Residential conveyancing is the legal terminology for the process involved when legally transferring ownership of a property from one person to another. The process itself involves a number of checks to ensure that you are aware of the local environment, any unpleasant things the land may have been used for before it was built on, and exactly what you are being sold.

Let’s go through the process in stages.

You have seen the perfect property, you have been to see the mortgage adviser and have been told that they can provide the money that you need, so you make an offer on the house and the seller accepts. Gazumping apart, the process starts in earnest. You should first go to a local solicitor that you either know or have heard are good. If you don’t know any, call a few solicitors in your local area and ask them to give you a quote for conveyancing the property you want to buy. You can go on price but it is advisable to go with the person that you connect with most as you will be dealing with them for the entirety of the process.

What will then happen is that the sellers’ solicitor will start writing up a contract detailing what you are actually getting for your money.

The contract details will include selling price, the boundaries, what fixtures and fittings are included (for example wood burning stove, cooker etc or if you are buying land you may have agreed a tractor as part of the sale!), legal restrictions or rights on the property, planning restrictions, a description of the services to the property (septic tank or electricity), and finally a completion date for the purchase.

While all of this is going on your solicitor will be making a number of checks to see if there is anything that could effect your decision on purchasing the property. The checks can be broken down into environmental search, local authority search, chancel repair search, and if in a mining area, a mining search.

The environmental search lets you know if the ground is prone to flooding, has issues with Radon Gas, has had mining in the area, or is listed as contaminated land (landfill, fuel stations or waste treatment sites nearby).

If the environmental search, flags that there is mining in the area a further mining search can be carried out to see if the mines would have an effect on the property that you own. The Local Authority search will let you know if there are any pending planning applications that might affect the land that you are looking to buy. You can also go into the local planning office yourself to have a look at plans in the local area.

The chancel repair search is to find out whether you have to pay the local church a set amount of money towards the repair of their chancel. This will soon be easier to check as churches have to register their chancel charge in the next few years or lose the right to claim the fee. There is chancel insurance that you can take out to cover the eventuality of this but a good solicitor should sort this out for you.

What then comes (if the buyer and seller are happy with the contract that both solicitors have prepared) is an exchange of contracts which then makes the sale legally binding. At this point both parties have legal recourse should the other person pull out of the contract.

Next, the solicitors will make sure that everything is ready for the completion of the conveyancing process. This will include them ensuring that their are enough funds, checking mortgage documents (if any), doing a final land registry check, ensuring that all things that have been agreed in the contract are carried out, and ensuring that all legal documents are completed to transfer ownership. This is then followed by the final transfer of the total funds and receipt of the legal documents that prove ownership. You then need to pay the solicitors fees and register the ownership of the land with the land registry.

The final cost that you will have to pay is the stamp duty on the property which when this article was written was 0% for properties purchased below the price of £125,000, 1% for properties between £125,001 and £250,000 unless you are a first time buyer when you don’t have to pay any stamp duty. This price then increases by 1% every time you double the purchase amount.