What exactly does a conveyancer do?

What is a conveyancer?

In very simple terms the conveyancer is responsible for taking care of the necessary legal paperwork required for you to transfer your ownership of a house or flat to the buyer.

But their actual role is more complicated and time-consuming. Conveyancers work to draft the contracts for sale, oversee the cash transfer for the purchase of the home, and also liaise with the UK Land Registry which is a non-ministerial department that registers property ownership in England and Wales.

Are conveyancers essential if I want to sell my home?

Problems with legal paperwork for your home can sometimes create the biggest headaches for completing a sale, including instances where you might have lost the title deeds and need to take some time-consuming steps to find them. It’s best to have a professional handle this.

You aren’t required to have a conveyancer and can try doing the work yourself, but it may quickly become stressful and potentially expensive if you make a mistake.

A conveyancer is different from a solicitor, because while the latter might be able to handle the home sale process if they’re fully qualified the former is trained specially for overseeing the buying and selling of properties. Most mortgage companies require that a buyer retain the services of a professional conveyancer before agreeing to lend money for a purchase.

What happens during the conveyancing process?

The conveyancing process begins when you first contact the conveyancer and instruct them to be your legal representative for the documentation involved in selling your home.

Once a buyer has made an offer on your home, the conveyancer will then perform various checks including identify confirmation and other steps to ensure that you have full legal ownership of the property that you are selling, such as contacting the UK Land Registry.

The conveyancer then will draw up a proposed contract with all necessary supporting legal documents for the review of the conveyancer hired by your prospective buyer. They will talk with each other about any questions they might have on behalf of their clients, and hopefully these can all be answered and both sides can proceed to agreeing on an exchange date.

The exchange date marks the moment when the contract for sale is signed and the purchase becomes legally binding, often referred to as the exchange of contracts.

Once this happens the conveyancer will be responsible for transmitting the title deeds and all other necessary legal paperwork to the conveyancer that is acting on behalf of the buyer and you will be looking to set a completion date. A completion date is often 30 days after the date of exchange. Your conveyancer will also oversee the transfer of the purchase money to your bank account.

How much does it cost to hire a conveyancer?

The average conveyancing fees involved with a home sale typically run anywhere from £850 and £1,500 and much more depending on how complicated the sale might be. The conveyancing costs for selling leasehold properties tend to be higher than those for freehold properties.

If you have missing title deeds or there are other additional steps that your conveyancer will have to take before all the necessary documentation is in place, you will have to pay extra for this. Although it’s fairly cheap to obtain your title deeds that prove you have ownership of a property, other costs involved with conveyancing can quickly rack up.

That’s why it’s important to always keep all legal and other paperwork safe and secure in a memorable location so that your conveyancer can have quick and easy access to them.