Buying and Selling Residential Property

Residential conveyancing services

For buyers, our residential conveyancing team will support you by:

• reviewing the seller’s title deeds (i.e. the deeds to their property) to ensure that they own everything they are purporting to sell;
• ascertaining whether there is anyone aged 17 or over living at the property, other than the seller, who will need to agree to leave when the sale
  completes;
• carrying out searches against the property and surrounding area to check for potential problems that you and your mortgage lender need to be aware
  of, such as past incidents of flooding or subsidence or the confirmed growth of Japanese Knotweed;
• considering other matters that may affect your decision to proceed, including any annual charges that may apply where you are buying a new build or
  shared ownership property;
•  reviewing pre-contract documentation supplied by the seller’s solicitor, including property information forms which will detail what is included in the
  sale price and reveal things like the existence of disputes with neighbours;
•  liaising with your mortgage company to ensure that they are happy to proceed and can make the funds available to complete your purchase when the
  time comes;
•  liaising with the solicitors of anyone else involved in the transaction, for example where you are one of a number of people in a chain, in order to keep
  your purchase on track;
•  preparing the paperwork needed to transfer the property from the seller’s name into yours and completing the Stamp Duty Land Tax form where an
  SDLT payment is due; and
•  registering your ownership of the property with the Land Registry once the transaction has gone through and your purchase is finalised.

Enlisting the help of a solicitor when you are buying a property is particularly important given the application of the ‘buyer beware’ rule (also known as caveat emptor), which means that there is no obligation on the seller to tell you if there are any problems with the property – rather the onus is on you to ask whether such problems exist and to make whatever searches and enquiries are needed to help you decide whether it is sensible for you to proceed.

For sellers, our experienced solicitors will assist by:

• reviewing your title deeds to ensure that everything is in order and that, where a problem is identified, this is addressed where possible or else
  covered off by the purchase of specialist indemnity insurance to allay any concerns that your buyer or their mortgage lender may have;
• helping you to compile any other relevant documents that your buyer’s solicitor may want to see, such as guarantees and warranties for building
• producing a contract pack for the buyer’s representative to go through;
•  dealing with any queries that the buyer’s solicitor may have, for example over your legal ownership rights or the extent of your obligations in respect
  of the repair and maintenance of shared boundaries;
• advising you on your options where the buyer seeks a price reduction as a result of something that has been disclosed;
• reviewing the paperwork that the buyer’s solicitor will have prepared to effect the transfer of the property from your name into that of their client;
• obtaining a redemption figure from your mortgage company, assuming there is a mortgage that will need to be repaid when the property is sold;
• completing the purchase on the day agreed and paying off your mortgage debt where appropriate, together with your legal costs and estate agent
  fees; and
•  supporting you in obtaining advice from an accountant or financial advisor where the property you have sold is a second home or investment property
  and may therefore leave you liable to pay capital gains tax.

Why choose Step Legal Solicitors?

Our property lawyers are specialists in residential conveyancing and fully committed to ensuring that your sale or purchase proceeds without a hitch and within as short a time period as possible.

We have well developed processes and procedures in place to ensure that we can drive transactions forward and which enable us to spot and address potential problems and legal issues early, thereby reducing the likelihood of your sale or purchase being delayed or derailed. Our systems also ensure that you are kept informed about what is happening at every stage of your transaction through regular and detailed progress reports.

All work undertaken on your behalf will be directly supervised by the head of our residential conveyancing team, Olivia Hargreaves, she has many years of experience in dealing with residential property transactions and she prides herself on delivering a prompt, professional, and reliable service..

And while our law firm is based in Crewe, we can service the needs of buyers and sellers who live elsewhere in Cheshire and further afield in Staffordshire, Shropshire, Derbyshire and Greater Manchester.

Want to find out more?

To discuss our residential property service, please call us for free on 0800 195 6412, email us at enquiries@steplegal.co.uk or pop in to see us for a face-to-face chat. We can help whether the property you are looking to buy or sell is freehold or leasehold, whether it is being put through an auction or dealt with privately or via an estate agent, and whether there is a mortgage, remortgage or shared ownership arrangement involved.