The residential conveyancing process

For a normal house purchase or sale, our mobile phone app will get you to completion 2-3 weeks quicker than using postal services. But how long it will take from your offer being accepted until completion day when you pick up the keys and move in will depend on a number of other factors. The average process for a freehold property takes between 4 – 12 weeks (8-16 weeks for leasehold properties). If there are a number of parties in a chain, the process will inevitably take longer, with mortgage offers to be issued, enquiries to be dealt with, and removals to be arranged. It is helpful if you would be prepared to compromise on a completion date. We would always advise that you do not make any firm plans for moving as we have no guarantee that any particular date can be achieved. We always do our best to work to your timescale but often the matter is out of our hands.

We always try to work as quickly as possible so that we are not holding up the chain.

We can draft a Declaration of Trust, which will set out how much you wish any investment to be divided on the sale of the property. We may recommend that you take advice from the Family Law team.

Absolutely not. Our conveyancing quotes are fixed which means you will know how much you have to pay from the very start. If you would like to get a quote for your conveyancing please use our online quote calculator that will give you a full break down of all the costs. Alternatively, if you would like to speak with a member of our team, we can talk you through our quote.

Unlike some other firms, we don’t believe in charging you for postage, photocopying or other things that we classify part of the job of conveyancing. We’ll never charge you for any of this.

Nash & Co’s fees would not usually increase during the course of the transaction as we give you a fixed fee estimate. However, this is only an estimate and if we find that we are required to draft additional documentation, such as a Deed of Covenant or a Statutory Declaration, or Declaration of Trust, then we would charge an additional fee, usually £75.00 plus VAT. We would always discuss this with you in advance.

With a leasehold sale where there is a Management Company involved, the Management Company will usually charge an additional fee for providing a Management or Information Pack which the buyer’s solicitor will require.

Our cancer misdiagnosis lawyers in Plymouth will do all they can to understand the impact that the delay or misdiagnosis has had on your cancer's development. It’s vital to then understand how this has impacted your life as well as those around you.

If you’ve had to pay for extra medical treatment, medication or take time off of work, then these can all put you under financial strain at a time when you really don’t need that.

As part of your claim, we would aim to cover all of the out-of-pocket expenses caused by the negligence you suffered. This can even include things like accommodation and travel costs.

Finally, we’ll also take into consideration the impact that the negligence has had on your social life and career.

If you have a mortgage lender, they will require the local search, drainage and water search and the environmental search. If you do not have a lender, we would recommend searches to ensure that there are no undiscovered defects when you purchase the property, but the choice is ultimately yours.

Exchange of contracts is the point when the transaction becomes a binding contract. Prior to this, there is no contract between the parties, and they are both free to withdraw from the transaction or negotiate the purchase price.

Once exchange of contracts has taken place, neither party can withdraw from the process without incurring liability for breach of contract. The financial penalty for breach of contract is usually 10% of the purchase price.

Completion is the day when the purchaser’s solicitor sends the completion monies to the seller’s solicitor. Once the purchase funds are received, the seller’s solicitors instruct the estate agent to release the keys to the purchaser and the purchaser becomes the legal owner of the property. The seller’s solicitor will then repay any existing mortgage on the seller’s behalf and will send all original title documentation to the buyer’s solicitor.

If you are buying or selling a Leasehold property, you should be prepared to pay a fee to the Management Company if there is one. When selling, there is usually a fee payable for obtaining the Leasehold Information Pack from the Management Company and this can range from £60.00 – £500.00 or more and we have no control over these fees. Without obtaining the leasehold information, your buyer will not be able to proceed so it may be worth your while to investigate the cost prior to marketing your property so you do not have any nasty surprises.

There may be instances when fees are payable to third parties. For example, if you are buying a new build property, the Developer’s Solicitor will invariably charge what is called ‘an engrossment fee’, that is, an additional fee they will charge for producing the documentation (the Contract, Lease or Transfer of Part) and this fee is usually around £100.00 – £175.00 plus VAT, payable on completion.

If you are buying or selling a Leasehold property, you should be prepared to pay a fee to the Management Company if there is one. When selling, there is usually a fee payable for obtaining the Leasehold Information Pack from the Management Company and this can range from £60.00 – £500.00 or more and we have no control over these fees. Without obtaining the leasehold information, your buyer will not be able to proceed so it may be worth your while to investigate the cost prior to marketing your property so you do not have any nasty surprises.

When buying a leasehold property, you may find yourself in the position where you have to cover the cost of the Notice of Assignment of the Lease (from the seller to you as the buyer) to the Management Company. You may also have to pay a fee for entering into a Deed of Covenant with the other tenants and/or the Management Company, and also possibly pay for a Certificate of Compliance from the Management Company, in order to ensure that the property you have just bought can be registered into your name. Different companies charge varying fees, from £50.00 – £500.00 plus VAT and this is something to bear in mind when making your offer to buy. It is likely that the Estate Agent will not be aware of the cost of these fees, and neither will your Solicitor until provided with the Information Pack.

On completion, there may well be an apportionment of Service Charge and Ground Rent if these are paid in advance by the seller. Again, this is not something that will come to light until we have all the information from the seller’s solicitor. We do put all this information into our report on the legal title once we have it but that is often when the transaction is fairly well advanced: we would have our searches back in and very likely your mortgage offer would have been issued by that stage.

Nash & Co’s fees would not usually increase during the course of the transaction as we give you a fixed fee estimate. However, this is only an estimate and if we find that we are required to draft additional documentation, such as a Deed of Covenant or a Statutory Declaration, or Declaration of Trust, then we would charge an additional fee, usually £75.00 plus VAT. We would always discuss this with you in advance.

If you are selling, it may be that you have had building works carried out that may have required either planning permission or building regulations consent, or perhaps may have required covenantee consent (where there are restrictive covenants binding on the property). In such instances, the buyer’s solicitor is very possibly going to ask that you cover the cost of an Indemnity Insurance Policy. The cost can be anything from around £30.00 – £300.00, depending on the value of the property you are selling, and the level of risk being insured. This is something we would arrange for you, and we do not charge an additional fee for carrying out such work (some firms do).