Having qualified as a Solicitor back in 1979 and specialising in residential conveyancing ever since, I was responsible for building one of the largest conveyancing firms in the UK. This very detailed article is based on the thousands of conveyancing transactions that I have dealt with.
We are going to cover:
- What conveyancing is, and what title deeds are.
- The principle of ‘caveat emptor.’
- What conveyancing involves: pre-contract, contract stage, and post-contract.
- How to make conveyancing easier and less stressful.
1. What is conveyancing? What are title deeds?
Conveyancing is best summed up as the legal process for transferring a property from one owner to another. It covers all legal and administrative requirements for the house purchase to be valid under law and is normally performed by a legal professional who acts on behalf of the buyer/seller.
Let me take you back to 1804 and how the current conveyancing process evolved. We have all heard of the landed gentry. Those gents owned vast tracts of land which they wanted to capitalise on. There needed to be a system which allowed them to sell part of their land. With the growing industrial revolution and the migration from rural to urban, it became even more important to have a nationally accepted process of registration of land title which could be provided as proof of ownership.
In 1925, registration with the Land Registry became compulsory for major tracts of the country. You may be surprised to hear that almost 100 years later there are still vast areas of the country not yet registered! Nevertheless, the 1925 Act heralded in the concept of Land Registration which is the system that we still operate today.
2. Caveat emptor or ‘buyer beware’
An important aspect of conveyancing is the principle of caveat emptor or ‘buyer beware.’ When you buy your new white goods, for example, a washing machine, your rights are enshrined in Consumer Protection legislation – but there is nothing equivalent in conveyancing! It’s strange to think that you have more rights when you buy your new white goods than when you buy the most expensive purchase of your whole life!
The Law Commission may be reviewing this principle in the next few years, but at the moment you need to make sure for yourself that the property you are buying is fit for your purposes.
3. Important stages of a conveyancing transaction for the buyer
Pre-Contract
- Agree the purchase of your property.
- Start working with a conveyancer.
- Complete your initial paperwork, including the identification process and source of funds enquiry.
- Apply for a mortgage.
Contract Stage
- Request the local and other searches.
- Have the contract pack reviewed.
- Receive your mortgage offer.
- Sign the contract and pay your deposit.
- Agree the completion date.
- Exchange contracts.
Post-Contract
- Deposit paid.
- Sign any remaining documents.
- Pay your balance to your conveyancer in time for the completion date.
- Move in.
4. How to make conveyancing easier and less stressful
There are normally around 1m property transactions a year in England and Wales and the vast majority of them go through smoothly. Some don’t, unfortunately, and we will return to what can go wrong in later articles. We also explain why the conveyancing transaction is likely to take 16-18 weeks to go through (much too long for any of us).
So the question needs to be asked… why does conveyancing take so long and why is it so stressful?
The easy answer is that there are a lot of moving parts in the process – from reviewing the title to make sure it is safe to buy through to getting the right mortgage. There are a lot of players in the ecosystem. Even without a chain, there could be as many as 10-12 companies/organisations involved and they all have their own process to follow.
If you add that mix to the fact that our current conveyancing process evolved in the days when we didn’t even have faxes (remember them?) let alone the Internet, then you can start to see that it just isn’t fit for purpose for the modern home mover.
So how do we make it easier, faster, and less stressful?
One way of doing this is by making sure that the homebuyer themselves become actively involved in the process. At the moment, the conveyancer does all the running around – from opening the file, sending out the initial documentation, and dealing with each and every aspect of the transaction 100%. The reality is, however, that 80% of any transaction is taken up with non-legal admin, for instance, completing property forms and chasing up third parties such as leasehold managing agents.
If there was some way of giving control to the homebuyer themselves of the admin, then this would not only accelerate the process (you are not waiting endlessly for your conveyancer to come back to you or send you documents) but would put you at the heart of the transaction.
If you add to this the huge benefit of getting more of the property information upfront rather than in dribs and drabs, then we are starting to talk about shaving weeks off the typical transaction.
They say that moving house is in the top 3 stressful experiences in life (following death and divorce). It doesn’t have to be that way, and that’s why we are building YouConvey based on our 40+ years of conveyancing experience.
YouConvey is a unique new service which will soon be available to home movers in the UK. Rather than leave everything to the conveyancers, you will now have the opportunity to progress the transaction in your own timescales by providing you with the tools to download and complete all the necessary paperwork yourself without waiting endlessly for your conveyancers to send it to you. You will be able to see where everything is up to and can even chase for anything outstanding at any time of the day or night. Being in control will bring you greater peace of mind and comfort that, with you in control, you will dictate the pace and not the conveyancer who has only files and clients to deal with. With our unique partnership with our panel law firms, you will be completely safeguarded from any legal work – they will take that responsibility throughout the transaction. You will complete your transaction quicker, with less stress and more transparency – it’s what you as a 21st Century consumer deserve.
