Conveyancing is the creation or transfer of legal interests in the title of property by one person to another.
Why conveyancing?
Unlike a tin of beans from a supermarket, property (meaning houses, flats, land and the like) can have many strings attached to it.
Whilst the creation or transfer usually is composed in a single legal document generally referred to as “the assurance” much consideration of other documents of title need to be considered when drafting the assurance and in which the wording will need to be agreed by all parties to it.
Conveyancing, therefore, is the process by which the pre-existing legal title to property is reviewed to ascertain what “strings” are already attached to the property; consideration given to any new “strings” to be attached by any party to the assurance and the drafting of the assurance to acknowledge the existing “strings” and implement the new “strings”.
Who does conveyancing?
It is perfectly acceptable for a person to carry out their own conveyancing provided there are no third party interests to be created or transferred at the same time as their own, for example a mortgage, because that third party will most likely require that they receive proper advice and/or the person has property advice to avoid unnecessary risks being taken.
However, that person should really ask themselves “do I know what I am doing?”. It is relatively easy to have a broad understanding of words on a page but it is equally easy to miss words that either should already appear on that page or in their absence should be written into the assurance.
If not done properly the first time around the conveyancing may have to be repeated in some way usually at great cost.
Conveyancing should be carried out by expert London conveyancing solicitors such as AVRillo who will ensure that all “strings” are present and correct by the time the property has had the relevant legal interest created or transferred. AVRillo are also the top-rated conveyancing lawyers in Yorkshire.
Conveyancing process: journey to exchange
The conveyancing process has two major stages to be reached: exchange and completion. There are many more tasks to be carried out to reach exchange than there are from exchange to completion.
In the conveyancing process the exchange does couple of things: it “seals the deal” – no more worries about price increases or reductions or whether the seller will lose their buyer or the buyer lose the property; it also “anchors” completion – a fixed point in time when everything “just happens” or at least that should be the clients experience if they have a decent conveyancer.
However, to get to exchange various tasks must be carried out. These tasks are matters of discovery: finding out about the property including information on the legal title and the seller’s use of the property and how this might impact on the buyer and finding out how the whole deal is to be paid for.
Having got to exchange in the conveyancing process then the next big step is completion. There is still work to be done even at this stage including checking whether anything has changed with the legal title since it was first looked at before exchange and whether there are any financial implications that might undermine the finance checks carried out prior to exchange.
Typically it is good practice to do both of these before exchange although traditionally they are done afterward. To organise completion, final financial details and calculations are carried out and funds must be collected. When the day arrives a series of financial transactions take place and when it’s all over the seller should have their money and the buyer their keys.
In the conveyancing process the journey can be fairly arduous but any decent conveyancer should be able to take the “sting” out of it.
How long does conveyancing take – with delays
How long does conveyancing take touches on the most common question asked by clients and there is no straightforward answer. Firstly, if the legal title consists of a freehold with two entries in the title register: the first to confirm the address and the second to confirm the names of the current owners (they do exist) this obviously will not take long to review. On the other hand, the legal title could consist of several layers of “parent” titles referencing many filed documents which would obviously take a lot longer to review.
The biggest factor however is the human one. If any one person takes twice as long to do something as any other person then delays creep in. The effect is compounded exponentially when there is more than a person like this involved.
