provided by the seller in the Property Information Forms (referred to above) and ask the seller’s solicitor to clarify anything as necessary.

Local Search This is a search with the local council to see if anything registered with them might be adverse to the property. It will confirm for example:

nif the road outside the property is publicly maintainednif the property is subject to any planning permissions

or tree preservation ordersnif the property is a listed buildingnif the local authority are taking proceedings for

breach of planning regulations or building controlsnif there is a road widening scheme or other

compulsory purchase that might affect the property.

Environmental SearchThis will reveal:

nif the property might be affected by subsidence or the effects of mining

nif the property contains contaminated landnpossible adverse past and current land usenif the property is within a floodplainnif the property is in an area where radon gas is

a problem.

The Searches we undertake

for you

Local search relates to the property only and will not reveal anything about adjoining properties.

We will forward a copy of the search result to you. However we are not qualified to advise upon it. Your surveyor may be able to assist if you have any concerns or queries in respect of any matters revealed in this search.

Depending upon the area in which you are buying it may also be necessary to carry out additional searches such as Mining, Brine, or Commons Registration Searches, but we will advise you if these are required and any adverse entries revealed.

Drainage/Water SearchThis confirms whether the property is connected to mains water, sewage, and storm water drainage, and also whether the water supply is metered.

Chancel Repair LiabilityChancel Repair Liability is an historical anomaly. It may be that the property you are buying is in an historical boundary of a parish that continues to have a potential liability to contribute towards the repairs of the chancel of the local church.

It could have very expensive repercussions for the owners of any property subject to such a liability, and in our view there are two ways of proceeding:

nIt might be possible to approach the church authorities to negotiate to buy off any such liability. However, this would be likely to be a time consuming, uncertain and costly exercise. The church authorities have no obligation to agree to release the property from the liability and in the past they have been known to have required payment of some thousands of pounds. This is not therefore a course of action that we would

normally recommend.

nYou can insure against the potential liability. We are currently able to organise insurance, which we can arrange for you, for a one off premium of £14.95, in most cases and further details can be provided on request.

Search Results: Reporting to youOnly when we have received satisfactory replies to enquiries, search results and mortgage offer (where applicable) will we be able to report to you with a copy of any relevant documents and the contract for you to sign in readiness for exchange.

The Searches we undertake

for you

What are your financial arrangements for the purchase of the new property?

If you are having a mortgage please let us know the bank or building society to which you have applied. Please also let us know the name, address and telephone number of any mortgage or insurance broker you are using to arrange the mortgage or any connected insurance policy for you.

If you are having a mortgage the bank or building society will forward a copy of the offer to us at the same time it is sent to you. We will advise you when the offer is received and on the main terms of the offer. We are not financial advisors and are not qualified to advise as to whether the terms or package you have taken are suitable to your requirements. We will however bring to your attention any onerous conditions or matters that must be complied with before we can advise an exchange of contracts.

Cleared FundsUnless the deposit for the purchase of the new property is being wholly supplied out of the deposit on the sale of your present property, then we will need to have cleared funds before contracts can be exchanged. If payment is by cheque you will need to let us have the cheque at least nine working days prior to exchange of contracts.

Similarly you will need to provide the balance of any purchase price, together with costs, Stamp Duty Land Tax and Land Registry fees nine working days before completion.

Alternatively, you can transfer the money directly to our bank account electronically either by BACS or by CHAPS. You will need to give your bank sufficient warning and you may have to pay a fee to your bank.

If you wish to make use of this facility then please let us know in good time, so that we can provide you with our relevant bank details.

The Finance for the

Purchase of your New Property

If you are having a mortgage, your bank or building society will be instructing a valuer to inspect the property and you may even receive a copy of the survey report.

This report however is made for the benefit of the bank or building society only and you would not necessarily be able to rely on the report if it proved inaccurate.

The seller will not be giving any information at all about the state of repair and condition of the property, any defects in the property or any services at the property. We therefore strongly advise you have your own survey of the property carried out and to have the gas, electricity, water and central heating system checked over by a competent engineer. Your bank or building society may have a scheme where, for an additional fee, the surveyor that they instruct would also be able to carry out a report or survey for you. This is likely to be cheaper than instructing another surveyor. You should also check the availability of this with the bank or building society.

Generally you will be responsible for your new house from exchange of contracts. It will, therefore, need to be insured from exchange (and not completion).

If you are intending to arrange your own insurance policy rather than rely on a policy arranged by your bank or building society you will need to let us have the details of the proposed policy a few days before we expect to exchange contracts. If you are having a mortgage we need to be able to satisfy the bank or building society that the property is adequately insured.

The time scale will depend a lot on whether your seller needs to buy another property or your buyer needs to sell his own house and if so, how long the “chain” is in each direction.

If all the matters in the “chain” are interdependent then we can only proceed when everyone has satisfactorily completed all their preliminary searches and enquires and have made their financial arrangements.

Should you have your

New Property Surveyed?

Insurance

How long does it all take?

We do not recommend that you agree a moving date, or commit yourself to any other financial arrangements until we advise you that all parties in the chain are ready to proceed, this will avoid disappointment and expense.

Following exchange of contracts and before completion, for your present house we will:

nobtain a statement of the amount we need to send your bank or building society to pay off your mortgage, if applicable

nobtain the commission account from the estate agent who sold your house for you

narrange for you to sign the transfer (the document which passes ownership of your property to your buyer).

For your new house we will:

narrange for you to sign the transfer (the document which passes ownership of your property to you), the mortgage deed and the Form SDLT1 (which is the form that gives information about the purchase of the property to HM Revenue & Customs)

ncarry out the necessary pre-completion searchesnsend a report to your bank or building society and

ask them to send us the mortgage loan in time for completion

nprepare and send to you a statement detailing all the money we will receive and pay out on your behalf, and hence the balance that you will need to pay us to complete the purchase for you (or the balance that we will send to you after completion).

On the day of completion, while you are involved in the packing and removal of your furniture, we:

ncollect the balance of the sale price of your present house

n collect the new mortgage loan from your bank or building society

n transfer the money needed to complete the payment due on your new house

n pay off the mortgage on your old housen send the transfer and other deeds and documents of

your present house to your buyer’s solicitors.

In most cases, the same sum of money has to be sent along the chain of buyers and sellers from one end to the other. This can cause problems if there is delay in receiving and sending on the money. We have the experience and systems to ensure that any delays are kept to a minimum.

Exchange to Completion

Completion

You will own your new property on completion, but we still have work to be done! We will:

n receive the transfer and other deeds and documents of your new property from your seller’s solicitors a few days after completion

n send the SDLT1 form that you have signed to HM Revenue & Customs and pay any necessary stamp duty land tax

n once HM Revenue & Customs have acknowledged receipt of the payment, we will apply to register you as the owner of your new property on the title held at the Land Registry (and your bank or building society as the mortgagee). This process can take a few weeks (or a few months if the title has not previously been registered) to complete. Once complete we will write to you to confirm and send you a copy of the title for you to retain.

The table, to the right, aims to show in simple steps what we have explained above. It gives an idea of the time scales involved for a fairly typical transaction.

It does not, however, claim to be definitive. Every property transaction is unique, involving many elements, all of which may change. Your transaction may take longer, or shorter and be more or less complex. But we hope that an understanding of the basic legal process will help you to make more sense of the house moving jigsaw.

The table shows the process from our perspective. You will of course also be involved in piecing together other aspects of the jigsaw; including applying for and progressing your mortgage, arranging a survey of your new house, packing and sorting out your removals, and notifying your change of address to the gas, electricity, telephone and other utilities.

Following Completion

In Summary

What you, as seller, will do

What we will do

What we will do

What you, as buyer, will do

Complete property information and fixtures forms.

Obtain your title deeds.

Carry out preliminary searches

Prepare and send the Contract, details and forms you have completed to the buyer’s solicitor.

Check the Contract and Title to the property. Ask the seller’s solicitor additional enquiries.

Answer the extra enquiries asked by the buyer’s solicitor.

Arrange for you to sign the Contract.

Answer the extra enquiries asked by the buyer’s solicitor.

Receive and check the mortgage offer.

Receive and check the results of the searches.

Advise you on all the details of the property.

Arrange for you to sign the Contract.

Prepare the Transfer and mortgage deeds.

Carry out final searches. Obtain Mortgage Money.

Sign the Transfer and Mortgage.

Move in.

Agree a completion date with your buyer.

Sign the Transfer.

Move Out.

WEEK 1

WEEK 1

WEEK 3

WEEK 3

WEEK 5*

WEEK 5*

WEEK 2

WEEK 2

WEEK 4

WEEK 4

WEEK 6

WEEK 6

SALE

PURC

HA

SE

*It is most common that at the beginning of week 5 contracts are exchanged, yet this may differ from lender to lender.

Do work out your finances carefully to ensure you will have enough money, not only for your new property, but also all the extras you will need for it!We will give you an estimate of our costs and all other payments, such as search fees, Stamp Duty Land Tax and Land Registry fees.

Do remember that if you pack your things yourself and the removers damage them in the course of the move, you may not be able to claim against the removers’ insurance policy.

Do visit your new home a few times before exchanging contracts. Use this time to measure up, to find out more about it from the sellers and to make sure it really is the home for you!

Do have your new property surveyed. The seller will not be giving any information at all about the state of repair and condition of the property, any defects in the property or any services at the property. In most cases, therefore, we would strongly advise you to have an independent survey of the property carried out and to have the gas, electricity, water and central hearing systems checked over by a competent engineer.

Don’t take the light bulbs and door knobs from your old house. Believe it or not, as some people have been known to do!

Don’t agree a completion date without first speaking to us to ensure all the necessary work can be done in time.

Dos

Don’ts

Don’t worry.Do contact us if you have any concerns. We are here to help, to explain things you don’t understand and to try and make the process of moving to your new home as trouble free and as smooth as possible.

We are here and only a phone call away; Pershore on 01386 562000, call Tewkesbury on 01684 299633, Cheltenham on 01242 235250, and for Stratford-upon-Avon call 01789 295544.

Further Information:

Where we are acting

for 2 or more people


Liaising with Third Parties


When is payment

due?


Cancellation Rights

As both of you are clients it is our duty to ensure that we advise both of you and to obtain instructions from both of you at each stage of the transaction.

In particular, we will need to advise you on the terms of and obtain your signatures to the contract, obtain your agreement to the proposed completion date and your authority and instructions to exchange contracts on your behalf. It may, in cases of extreme urgency, be necessary for us to obtain your authority to actually sign the contract on your behalf.

It is likely to be time consuming to obtain instructions from both of you and may cause delays in exchange of contracts that would not be to your advantage. If you wish to avoid this, and in the event that you are both happy with such an arrangement, instructing us by signing the attached term of business will permit us to obtain instructions from either of you without reference to the other.

To ensure that any delays are minimised, instructing us by signing the attached terms of business will permit us to discuss this transaction with and provide information to third parties acting for you (e.g. your financial advisor, estate agent, bank, building society or broker) without further prior reference to you.

A deposit, usually 10% of the purchase price, is payable when contracts are exchanged.

We will ask you to pay us the balance of the money due to complete the purchase and our own professional charges and disbursements before completion. If your financial arrangements are such that there will be a net payment due to you following completion of your sale and purchase we will deduct our account from the balance.

If your instructions to us have not been given in a face to face meeting you would generally have the right to cancel instructions without any cost to you within seven working days of your written instructions being received by us.

You would cancel the agreement by either delivering or posting a note to us cancelling your instructions or by sending it by fax. You may not, however, cancel the

agreement once we have, with your permission started to do the work for you. To avoid any delay in the transaction, by signing and returning the terms and conditions, you are agreeing that we may start work on your behalf immediately and we do not have to wait for the cancellation period to expire.

Other Considerations:

How do you wish to hold

the Property?


A Will?


Declaration of Trust

If you are buying your property you can hold the property either jointly or in common. If you hold the property “jointly” this means that neither of you have a separate identifiable interest in the property and therefore on the death of either of you the whole property will vest automatically in the survivor.

If you hold the property “in common” then this means that you each own a separate half share of the property. On death this share will pass in accordance with your Will, or if you do not have a will, in accordance with the intestacy rules. The property will not vest automatically in the survivor on the first owner’s death.

It is always important to ensure you have in place a valid Will, but this is particularly important if you choose to hold your property in common.

If you would like further advice as to whether this might be applicable in your circumstances, please contact us. Please note a separate charge will be levied for the preparation of a Will.

You may also consider whether you wish to have in place a Declaration of Trust. This is a deed in which you could outline such provisions as how you wish the sale proceeds of any subsequent sale of the property to be dealt with and/or who should be responsible for mortgage payments or maintenance of the property etc. going forward.

This would usually be applicable in cases where you are contributing unequal amounts to the purchase and where one of you only will be paying the mortgage. If you would like further advice as to whether this might be applicable in your circumstances, please contact us. Please note a separate charge will be levied for the preparation of such a deed.

tbsolicitors.co.uk

Stephanie BurrillParalegal [email protected]

Nicola ArlinAssociate [email protected]

Shelley BuckinghamConveyancer [email protected]

Emma CottellLegal Executive & Associate [email protected]

Dorcas GuillebaudSolicitor [email protected]

Nicholas Murray-WhiteSenior Consultant [email protected]

Authorised and Regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority number 442238

FEB 2018

Sylvia GillhamPartner & Head of Department [email protected]

Claire LiddyConveyancer [email protected]

Henrietta Witts Legal Executive [email protected]

Corinne Smurthwaite Assistant Solicitor [email protected]

Hayley Tomkins Trainee Legal Executive [email protected]

01386 56200037 High Street, Pershore, Worcestershire WR10 1AH

PershoreOur offices are at 37 High Street, situated opposite the Town Hall and by the pedestrian crossing.

01684 29963327 Church Street, Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire GL20 5RH

Tewkesbury

01242 2352509 Imperial Square, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire GL50 1QB

01789 2955441 Mansell Street, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire CV37 6NR

Cheltenham

Stratford- upon-Avon

From The Cross, the office is 100 yards on the left hand side of the A38 Cheltenham and Gloucester Road at 27 Church Street.

If you require further information, then please contact the Residential Property Department of Thomson & Bancks LLP using the details below and we will be happy to help you.

Our offices are located in the centre of Cheltenham at 9 Imperial Square, situated opposite the Town Hall and Imperial Gardens.

Our office is located on Mansell Street, right in the town centre and opposite the PictureHouse Cinema.