Whether you're a layman looking to understand your own transaction or a lawyer needing assistance with a client's conveyancing our step by step sale and purchase guides will lead you through the process while our mini guides will break the whole thing into manageable chunks and give a deep insight into the key issues and stages. Leasehold, freehold, unregistered, registered – we've got it all covered.
Need help with a remortgage or transfer of equity / deed of gift? Our guides will walk you through the process and highlight some of the common pitfalls. Mortgages and transfers can be very simple procedures but complex issues can sometimes arise and mistakes are easily made. These guides will help you deal with them.
So you want to have a go at your own conveyancing? First you should read about the risks, then if you're still happy to proceed, our guides will take you through each stage of the process telling you what to look out for and helping you avoid falling into expensive traps. Our subscription service will give you access to all of the documents you should need for your conveyancing and we can even supply you with the Land Registry Official Copies you'll need. Our general guides will cover all the obstacles you are likely to face and offer a practical solution. Have a look at our sale and purchase guides too.
A big part of the conveyancing process is the conveyancing searches. This section tells you all about them. What they are, how and when to order them and how to interpret the results. Each search has its own guide and you'll see they are separated into Standard (should be done in every case), Regional (area specific) and Optional (not essential but often useful tools for the would be purchaser). All buyers should beware that when you buy a property, the law assumes that you have seen the information that would have been revealed by searches whether or not you have actually carried them out, so you buy the property subject to the results.
Using a conveyancer to handle your conveyancing will greatly reduce the risk to you and sometimes, particularly if you are taking out a new mortgage, you will have no choice but to instruct a conveyancer. The good news is it doesn't have to break the bank. Get a free, instant quote here. We can also help with quick easy quotes for other moving related services.
Are you looking for the documents you'll need for your conveyancing transaction? Or official copies of the title or other documents from Land Registry. We can help you. Follow the links below.
My offer was accepted on a leasehold property. My solicitor has requested a leasehold pack from the seller's solicitors and is adamant the seller should pay. The seller has refused to pay for this pack and said we should contact the Management Company ourselves. My solicitor said this is unusual and a sign the seller is uncooperative, and that I should withdraw. I am not sure if this is correct advice.
The information your solicitor is requesting is information that should always be obtained when buying a leasehold property. It is usual for the seller to pay and indeed it is very likely that your seller's would have had to pay for it when your seller bought the property, so your seller's refusal to pay is on the face of it unreasonable but could be attributable to any number of factors - it could be he can't afford it, he could have been forced to pay when he bought it, he could be receiving bad advice from his solicitor or he could just be tight fisted. Even if he is "uncooperative" this is not necessarily a barrier to a successful purchase and I do think your solicitor is overstepping the mark is recommending you don't proceed as a consequence of circumstances which have nothing to do with the quality of the legal title. A conveyancer's role is to investigate the legal title, make various protocol searches and enquiries and present the facts so that his client can make an informed decision. He should not be telling a buyer not to proceed, at most if because of some title defect or surrounding issue he does not think that the property is worth the purchase price or is not fit for the purpose which his client intends to use it he should say so. An uncooperative seller can certainly delay a sale and in extreme cases can be fatal to a transaction but it is not necessarily so. If you want the property enough to take the hit on the management company's fee and there is nothing fundamentally wrong with it you should proceed. I would course add the caveat that I am assuming there are no other adverse circumstances beyond those you have described.
Thank you very much for your detailed answer. There is a lot there for me to think about. You have identified my dilemma.
Just to clarify on your last point: I do not think that there are other adverse circumstances affecting my solicitor's advice. However, in the specific case, it would not surprise me if the seller was behind with service charges and / or other payments.