 When you decide to buy a house, you will soon hear about the word conveyance. The simple explanation of the word conveyance is the legal transfer of ownership a property to another person. It is usually a very long winding process and can some times take months to be completed.
Usually conveyance is carried out by a solicitor or a licensed conveyor; this is because a conveyancer is heavily involved in legal work, such as the drafting of contracts. However there are some people who decide to take on the responsibility of conveyance themselves, this is a method that is not encouraged, and those who decide to carry out the conveyancing themselves will find that their mortgage lenders will be reluctant to work with them, unless they take on the assistance of a solicitor or a licensed conveyor. A conveyancing solicitor's charges depend on the transaction's complexity and the value of the property. The advantage of the use of a legal professional is the vast knowledge they have and the know how to check into every aspect of the property. They are also insured, so they are covered if anything goes wrong in the conveyance process. If you were to do your own conveyance and a mistake happened you would be held responsible and could be made to pay compensation to compensate for your mistakes.
Step 1
The conveyance process begins with your solicitor contacting the property solicitor you wish to buy and obtains a contract pack from them. A contract pack is a collection of documents that your solicitor will use to help them investigate the seller's legal ownership of the property. This is then followed by a local authority search, which involves the study of the register of local land charges to find out if any plans that could affect the property. This could take between four and six weeks and is usually required by the mortgage lender.
Step 2
The next step in the process of conveyance, your solicitor will review and report to you the contents of your contract pack, the findings of the local authority search and your mortgage offer. The solicitor will then negotiate a completion date for you. The completion date will be the date you make the full payment to your seller and day you collect the keys of the property.
At this point of exchange of contracts there is a binding contract between you, the buyer and the seller. What this means is the sale and the price are now set and neither party can pull out of the transaction without result of incurring a financial penalty. Then your solicitor will prepare a completion statement. A completion statement is the financial breakdown of your purchase and all the related costs. Your solicitor will also carry out pre-completion searches. Pre-completion searches are carried out in order to check that you haven't become bankrupt since your mortgage offer was approved and to check that the property is still owned by the seller (e.g. the individual you're about to send money to).
Step3
Once this is completed your solicitor will then prepare the transfer deed. A transfer deed is the document that transfers the ownership of the property. When the transfer deed is prepared it is then sent to the seller's solicitor. The seller will then sign the document and the next step would be to request the money from your mortgage lender. Once the seller has received the payment for the property you should receive the title deeds and the transfer deed. Your solicitor will then send the transfer deed to the stamping office and then the stamp duty is paid. Stamp duty is the tax that you pay to the Inland Revenue.
Step 4
The next step to be carried out by your conveyance solicitor is to register your ownership of the property to the land registry. The title deeds of the property are then sent to your mortgage lender. This then results with the end of the conveyance process.
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