Introduction

Buying and selling property is not something most people do on a regular basis.  Some people may only move once or twice during their lifetime.  However many times you go through the buying and selling process, the procedures are usually the same but very often the advice and help you get differs greatly.

Selling your home, or buying a new home is a very stressful time for everyone and can be further complicated by receiving, on some occasions, impersonal letters full of legal jargon, from your legal representative.

Here at Butterworths we aim to give a personal and sympathetic approach to your legal requirements, in plain English, when assisting you in buying and selling.

Confusion can arise over some of the legal terms used in correspondence and we aim to set out below some simple explanations which might help you to understand what we do on your behalf a little better.

Vital Stages in a Conveyancing Transaction :-

1. Finding a buyer for your property or finding a property to buy and agreeing a price.
   
   
2. Exchanging Contracts – This is when you“promise” to buy or sell the property on an agreed date (the completion date).  At this point you are actually legally committed to the deal and neither party can withdraw without severe financial consequences.  There is usually a 10% deposit payable by the Buyer’s Solicitors to the Seller’s Solicitors at this stage but because a lot of people these days get a 95% mortgage to assist in their purchase, a reduced deposit will generally be accepted.  However, if you are buying and do back out after exchange of contracts, you are responsible for making up the difference in the deposit to the 10% that would normally have changed hands at exchange of contracts.  It is advisable for you to have building cover on the property as from exchange of contracts, as the seller is under no obligation to insure the property from that date.
   
   
3. Completion Date – This is the date on which the balance of the money passes from the Buyer’s Solicitors to the Seller’s Solicitors and when you actually move into your new property or out of your old one.

The work we will do :-

• We, as your legal representatives, carry out quite a bit of work on your behalf between these stages.

On your sale we will :-

1. Write to you confirming your instructions to us and send you our Terms of Business Agreement and written quotation for your conveyancing costs.
   
   
2. Obtain a copy of your HIP from you or your estate agents and deal with any outstanding issues in relation to provision of documents/searches.
   
   
3. Obtain your title deeds from the Building Society/Bank who holds them.  Once we receive the deeds we will prepare draft Contracts and send any other documentation necessary to prove your ownership of the property to the Buyer’s Solicitors for their approval.
   
   
4. Arrange to see you personally to advise you upon signing the Contract and any other documentation forwarded to us by the Buyer’s Solicitors for your signature, after having first approved these documents on your behalf and having answered any enquiries raised by the Buyer’s Solicitors.  At exchange of contracts we would normally receive a deposit on yourbehalf, which can be used on your related purchase if you have one, or held in our client account on your behalf until completion takes place.
   
   
5. The two main documents you will be signing at this stage are the Contract and the Transfer.  The Contract is the agreement between you and your buyer when the promise is made to sell the property.  The Transfer is the deed that actually transfers the ownership of the property from yourself to your buyer and is the deed, which is used by the Land Registry to record the transaction of the property register, which they hold.
   
6. When we receive the balance of completion monies on your behalf, we then attend to the repayment of your mortgage, the settling of the Estate Agents account and let you have a cheque for the balance having deducted our legal fees and disbursements.

On your purchase we will :-

1. Write to you confirming your instructions to us and send you our Terms of Business Agreement and our written quotation for your conveyancing costs.
   
   
2. Obtain draft Contract and title documentation from the Seller’s Solicitors, send you the Seller’s own replies to pre-contract information forms and raise any queries you have in respect of these replies.
   
   
3. Submit any searches that are required by you or your lender depending on which searches (and depending upon the quality of those searches) are included in the HIP provided by the Seller.  It is the firm’s practice to ask for any search fees in advance.
   
   
4. Disbursements are payments to other people, for example the Local Authority, the Inland Revenue and the Land Registry that we have to collect from you and pay to these bodies on your behalf.  Although these are included in our quotation, they do not form part of the costs we get for acting for you.  However many quotations you obtain before deciding which Solicitor to go to, only the Solicitors costs should ever be different.  The disbursements should always be the same.
   
   
5. Receive and check your Mortgage offer before preparing all of the documents required for your purchase for signature to you.  Again we will be asking you to sign the Contract and the Transfer as well as the Mortgage Deed.
   
   
6. Prepare the Stamp Duty Land Tax Form that you are required to complete and advise you as to its contents.
   
   
7. Discuss convenientdates with you for your move and when a date has been agreed, exchange contracts and apply to your lender for the mortgage advance monies.  At this time we will also account to you for our own costs and disbursements, as outlined in the quotation received by you at the outset of the transaction.  We will need any balance money at least 5 working days before completion to allow time for the funds to clear in our account.
   
   
8. Complete the purchase on your behalf by paying the purchase price to your Sellers Solicitors.
   
   
9. We then arrange for any stamping of documents and registration of your title to the property at H M Land Registry and deal with any queries that the Land Registry may raise.
   
   
10. When the Land Registry send us the Title Information Document,which proves your title to the property, we will send this, to your lender as security for their mortgage advance to you.  Most lenders no longer hold the Title Deeds and we will send any such documents to you for safe-keeping as they will be needed should you come to sell your property in the future.

We hope that the above information has been of some assistance to you.

However, every conveyancing transaction is different and it may be the case that you will experience some variations on the procedures set out above.  If you are in any doubt at any time during the transaction or if you have any queries or questions at all, however insignificant they may sound, please pick up the phone and ask us – after all we are here to help.