Selling Property Without a Lawyer

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Selling a house or flat can be a complicated process that involves a lot of difficult but mandatory legal paperwork, and that’s why owners often hire a solicitor to handle this aspect. You could attempt to sell your property without a lawyer, but there are pros and cons involved as this guide explains, and it also offers advice on the best way to attract a fair and fast offer from a buyer.

1. Are you required to have a lawyer when selling a home in the UK?
2. Using a conveyancer instead of a solicitor to sell a property
3. Handling the sale of your house or flat without a legal expert
4. Could a buyer get a mortgage for a property without a lawyer?
5. Four options for selling your home that doesn’t have a solicitor
6. Frequently asked queries about selling a home without a lawyer

Are you required to have a lawyer when selling a home in the UK?

When people think about selling their freehold or leasehold properties, they might believe that it’s necessary to have a solicitor or other legal professional for the sale to proceed.
But there’s nothing in UK law or regulations that says homeowners are absolutely required to hire a lawyer or other legal professional when trying to sell a flat or house, as noted on Strike’s website.
Instead of using a lawyer to sell your property, you have two clear alternatives. First, you could hire a conveyancer, who is a credited legal expert that can do much of the work that a solicitor would do with overseeing the sale of the property. Second, you could do this work on your own.
The many legal tasks involved with selling any type of home include:

• Fully answering any and all property questionnaires
• Obtaining the property’s title deeds
• Corresponding with the buyer’s legal expert
• Drafting and overseeing contracts needed to sell your home
• Handling financial transactions involved with the sale
• Approving a final transfer of the deed
• Settling accounts and completing the sale

The above list is not exhaustive and there are several other legal steps that could be required. Taking care of all these tasks on your own is possible yet it will require a lot of time.
And as this guide will explain, there are a number of problems that could arise when you try to sell your property without the assistance of either a conveyancer or a solicitor – particularly if it’s a more-complicated type of sale, such as a part exchange that may be too overwhelming for a non-expert to handle.
Keep reading to learn about the pros and cons of trying to sell a flat or house without a legal professional. You’ll also get advice on how to improve your prospects for receiving a speedy and competitive offer from a buyer even if you decide to sell your home without a lawyer.

Using a conveyancer instead of a solicitor to sell a property

One option that you could pursue instead of having a lawyer oversee the sale of your house or flat would be hiring a conveyancer to be responsible for handling all the necessary actions.
A conveyancer is a qualified professional who can do much of the work that a solicitor would do with the research and writing of contracts required for the sale of your property. Conveyancers generally tend to charge lower rates than solicitors, so it can be a cost-effective way to have someone take care of this work.
But it’s important to understand that many conveyancers are more limited in their legal expertise than the average property solicitor. If you have a particularly unique selling situation, such as trying to sell a home that has structural damage or where there are complex legal issues involved such as a restrictive covenant, a conveyancer may not be able to handle this scenario.
Still, many homeowners opt for the cheaper option of using a conveyancer rather than a solicitor, although you also have the choice not to hire any expert when selling your property.

Handling the sale of your house or flat without a legal expert

You could consider taking care of the sale of your property entirely without a solicitor or conveyancer. This would naturally put the responsibility on you to handle all of the legal paperwork, information collection and other steps that an expert would usually process.
The broad range of details that you’ll have to find, and the sheer amount of paperwork involved, as highlighted in this guide’s first section, will span almost the entire selling process.
But this can be a complicated process, as the Citizens Advice website notes, and it could be too much stress and hassle for someone not experienced in selling homes. It might also be very lengthy, and not be something you can only do in your spare time.
There can also be various costs involved, such as paying to obtain certain records if needed from the local authority or UK government, or for other legal steps in the selling process. That’s not an ideal outcome for those owners aiming to reduce their costs when seeking a buyer.
Therefore, you should only give serious consideration to the concept of handling all the legal work yourself if you have suitable experience with doing this for the sale of other priorities. If not, you could be subjecting yourself to a time-consuming and highly stressful outcome.

Could a buyer get a mortgage for a property without a lawyer?

A problem that you could encounter when trying to sell a house or flat without a solicitor is that a prospective buyer may not be able to secure a mortgage in order to afford the purchase. If that happens then the sale won’t happen, and you’ll have to keep searching for another buyer.
Mortgage providers will want to know that the home someone is buying with their loan doesn’t have any serious negative issues, such as structural faults or any other problems. That’s because they might have to repossess and sell the property in the event that the buyer falls behind in their mortgage repayments, and there’s no other option to recoup that debt.
One recent report in the Financial Times says that mortgage arrears have reached a six-year high in the UK, which means mortgage lenders might be especially wary about approving such loans currently. The lender may turn down a home loan application if they worry that your lack of a lawyer means there could be flaws with the property that don’t become clear until after it is sold.
But you don’t need to rely on finding a private buyer who’ll need a mortgage to sell your home, and it’s still possible to get a fast and fair offer for the property even without a lawyer. One solution could be getting in contact with a quick home buying company like LDN Properties, because they are experts at making such offers on all types of homes – and may be able to consider those sold without a solicitor.
The next section of this guide expands on the pros of selling to a quick buyer, which includes not having to pay any fees and completing the sale within just a few short weeks, particularly when compared against some of the other approaches for selling a property.

Four options for selling your home that doesn’t have a solicitor

If you’re ready to sell your property, the next decision you will need to make is how you’d like to find a buyer. The four conventional methods of selling a home are with an estate agent, to a quick buyer, at an auction or without any help, with pros and cons associated with it.
For example, you could have to pay costly commission if you choose to sell your home at an auction or using the services of an estate agent. Other options have notable advantages, like having a selling timeline of just a few short weeks when you choose a quick buyer. The approach that works best for one owner may not be suitable for another type of seller.
The best way to find your ideal choice is to write down your main aims with selling – such as your goal price and timeline, and whether you are willing to pay any fees – and compare it against the four methods below to see which matches best to your unique needs.

Selling your home with an estate agent

You won’t need to do much work involved with selling your home when using an estate agent, because they will produce the listing – which describes the property and includes photographs of the interior and exterior – and then advertise this in their office, in local newspapers and online to generate interest from buyers. They’ll organise viewings to take people on tours of your home, and they’ll hear offers, hopefully seeing one through to exchanging contracts.
But this is a very lengthy process and can be rife with delays, so you should not be surprised if it takes more than a full year before you’re able to complete the sale of your home. For those buyers looking to sell on a speedier schedule, you may want to review some other options, such as selling to a quick buyer where the average timeline is just a handful of weeks.
A large portion of properties sold through an estate agent are purchased by private buyers, who will often need to get approved for a mortgage in order to buy a home. But as this guide has explained – and as the website for Laker Legal Solicitors notes – home loan providers could be reluctant to approve a mortgage for your property if you don’t have a lawyer.
If a buyer finds it difficult to get a loan to purchase the home, this will make selling to them impossible, and you may have to consider some of the other options for finding a buyer.
Homes sold through an estate agent also have the potential to fall apart if someone makes an offer but, before contracts are exchanged, rescinds it. They can’t be penalised for this move, and it would delay your sale because you’d need to begin again with seeking a buyer.
Also, you will need to pay commission to an estate agent if they succeed in finding a buyer for your property. This is usually charged within a range between 1.15 percent and 1.40 percent of a home’s final sale price, and it increases costs because it’ taken out of the sale proceeds. Some estate agents may charge a lower rate, but others could have even greater fees.

Selling your home to a quick buyer

Selling to a quick buyer can be ideal when you don’t have a lawyer as these companies are well known for making fair and swift offers to purchase almost any age, condition, location shape, size or type of property, regardless of any issues other buyers may view as dealbreakers.
As well as buying homes where the owner doesn’t have a lawyer (They may also be able to help you find one), LDN Properties’ long list of purchases ad offers made across the UK since launching in 2003 includes flats with council tax arrears, guest houses, properties without parking, flats above commercial premises, houses with a bad roof, homes situated close to an industrial estate, flats with asbestos, properties in a high risk flood zone, homes with a short lease, houses that are located nearby to power lines and many other varied situations.
Quick buyers are so-called because they have the funds available to speedily purchase almost any home, without waiting weeks or longer to secure a mortgage to pay for the transaction. That reduces the average selling timeline to within a few short weeks, and this includes the time that it takes to exchange contracts and pay the homeowner their full proceeds from the sale.
Remember also that honest quick buyers won’t charge you commission when they purchase your flat or house, which helps with reducing your expenses. By contrast, you’ll face increased costs when selling through an estate agent or at an auction, because they will make you pay fees that will be deducted as a percentage from the eventual selling proceeds.
The several perks of selling to a quick home buyer therefore make them a suitable choice for any owners whose priorities with finding a buyer include a rapid sale and not paying fees.
And you can have extra peace of mind when selling this way, just by asking individual companies if they are members of a third-party entity called The Property Ombudsman (TPO), which writes policies to protect homeowners from falling victim to fraud in the quick buying sector. Genuine TPO members, like LDN Properties, must follow these rules, and you shouldn’t sell your home to a company that can’t prove it’s TPO-registered because it may be a scam.
Checking the legitimacy of a quick buyer is easy, fast and free – just visit TPO’s website and then click on the "Find a Member" tab on the left side of the welcome screen, and you’ll be asked to type in the name of a specific company. Next, if they are a true TPO member, you’ll see their full membership details, and if they don’t belong to TPO you’ll get zero results.

Selling your home at an auction

Auctions are unpredictable as you never know if your home will even receive any bids, and if it does not then it is deemed unsold and you will have to start over with seeking a buyer – an outcome that could add even more time to the overall schedule for selling your property.
You will be asked by the auctioneer to select a reserve price, and this is the lowest value at which you can accept selling your property. Be aware that just one bid at this price is seen as a binding legal agreement to sell the home, and the winning bidder can sue you to enforce the sale of your property if you attempt to walk away from it after the auction. That’s why you must calculate a reserve price that will give you a profit after you pay the auctioneer their fees.
Typically, an auctioneer will charge homeowners commission at 2.5 precent of the final sale price of a house or flat, and this will be subtracted right away from the sale proceeds, which will increase your net expenses. Should you be looking to sell your home with the lowest costs possible, consider zero-commission options that include quick buyers like LDN Properties.
For those homeowners who definitely want to sell by auction, it can be useful to contact individual auctioneers to ask them whether they might be willing to reduce the amount of commission they’ll charge you or to at least have the buyer pay some of your fees, because either outcome could be a viable step toward reducing your costs when selling this way.
Auctions are also not a speedy way to sell a home, so if finding a buyer fast is your main aim, you should review other methods. You will be waiting for many weeks or months between when you decide to sell your home and when the auction happens, and then if the property manages to sell, the buyer has about 28 days to sign all the required papers and finish their other mandatory tasks before the sale of your home can formally be completed.

Selling your home without any help

If you decide to seek a buyer for your property without any third-party assistance from an estate agent or auctioneer, then you’ll handle not only the legal paperwork but every other step.
This includes the creation and advertising of a listing, organising viewings and fielding offers from buyers, ideally taking one to the exchange of contracts. It’s a lot of work, on top of handling the legal aspects of the sale and can quickly become overwhelmingly stressful unless you have sold a home in the past or have a qualified friend or family member that can help you for free.
Without such expertise, you could be waiting more than an entire year before you are able to find a buyer for your property. And even if someone makes an offer, they could withdraw it and cause the sale to collapse, forcing you to start over with looking for a buyer – and this is something they are allowed to do without penalty so long as contracts aren’t yet exchanged. The result would be many more weeks or months being added to the selling timeline.
One of the only obvious advantages of selling without any help is that you won’t need to pay fees to any third party, which can reduce your expenses. But this saving might be cancelled out by the funds that you have to pay on advertising your listing and various other costs.
Instead of selling this way, if you’re determined to avoid paying any commission then you could think about contacting LDN Properties or another honest no-fee quick buyer. They will not only consider buying your house or flat without charging you any commission, but you would get the extra benefit of completing the sale in a handful of weeks rather than months or longer.

Top queries and answers about selling property without a lawyer

Homeowners wanting to sell their home fast can have some questions to answer, ranging from the time it takes to sell through to selling a house with legal difficulties. Here are some of the questions you could ask if you are selling a property without a lawyer: