Conveyancing as the legal transfer of property from one owner to another. The key stages are exchange of contracts when everyone knows the transaction will proceed and completion when everyone moves.

Your conveyancer will carry out a range of administrative and legal work to help your house purchase go smoothly. Their responsibilities include:

• Checking the house title and organising searches for the property
• Understanding your requirements and timescales
• Working with the seller’s solicitors to progress the transaction
• Making enquiries on the buyer’s behalf to iron out any outstanding issues
• Checking the mortgage offer and dealing with special conditions
• Reporting to you and providing key information and documents
• Arranging dates for exchange of contracts and completion
• Preparing for completion
• Preparing a financial statement so you know what funds your conveyancer needs for exchange and completion
• Submitting a tax return and transferring funds for the required stamp duty
• Registering your ownership with the land registry

The cost of residential conveyancing services varies. Firstly, there will be the conveyancers legal fee, plus VAT. This will vary for example, depending on the price of the property and whether the property is freehold or leasehold. Secondly there will be disbursements, payments to third parties e.g. searches, SDLT, Land Registry fee.

If you’ve just had an offer accepted on a house, you’ll naturally be wondering how quickly conveyancing can be done. You’ll no doubt be excited to get the keys and start the next chapter of your life and frustrated by anything that delays this.

As the purchase of a house is such a significant financial undertaking for all involved, there is a lot of administrative and legal work for conveyancers to complete prior to completion. On top of this, there are times when things may appear to go quiet while people in the chain progress their transaction and there may be delays which are out of your conveyancer’s control.

In addition to your conveyancer, other third parties such as the seller, mortgage lenders, the seller’s solicitors and surveyors will be involved in the transaction.

Unfortunately, in certain circumstances, the conveyancing process can also be delayed significantly by other external factors

Your solicitor will progress your transaction as efficiently as possible. However, you will need to provide input at various stages of the process. If you are prompt to respond to your conveyancer’s requests, you can significantly speed up the conveyancing process.  For example:

1. Provide acceptable evidence of your ID promptly.
2. Provide acceptable evidence of funds if requested.
3. Deal with your lender’s special conditions promptly. They won’t release funds until special conditions are dealt with.
4. Sign documents in accordance with your conveyancer’s instructions.
5. Provide funds and documents when requested.