If we are acting for you when you are purchasing a house our job involves the following:

1. We check the contract prepared by the seller’s solicitor and amend any clauses which would be detrimental to your interests.
2. We send a search to the local Council to check whether any Council schemes are planned for the area in which you are proposing to buy such as road widening schemes. It will also determine whether or not the road is a private road which may result in you having to pay for its maintenance or whether the property is for example in a conservation area.
3. Preliminary enquiries are sent to the seller’s solicitor. This is a list of questions about the property in which we make enquiries about things such as mains drainage, disputes over boundaries and fences etc.
4. We check the mortgage offer. Once you have received an offer we need to advise you about the meaning and effect of that offer and ensure that you are able to comply with all of its terms and conditions.
5. Arrange signing of the Contract. Once we are happy that the contract is suitable we will ask you to sign it in preparation for exchange and agree the deposit on the purchase price.
6. Exchange of contracts. Once contracts are exchanged the agreement is binding and therefore it is essential that all enquiries have been completed. It is also important to ensure that exchanges of contracts along the chain are made simultaneously, including any other transaction such as your own sale.
7. Checks on the Vendor’s title. The exchange is of course conditional upon the seller having title to the property and it is at this stage that the title is checked and any questions about the title are clarified. This is known as Requisitions on Title.
8. We check the mortgage arrangements. If a completion date has been set we inform you lender of the date so that they can ensure that the necessary funds to complete the transaction are made available. We will also arrange for you to sign the mortgage deed and the conveyance or transfer document.
9. A transfer is prepared if the land is registered or a conveyance if the land is unregistered. This is the deed that will legally transfer the seller’s interest in the property to you.
10. Arrange the signing of final documents, completion and final searches. We will arrange for the final (also known as engrossed) version of the conveyance or transfer and the mortgage deed to be signed. At this stage you will also need to pay the balance of any monies required to complete the purchase if not all of the purchase price is being met by your mortgage advance. We will also carry out two final searches before completion – a bankruptcy search to confirm that the seller is not bankrupt because he or she may not be able to sell to you if he or she is – and the second is a final search of the Land Registry to ensure that no undisclosed loans or mortgages have been charged against the property. Once these final things have been done the transaction will be completed.
11. Payment of Stamp Duty and completion of Inland Revenue tax forms. We will arrange payment on your behalf of any Stamp Duty payable and complete the relevant Inland Revenue forms which are required on all transactions.
12. Registration of Title. Once the transaction is complete we need to register the transfer of the property in your name on the Proprietorship Register at HM Land Registry together with details of your mortgage and any other charges that you may need to have registered.