What Services Do We Offer?
We offer a range of residential conveyancing services, including sale and purchase of freehold and leasehold property, mortgaging and re-mortgaging and our customer-focused approach has resulted in lots of happy customers.
We can help you with any of the below:
Selling & buying a property, including first time buyers
What ever stage of the home buying or selling journey you are on, our specialist and experienced conveyancing team can support you through the process, from the moment you've had your offer accepted, to when you receive your keys or move out.
Our conveyancing solicitors help drive your house sale or purchase forward to make your move happen faster.
Click here to see the process for buying and selling a home
To make a general enquiry online please click the 'contact us' button. Or to speak to our team call 0114 266 6660.
Buy-to-let
Buying an investment property to let out?
Buy-to-let conveyancing is the legal process for transferring ownership of a property to you as an investment you intend to rent out.
As part of the buy to let conveyancing process we will:
- Obtain the contract pack from the seller
- Check the contracts, raise enquiries and carry out necessary local searches.
- Confirm there are no restrictions on renting out the property.
- Check the mortgage type - you need a buy-to-let mortgage rather than a residential mortgage.
- Approved the contract.
- Prepare a transfer deed.
- Draw up a completion statement and carry out any pre-completion searches.
- Ask your mortgage lenders to advance any money.
- Exchange contracts and deal with the completion
- Send any stamp duty to HMRC.
- Register the property in your name with the Land Registry.
- Register any company mortgages at Companies House.
Give us a call on 0114 266 6660 to find out how we can help you with your buy to let property.
Council home purchase under the Right to Buy Scheme
The Right to Buy scheme is a policy which gives secure tenants of councils and some housing associations the legal right to buy, at a discounted price, the council house they are living in.
You can apply to buy your council home if:
- It’s your only or main home
- It’s self-contained
- You’re a secure tenant
- You’ve had a public sector landlord such as a council, housing association, or NHS trust for at least three years (not necessarily consecutive).
Joint applications are possible with someone who shares your tenancy or up to three family members who’ve lived with you for the past 12 months, even if they don’t share your tenancy.
If your home used to be owned by the council but was sold to another landlord, such as a housing association, while you were living in it, you may have the Preserved Right to Buy.
The discount varies and is based on factors such as tenancy length and property value.
Currently, tenants in council homes can receive discounts of up to 70% off the market value, depending on their duration of residence. For those in homes owned by housing associations, the scheme is less generous.
Our conveyancing practitioners can bring you the opportunity for home ownership. Give us a call on 0114 266 6660 to find out how we can help you.
Purchasing a freehold from your Landlord
You can ask the landlord to sell you the freehold at any time.
There are specific legal requirements, and our legal professionals will navigate the process smoothly and allow you to make informed decisions.
If you have a flat you will need to buy a share of the freehold and contact neighbours, whereas if you have a house, you may have the right to buy the entire freehold.
Landlords who want to sell the freehold of a building containing flats usually have to offer the leaseholders the first chance to buy it. This is known as your right of first refusal.
Our conveyancing practitioners can deal with the formalities. Give us a call on 0114 266 6660 to find out how we can help you.
Re-Mortgaging
Looking to remortgage your home?
There are many different reasons for remortgaging a freehold or leasehold property.
Your personal circumstances might have changed, your current deal is about to end, you are looking to get a better deal, your home has increased in value, you need to borrow some more cash for a major purchase or streamline your existing debts.
You will need a mortgage conveyancing solicitor if you are switching to a new lender as this will involve new legal requirements.
Our remortgaging conveyancing practitioners offers the skills and expertise to help you deal with all the fees and paperwork involved.
Give us a call on 0114 266 6660 to find out how we can help you.
Transfers of Equity
Transfer of equity is the legal term for the process where the ownership of a share or interest in a property is transferred from one entity to another, a partial conveyance.
Why would you need a Transfer of Equity?
- You’ve got married or are living together - the property owner may wish to transfer the property into the names of both parties.
- You’ve got divorced or separated - when divorcing or separating, property is typically transferred, sometime with compensation.
- Tax planning - Property owners may transfer equity to their children or other family members to manage their tax liabilities.
Transferring equity can be complex, involving Land Registry applications and stamp duty land tax forms. Our conveyancing practitioners can deal with the formalities. Give us a call on 0114 266 6660 to find out how we can help you.
The processes and what we do:
Once you have instructed us to deal with the legal work involved with the purchase of a property we will:
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Receive a copy of the title deeds and property specific papers completed by the seller.
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Review the title deeds and documentation and raise any necessary legal enquiries.
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Order the searches for the property, provide copy of the search results, and a summarised report.
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Review any mortgage offer we receive from your lender. However, we are not qualified to provide you with any financial or commercial advice on your mortgage offer and this is excluded from our retainer.
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Review the replies to legal enquiries and let you know about any pertinent issues with the property.
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Approve the purchase contract and transfer deed and prepare your stamp duty land tax return (if applicable) and arrange for you to sign these documents.
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Negotiate a completion date the seller and any chain on your behalf.
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Prepare the financial statement and request the deposit from you before exchange of contracts. After exchange, we will request your mortgage funds (if applicable) and the balance of the purchase price.
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Complete the purchase with the seller’s solicitor, and we will submit your stamp duty land tax return (if applicable) and make an application to register the transaction at the Land Registry on your behalf.
For selling a property we will:
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Obtain a copy of the up-to-date title information relating to the property from the Land Registry.
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Ask you for a copy of the title deeds if the property is not registered, so we can review the same and prepare an Epitome of Title.
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Prepare a sale contract and submit this to the buyer’s solicitor for review.
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Contact the landlord and/or management company if your property is leasehold and ask them to provide up-to-date information on ground rent and any service charge payable.
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Deal with any enquiries that the buyer’s solicitor may raise about the property.
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Apply to your lender for a redemption statement if you have a mortgage registered against the property.
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Liaise with your estate agents about any proposed completion date and complete the sale accordingly with the buyer’s solicitor.
For mortgaging or re-mortgaging we will:
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Review the title deeds and documentation and raise any necessary enquiries with you.
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Order the searches for the property or if the Lender allows, we will put search insurance in place.
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Review the mortgage offer we receive from your lender. However, we are not qualified to provide you with any financial or commercial advice on your mortgage offer and this is excluded from our retainer.
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Arrange for you to sign the mortgage deed.
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Prepare the financial statement and we will request your mortgage funds (if applicable) and ask for the balance (if any).
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Complete the re-mortgage and make an application to register the transaction at the Land Registry on your behalf.
Timescales:
We anticipate that buying and selling transactions will take between 8 and 12 weeks to complete based on current market trends although we cannot guarantee timescales. There are often different factors that affect the speed of the transaction and often these can be out of our control.
The average re-mortgage transaction takes 4 - 6 weeks.