Braintree Solicitors: Legal Advice on Property, Wills, Litigation and Family Law

When you use a solicitor for conveyancing you can be sure that they are regulated by the Solicitors’ Regulation Authority (SRA), a member of the Law Society, have degree-level qualifications and at least two years on-the-job training before qualifying as a conveyancing solicitor.

Whereas a conveyancer tends to be regulated by the Council for Licenced Conveyancers (CLC) and is usually less highly qualified, although can still be perfectly competent.

The standard searches your conveyancing solicitor undertakes are:
– local authority,
– water/drainage, and
– environmental.

There are a number of other searches to undertake depending on the locality of the property. For example, in mining areas a mining search is also always obtained. There may also searches for Gypsum in areas where gypsum mining has taken place, Lead Mining, China Clay, and Limestone.

Read more about searches here.

All our conveyancing quotes are free and you are not obliged to use us.

However, we have found that most people who receive a quotation for our conveyancing services are happy to use us and remain loyal customers for future moves!

The short answer is yes.

When dealing with leasehold transactions, there are many more things to check during the conveyancing process, including ground rent, service charges, licences under the Lease and leasehold covenants (obligations).

For this reason, we charge an additional fee for dealing with leasehold transactions.

We do not generally recommend using an online conveyancer; although you often pay a lower fee, the level of service will also be lower.

You will rarely speak to the same person twice, and you have to be wary of the extras they add on.

When dealing with something as valuable as your home, it is important not to take risks. And the potential small savings to be made by using online conveyancing don’t add up – yet. You should meet the solicitor who is working on your case face-to-face in a ‘real’ law firm.

With such large amounts of money changing hands, there can be attempts to steal them in transit.

It is easy to avoid fraud if you follow simple rules:
1 – Never ever disclose bank account details by email.
2 – Never pay money into an account whose details you have received by email.
3 – Both you and your solicitor should pay into accounts whose details you have received by phone or in person.
4 – Ideally, test the veracity of bank account details by making an initial payment of £1 – which you then verify by telephoning your conveyancing solicitor – before paying any more.

As most home moves depend on a number of different factors, it is impossible to predict how long your conveyancing will take. However, on average the process will usually take about 8 weeks for a freehold property, and slightly longer for a leasehold.

But as there can be a number of transactions going on at the same time, usually with a chain of strangers all buying and selling their homes and getting mortgages in place – the process rarely depends on just one person.