Conveyancing

How can we help?

We have very many years experience of dealing with conveyancing matters. If you are thinking of buying or selling a house, or a piece of land, then please feel free to contact us for advice.

What will it cost?

We will be happy to give you an estimate of our costs once we have a few details about the sort of transaction you are contemplating. We do not think it is fair to you or to us to quote a figure until we have some idea of how much work could be involved. However, these will be based on the tables shown in our Conveyancing Fees page.

How to budget for moving home

If you are buying a property, you will need to budget for a number of additional costs beyond the purchase price. These may include:

• Solicitors’ or ‘conveyancing’ fees for your property purchase.  These fees will cover:
  • all the contract work and:
  • searches, including local, mining, drainage, water and environmental search, as well as Land Registry title searches.
• Solicitors’ fees to sell your existing property.  
• A survey – your mortgage lender (if any) will conduct a survey to confirm the approximate value of the property, but most buyers also conduct a more-detailed survey to understand fully the condition of the property they are aiming to buy.
• A mundic test, depending on the age and location of the property (to include any extensions) you are buying.
• Stamp Duty Land Tax for properties over £250,000 or over £425,000 for first-time buyers.
• Ground rent and service charges for a leasehold property. Please note that there may well be other fees for buying and selling leasehold properties that are charged by your management company and/or landlord.
• Mortgage fees, including fees for a remortgage – you can often choose to bundle these into the mortgage sum borrowed, though that does mean you will pay interest on the fee for the lifetime of the mortgage.
• Removal costs: it is worth shopping around to find the best price and service.
• Professional cleaning costs and any maintenance and repairs on your existing property.

Please note that this is not an exhaustive list – other legal issues may come to light during our title investigations, such as a defective title indemnity policy, that may mean further expenditure.

What do conveyancing solicitors do?

At Sharp & Rimmer our conveyancing services means acting for you when you buy and/or sell your home.

Selling

When you are selling a property we work with your estate agent, the buyer’s solicitor and other concerned parties to coordinate the process, the key stages to which are:-

1. Gathering the information about the property – we will provide you with a property information form and a fixtures, fittings and contents form as well as obtaining any title deeds to your property. Based on this information we will provide the buyer’s solicitor with a contract package.
2. Progress the sale by dealing with any enquiries on the contract package or the searches and survey that are raised by the buyer’s solicitor, before arranging for your signature on the Contract.
3. Exchanging and completing – we will effect the exchange and completion on dates approved by you. We will ensure the Transfer Deed is signed by you to transfer ownership of the property to the buyer.

Buying

When you are buying a property we will review the Contract package prepared by the seller’s solicitor, any mortgage offer needed by you to finance the transaction and the searches that we commission on your behalf, including those specific to the area you are buying in. These checks help to ensure that you and/or your lender understand the property’s value and any issues that might impact its condition and value in the foreseeable future such as rights of access and planning applications that might affect your property.

We research the legal ownership of the property, ensuring that the seller is legally able to sell it and exploring any disputes over boundaries, access points, easements for utilities etc. This often-unseen work is probably the most important and valuable to you as it guarantees your future ownership. We also ensure that you are fully aware of any restrictions on the use of the property and that it has all necessary rights to enable you to use it as a home.

We will manage the transaction to ensure you are in a position to exchange contracts once we have reported to you fully on the transaction and your finances, to include any conditions attached to your mortgage offer, are secure to ensure completion can be met on the date fixed for you.  After completion we will deal with the registration of your title at the Land Registry and will provide you with a copy of that title.

How long will it take to sell/buy my property?

The average property sale/purchase to the point of completion takes between 12 and 16 weeks. However, this period will be affected by a number of factors, including how long it takes for any mortgage to be issued and the complexity of the transaction. Above all, it depends on the other parties in the chain and how their transactions progress.