Larken & Co, Newark legal expert writes about conveyancing when buying a property

Buying a property is the single biggest investment most people will make during their lifetime. The conveyancing process can seem long winded and is said to be quite stressful, writes Vanessa Pride, of Larken & Co, Newark.

The process seems to have become longer in recent years, partly due to changes in the law and regulations for solicitors to prevent fraud.

The general principles of “buyer beware “remains unchanged but solicitors now more than ever before need to make sure we know who our client is.

This requires us to get a client’s proof of their ID before any work starts. This will include seeing an original current passport or photocard driving licence and a copy of a recent utility bill or bank statement as proof of current address.

For a purchaser, we need to see a “source of wealth”, ie where you got your money from and that it appears to be from legitimate sources.

Such enquiries may seem impertinent but are legitimate.

No one wants to find that the property they thought they had bought was sold by someone posing as the legal owner of the property and that the seller’s solicitors had not done their due diligence.

When you contact a solicitor to act for you on a conveyancing matter, you will be sent a Client Care letter. This is a requirement on all conveyancing matters and is a contract between you and your solicitor.

It outlines what the solicitors will do, who will be dealing with your matter and who is responsible for overseeing the fee earner meets quality standards.

It also gives an indication of how long the process might take, and confirm the legal fees and disbursements you will be charged.

Before any substantive work starts on your matter, you should complete the paperwork and return along with a payment on account of costs and supply your ID.

Once that has been done, your solicitor can start preparing the draft contract and pack of information your buyer’s solicitors will insist on seeing.

This will need you to complete a property information form and a fixtures and contents form and, if necessary, a leasehold information form.

Original documents ot planning permissions, building regulation completion certificates, FENSA certificates, compliance certificates for new boilers or gas fires, A HETAS certificate for a “Log burner” or electrical certificates should be supplied.

As solicitor’s job will be to review the paperwork from the seller’s solicitors, approve the draft contract, draft a transfer, raise enquiries, and request searches.

You will be a report on the contract pack and copies of the enquiries we have raised on that information so you can check and confirm if there is anything further you need us to look into for you.

If you are having a survey carried out we would want to see a copy of it as soon as you get it. Whilst we cannot advise on structural matters, we can give general advice on any issues that need further investigation.. We will also check matters in the legal section.

When the searches come back, they get checked and if any issues are flagged up, we will raise these with the buyer’s solicitors.

Finally, when everything has been done, we will send you the approved contract and transfer and mortgage deed and Stamp Duty Land tax return to sign and return to us.

At this stage we will ask you for funds for completion and we can then discuss a mutually acceptable completion date – which is set in stone once contracts have been exchanged.

Until exchange of contracts either party can pull out of the transaction without any legal or financial consequences.

On the day of completion, the buyer’s solicitors will send the completion funds to the seller’s solicitors.

If there is a chain of transactions those funds can get transferred very late in the day, so depending on how far down that chain you are don’t rush your removals too much until you hear from you solicitor who should call you at least once to let you know what is happening.

Completion is usually with vacant possession and is usually set to take place contractually around 1 to 2pm.

Vacant possession means you and all your belongings have been removed from the property so all the buyer has to do is collect the keys – usually from the estate agents – and move in.